Building a dredge, welcome comments and suggestions.

[RamMining]

Rassau,

Great idea for the flair. I'm at about maybe 1200 or so with the pump, frame, homemade pontoons, and the correct hosing. I'm expecting to have it all built granted I don't break down and order a bunch of ready to go parts like sluice flair etc. Were gonna take it down to the water today just to test floats, pump, and venturi, see how it all works. I'm going to work on the sluice this week so hopefully by next weekend I'll be mining.

 

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[omnicron]

Ram, looking at pic, sorry to say that your going to fail. Have you ever seen a dredge up front and personal? I'm not asking of your employee has but you. From what I can see, your sluice will be underwater, your pump isn't even the right kind of pump being it looks to be a trash pump...your pontoons are going to be heavy thus taking away from your buoyancy. Who ever is a dock builder or what even must not understand basic buoyancy principles. How to Calculate Buoyancy, Calculating Buoyancy Basically how much water you displace is how much weight it can carry.
Your jet venturi is wrong. You will not create the required pressure/flow to achieve a usable suction. You will have hose plug ups like crazy and the deeper you go the worse it will get.

Just because your in construction doesn't mean crap in the dredge world. IF YOU have never worked a dredge you will fail building one. Mark my words, you will end up spending more money in the long run rebuilding, gas, time, energy unusable parts then you could of bought one used for. Plus, you WILL lose gold while your figuring things out. Do you even know what angle a dredge sluice is set to? How about the size of a flare? If you make it to large, you wont get rocks to flow out and to small you'll get rock jams. Do you know what angle your inducer is to be cut/welded at? 11 degrees, the opening needs to be 1"if the pump has the right flow pressure. What about your sluice riffles? Do you know the spacing? To close and they pack, to far and the may run to clean...10" sluice for a 4" dredge? I'm tired, I just dredged for 8 days strait so I;m being very blunt. Like it or hate it, I don't care, your asking for advice and suggestions.

Advice was given, you are going to ignore it I'm sure. Having ZERO experience with a dredge is like giving a monkey a loaded gun...you know it not going to end well.

 

[Sick4gold]

Omni has been doing this a long time and usually gives sound advice.
His post may seem a little harsh but I agree totally. I think the issue here is that the thread is called
"Building a dredge, Welcome comments and suggestions" but it seems any suggestions are totally ignored.
So far not a great start here but this forum is full of people who actually know what they are talking about unlike a lot of other places on the internet. I've found this forum to be a wealth of information and people willing to help by years and years or experiences and failures.
Forget your dredge, my advice is loose the ego, take your lumps and learn as you go.
If your willing to let your ego get bruised a little then it will probably wind up saving you a ton of time, cash and frustration by considering things people are telling you.
I'm not saying take every word as gospel but Definately be willing to consider others recommendations.
Otherwise name the thread
"Hey I built a dredge, come look you monkeys."

 

[omnicron]

Thanks Sick!
First off I need to apologize to the OP. My tone was on the harsh side, I'm usually not like that and I'm sure it's from shear exhaustion and sleep deprivation.

OP, your trying to save money, I get that. Consider this, would you have hvac techs wire a house rather then a licensed electrician just to save a few bucks?
I have been there on my first dredge...while I understood the principal of a dredge, I had never seen one. I also didn't listen to advice that was given and in the long run I could of bought a used one on cl and been ahead a few hundred bucks and saved many hours...let alone the gold I lost, the time spent in the field fixing issues and wasted trips.

Adding foam to your floats don't make them more buoyant, actually it takes away because of the added weight. What the foam will do is mitigate leaks.
Have you considered your sluice location? With it's location how do you plan on cleaning it out? If you move it above the frame your going to lose suction due to higher lift.
As I said, your jet sounds like it's built wrong. Reference this: http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/dredging-hi-banking/399679-my-4-home-made-jet-log.html
Lots of science and math goes into building jets.
I'll also bring up the pump...looks like you have a trash pump. They are not ideal for a dredge as they have to much space between the impeller and housing. That's so they can pass solids. A dredge needs a pump that can create high water flows at high resistance. Pressure and flow is king with a dredge. Pumps do not create pressure, they have tighter impeller to housing clearances thus allowing them more head lift with higher flows.
Good luck.

 

[Gelmac]

Omni, appreciate that you take your time to mentor and give sound advice resulting from long time on the dredging scene . Agree sometimes if one don't listen the consequences are disastrous as the costs of parts and lost time in fiddling with the equipments instead of mining.

Thanks !