Clarkston riffle design questions PICS!!

[Goodyguy]

better yet...more trommel drive pictures please?

This is the only drive photo I have......
First I fastened a flat belt with the grooves facing out around the drum. Then mounted the drive belt around the drum and the pulley with the grooves facing in meshing with the grooves in the belt that's attached to the drum to prevent slippage. The weight of the gear motor hanging from the hinged mounting assy. provides tension for the belt. The RPM's are variable with a reostat. The spray bar's GPM's are regulated by pump engine speed and a ball valve.

 

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[principedeleon]

Hi P.. I'm sure you can achieve this, but you may need to try a few different sizes of riffles and spacing to match the flow in your dredge. I like to build jig's and used clear plastic to monitor operation until I settle on a configuration so it can be time consuming. There are some video's on youtube from Greywolfminer and 3n1productions100 that are good to watch if you want to see some in action and give you an idea on what to look for when running them.

Well i really dont have much time or resource to start making experimentation. I might understand why i cant use the clarkson style riffles but i know there is a way of using angle iron as riffles.. Reed was explianing to me of even using slanted angle iron in my riffle set. Guess ill be asking him more on advice in spacing them ect..

 

[joebwhit]

GG,
do you have a 12v drive motor or running 110v motor with a generator?

 

[Goodyguy]

GG,
do you have a 12v drive motor or running 110v motor with a generator?

110 but using an inverter to run a 12v battery

 

[joebwhit]

I have some indoor outdoor carpet left from a remodel I did last fall. The riffles sit on top of instead of pressing into it as much. I think this might work better. It should give the riffles more height and hopefully correct the spacing therefore allowing a vortex to properly build. I have just never used it as matting before and I am fond of my mineres moss. Any experience or opinions about this matting option?I'm not sure I want to sacrifice catching gold with a poor matting just to suit poorly designed riffle. Kinda the same logic that led to build. modify equipment to match the weakest link, My feed rate. If this is not a good matting it would be one step forward with the riffles two steps back with bad matting. however, if this matting works well I guess I might be in luck

 

[joebwhit]

Joe,
I use modified Clarksons on my trommel sluice and they work excellent! They are 1" x 1/2" at 2" apart. The sluice is 10" wide x 48" and I use vortex mat under them.
They would NOT be good for a dredge sluice however due to several factors, not the least of which would be the necessary 3" drop per foot of sluice.

View attachment 1009505




GG~

If someone was to use a directional matting such as UR matting under these riffles would you put the matting in the opposite direction that normal? The vortex should be pushing water back up hill till it hits the riffle and is forced up. I ask because I didn't know if vortex matting was directional. I have never seen it in person or seen it used first hand.

 

[Goodyguy]

If someone was to use a directional matting such as UR matting under these riffles would you put the matting in the opposite direction that normal? The vortex should be pushing water back up hill till it hits the riffle and is forced up. I ask because I didn't know if vortex matting was directional. I have never seen it in person or seen it used first hand.

Vortex mat ( roughtop conveyor belt) is non directional. I dont know about gold hog mat as I haven't felt the need to go that route. I'm satisfied with the results I'm having using vortex mat, I'm very happy with the 95% + recovery rates that I already achieve with very manageable concentrate volume.

I'm pretty sure Gold hog mats would reduce that volume but since it only takes me a few minutes to run my concentrates through my votrex mat gate trap sluice I really couldn't justify the extra expense of gold hog mats.

GG~

 

[russau]

Gold Hog matting is directional! ive yet to get my dredge out because of my continueing back problems. but soon! very soon! I may have to drive over to GGs(Buddy) to try it out!

 

[joebwhit]

Gold Hog matting is directional! ive yet to get my dredge out because of my continueing back problems. but soon! very soon! I may have to drive over to GGs(Buddy) to try it out!

I knew gold hog was directional I was just wondering if you put it in the sluice backwards because the water flow in the vortex on clarkston riffles at mat level is actually moving up stream or up hill. I am more curious if anyone has tried this theory before. It kinda throws convention out the window but I think it makes sense.

 

[winners58]

lots of ideas over at heckler fab. they would know what would work with the setup you want to run.
D.I.Y. prospecting & mining equipment parts & supplies, Highbanker

sluice study
http://www.hecklerfabrication.com/files/fine_gold_recovery_sluiceboxes__Poling.pdf

 

[Doitlaynstyle]

What a good thread! Glad to see that someone else went with the Clarkston style riffles too. They can be a pain but I have found that when tuned right they work amazingly. Mine started out as a sluice box but I realized that I would never be able to get the consistent flow needed to run them properly so I turned it into a high-banker. I started with 3/4" at the top and went down to 1/2" at the bottom and I discovered this in the heckler fab doc listed above. Going down in size as the box progresses is extremely helpful. Also if you are using miners moss like I did you want the thick stuff 1/2" but you have to make sure your riffles sandwich the moss between the box tight enough to prevent underflow. I spaced mine at 3" because I didn't want to go with the modified version. 1.5" only works if you are running modified. So once that is all done I would recommend a 9000gph pump (you can dial it back if needed). I necked my 2“ hose down at the box to a 1-1/4 header/spray bar and drilled 1/4 holes for the sprayer. The biggest thing about these riffles is the angle and your going to freak and think it won't work this way but it does, you need 4" of drop per foot... yes that's right, you can go a little shallower but not much. Once you have the flow and the angle the riffles well clear very nicely. One major thing we learned. If you lose your water pressure you HAVE TO HAVE a tub ready to catch the runoff. Both when you shut down and at startup this design dumps your material and flushes the riffles with fluctuation. Most importantly on startup with good cons already in the box. Once it's running for about a minute again go ahead and pour the cons back into the sluice. It will catch anything that blew out. Watch my build and running here. http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQDcMoBVTKzkPU99pkMKqcORAszHI2DEJ

 

[Goodyguy]

I knew gold hog was directional I was just wondering if you put it in the sluice backwards because the water flow in the vortex on clarkston riffles at mat level is actually moving up stream or up hill. I am more curious if anyone has tried this theory before. It kinda throws convention out the window but I think it makes sense.

I've found that catching gold is possible even when a particular setup may go against conventional wisdom, however catching the maximum amount of gold with the minimum amount of gold loss is where it gets complicated. Some folks believe that just because they find tiny specks of gold in their concentrates that they must be catching all the gold down to that size. Perhaps they are but unless they did controlled testing it's just speculation.

You may indeed catch gold running the ur mat in reverse but you may catch more by running it the conventional way. It takes controlled testing to verify.

This may sound silly but I once witnessed a newbie running his sluice with the riffles going the wrong way. The sluice was packed from front to back as he was also feeding it way too much material for the amount of flow. But guess what? Yep, he had some gold in his clean up.

It never hurts to experiment but it's better done in a controlled environment rather than in the field where every speck counts. (unless you have another sluice positioned as backup in the field)

I have been successfully running a fluid bed gold trap at the end of my over under sluice setup on my 4" dredge for a few years now as a safety trap and I am becoming more and more curious about what would happen if I removed everything from the sluice down to bare metal and left only the trap at the end to see how that would work out. Because it would sure make clean up a breeze. like taking a 30 minute job and reducing it to seconds.

If I were to just test it in the field without any control and I found a decent amount of gold in the trap it would be easy to jump to the wrong conclusion because that wouldn't tell me how much gold went down the sluice that I didn't capture. So you see testing under controlled (as close to actual field conditions as possible) is a must where you use a variety of sizes as well as a known quantity of gold to know exactly how to interpret the results. Not practical to use a backup sluice in the field to test gold losses on a dredge due to the nature of dredging, and trying to capture tailings is also difficult due to the sheer volume of material.

GG~

 

[Doitlaynstyle]

I've found that catching gold is possible even when a particular setup may go against conventional wisdom, however catching the maximum amount of gold with the minimum amount of gold loss is where it gets complicated. Some folks believe that just because they find tiny specks of gold in their concentrates that they must be catching all the gold down to that size. Perhaps they are but unless they did controlled testing it's just speculation.

You may indeed catch gold running the ur mat in reverse but you may catch more by running it the conventional way. It takes controlled testing to verify.

This may sound silly but I once witnessed a newbie running his sluice with the riffles going the wrong way. The sluice was packed from front to back as he was also feeding it way to much material for the amount of flow. But guess what? Yep, he had some gold in his clean up.

It never hurts to experiment but it's better done in a controlled environment rather than in the field where every speck counts.
I have been successfully running a fluid bed gold trap at the end of my over under sluice setup on my 4" dredge for a few years now as a safety trap and I am becoming more and more curious about what would happen if I removed everything from the sluice down to bare metal and left only the trap at the end to see how that would work out. Because it would sure make clean up a breeze. like taking a 30 minute job and reducing it to seconds.

If I were to just test it in the field without any control and I found a decent amount of gold in the trap It would be easy to jump to the wrong conclusion because that wouldn't tell me how much gold went down the sluice that I didn't capture. So you see testing under controlled (as close to actual field conditions) is a must where you use a variety of sizes as well as a known quantity of gold to know exactly how to interpret the results.

GG~

Extremely good advice. We were constantly running a second, well proven, sluice after the high-banker for our first 15 or so outings. This way we were able to determine what the best setup was, what caused the gold loss(like the inconsistent water issue I mentioned in the last post I made), and how much loss happened. If you are like me and you don't have the time or facilities to sit and test run your sluice with a controlled amount of material and gold through the full range and combos of water volume, flow, and feed rates a second sluice is a great option for field running/testing. My new setup (BLACK BETTY) proved to me that I was losing a very small amount of micro gold with the high-banker but in test running it seemed as though that was a minimal amount and was acceptable for the setup I was running. I still caught 90-something percent of the gold but not every run was perfect and you never will be. The best you can do is learn your machines best setup and maximize its potential.


(Edit afterthought) Oh and I will be adding a fluid bed at the end of my new sluice just as a safety as well. I'm curious to see what if any my setup is losing. I even added an outlet into my water header for this improvement later on.

 

[mu50stang]

I've found that catching gold is possible even when a particular setup may go against conventional wisdom, however catching the maximum amount of gold with the minimum amount of gold loss is where it gets complicated. Some folks believe that just because they find tiny specks of gold in their concentrates that they must be catching all the gold down to that size. Perhaps they are but unless they did controlled testing it's just speculation. You may indeed catch gold running the ur mat in reverse but you may catch more by running it the conventional way. It takes controlled testing to verify. This may sound silly but I once witnessed a newbie running his sluice with the riffles going the wrong way. The sluice was packed from front to back as he was also feeding it way too much material for the amount of flow. But guess what? Yep, he had some gold in his clean up. It never hurts to experiment but it's better done in a controlled environment rather than in the field where every speck counts. (unless you have another sluice positioned as backup in the field) I have been successfully running a fluid bed gold trap at the end of my over under sluice setup on my 4" dredge for a few years now as a safety trap and I am becoming more and more curious about what would happen if I removed everything from the sluice down to bare metal and left only the trap at the end to see how that would work out. Because it would sure make clean up a breeze. like taking a 30 minute job and reducing it to seconds. If I were to just test it in the field without any control and I found a decent amount of gold in the trap it would be easy to jump to the wrong conclusion because that wouldn't tell me how much gold went down the sluice that I didn't capture. So you see testing under controlled (as close to actual field conditions as possible) is a must where you use a variety of sizes as well as a known quantity of gold to know exactly how to interpret the results. Not practical to use a backup sluice in the field to test gold losses on a dredge due to the nature of dredging, and trying to capture tailings is also difficult due to the sheer volume of material. GG~

Are you able to share your design for your fluid bed trap. I would be interested in seeing it. Thanks.

 

[Goodyguy]

Are you able to share your design for your fluid bed trap. I would be interested in seeing it. Thanks.

It's very simple to build, hopefully you will get the idea from these photos.

The only really technical part is the addition of the baffle at each end just before the overflow ports to make certain that the gold gets dunked and cant just surf straight out the overflow. The baffle should extend at least 1/4" lower than the bottom of the overflow port.

The other thing is making the port a half inch lower than the intake and angling the opening so that it ends up being level to compensate for the angle of the sluice. The top of the port should be cut all the way to the top of the tube making a half moon instead of the slot that is pictured. (a modification I made after those photos were taken)





GG~