Enough pressure?

[oragonads]

I own a remote claim down in southern oregon. It's a very rich claim. I hauled a 4" dredge in to it but it just doesn't move enough material for me. The maximum drudge size in the area is 6". Im planning on building a dredge/high banker using a 115 HP mercury outboard and 2 Keene P1500 pumps. The engine and pumps will be on the the bank along with a huge 3 stage sluice box (will also build myself). Each pump will power a separate 6" hose (so 2 divers can dredge at once).

I want to run layflat hose from the pumps to power jets that lay on the bank near where we will be dredging. Suction hose will run from the jets to the nozzles. I want to use 6" pvc tubing from the jets to the sluice box.

Will I have enough pressure and flow to move material from 2 6" nozzle's to a sluice box anywhere from 20 to 100 feet away? I would just put it all on pontoons and make a monster dredge but the creek I dredge doesn't always have enough water to float and maneuver a dredge that size.

Does anyone have any recommendations to make this design work better?

 

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[Hoser John]

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[bakergeol]

You are certainly going where no one has gone before.
I have a outboard motor dredge- an old 7"(yes 7") Mighty
Lite dredge which was made some time ago. The reason why an
outboard motor was employed was to cut down on the weight enough
so it could be a portable one man large dredge. The whole dredge only weights
160lbs and it can be easily transported and set up by one person. It works just fine
with a 16hp outboard motor. The pump is directly mounted to the motor. However,
as it used a suction nozzle instead of a power jet(It is a monster suction nozzle),
godzilla would quickly get tired of moving that thing around. I had always planned
on converting it to a 6 inch with a power jet but dredge size restrictions in my area
eliminated that idea.
As the area where I had been working was shallow water, a big problem was finding
an area on the bank where I could mount the motor and pump so I would get
enough water flow(It sucked water like you wouldn't believe) to run the pump.

I alway felt that one went to an outboard motor to reduce the weight factor.
I certainly wouldn't want to wrestle with a 350lb outboard motor.
I am just wondering if two smaller outboard motors at half the weight would do the job, but I imagine
the added expense would nullify that idea.

Good Luck with your project.
George

 

[oragonads]

I'm building a sort of like motorized hand truck to bring the equipment (no road access, only a trail. I'm also buying a back hoe so I may eventually build a small road into it. I'm sure the forest service wouldn't mind because there had just been a good sized fire last year that they couldn't contain for a while due to limited access. Some of you might have heard about it, the oak flat fire. Fire started down creek from my claim about 2 miles. Burnt my whole claim down including an old 100 year old mining cabin. Barely missed my dredge in the creek though. I have plenty of bank to set up something like this. I just don't know whether or not it will have enough power to move that much material from the creek and up the bank.

I am very good mechanic and will have no problem building it. I am also designing a small scale gold jig which I'm soon to start building prototypes of.

 

[strickman]

You are certainly going where no one has gone before.
I have a outboard motor dredge- an old 7"(yes 7") Mighty
Lite dredge which was made some time ago. The reason why an
outboard motor was employed was to cut down on the weight enough
so it could be a portable one man large dredge. The whole dredge only weights
160lbs and it can be easily transported and set up by one person. It works just fine
with a 16hp outboard motor. The pump is directly mounted to the motor. However,
as it used a suction nozzle instead of a power jet(It is a monster suction nozzle),
godzilla would quickly get tired of moving that thing around. I had always planned
on converting it to a 6 inch with a power jet but dredge size restrictions in my area
eliminated that idea.
As the area where I had been working was shallow water, a big problem was finding
an area on the bank where I could mount the motor and pump so I would get
enough water flow(It sucked water like you wouldn't believe) to run the pump.

I alway felt that one went to an outboard motor to reduce the weight factor.
I certainly wouldn't want to wrestle with a 350lb outboard motor.
I am just wondering if two smaller outboard motors at half the weight would do the job, but I imagine
the added expense would nullify that idea.

Good Luck with your project.
George

do you have any pics of this monster? never heard of one of those -that's cool.............. HMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!! that hamster wheel is spinn'in now!

 

[jog]

You must be on Briggs Creek?

 

[stevemc]

Outboard motor pumps are not new. I ran a fire/rescue boat, and it is still going that has a 200 hp powerhead and a 250 GPM pump under. It was built by Boston Whaler at their Military/Police /Fire boat building plant in New Smyrna, Fl. I went there several times to spec it out. It will run many fire hoses. It can run 3 -2 1/2' hoses. If you look on Classified/For sale Capt Dom has a 75? hp OB powerhead powered pump for sale. He has used this for a huge dredge and it pumped up on the deck of a boat. in fairly shallow water. He just put this up for sale today. I think its either on the Classified for sale area, or shipwrecks. They work good on boats, but I wouldnt want to use them for anything else. Engines are super high performance, huge carbs for each cylinder, made for hauling big boats fast, and they dont get good fuel economy when loaded down. But for doing what these are/were used for, they worked good. I have used mine for hours at a time fighting island fires, with several 1 1/2" hoses.

 

[oragonads]

You must be on Briggs Creek?

That I am!

 

[oragonads]

Decided to ditch the whole bank idea to cut down on cost and to make it a little easier to get in. I'm going to build an aluminum frame and mount it all on 12' pontoons with a separate small pontoon under the end of a huge custom built 3 stage sluice.

Anyone ever come with a efficient way of moving rocks out of the dredging area other then tossing them behind you? I was thinking of building a net with inflatable tubes around it. Just toss the rocks on the net/platform and then inflate it with air from the compressor. Doesn't matter if it has enough air to float completely to the surface, as long as its buoyant enough to easily move it can be carried down stream and dumped.

 

[russau]

sounds like a workable idea!