Help me with my sluice, stripped it down, now rebuilding

[ĸiŅğ of ĸiŅğs]

Ok, so I decided to strip down my 30" sluice because I really didn't have success with it over the summer, so I stripped out the crappy carpet lining it had, and stripped out the ribbed rubber matting in the front portion of the sluice. The ribbed matting was "glued" down to the metal just after the flare section in the front, but the ribbed matting was very low profile so it wouldn't do anything deemed "helpful" such as it wouldn't show any gold what so ever, so I stripped it from the sluice.

Yesterday I ordered some "Tuff Stuff Deep Groove" rubber matting online 12" x 24", what I need to know is what should I use to "seal" it to the sluice, I have a bit of GE Silicone I that I use for my aquariums, but should I use it to seal the rubber matting to the metal sluice or should I go with something like rubber cement, liquid nails, or even loctite?

Now as for the crappy carpeting piece that my sluice had, I'm thinking of replacing it with some Vortex (rough top conveyorbelt) matting, or should I go with something else?

I live on disability so I'm not looking for something expensive, and don't need a new sluice unless I can get one for a good price (lol), so any suggestions are welcomed!!!

 

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[Goodyguy]

I like to use rubber contact cement for the deep groove matting but any waterproof adhesive will do. I also like your idea of using the roughtop conveyor belt because that's what I use. The trick to getting gold to stay in your sluice lies mostly with the proper pre classification of the material you are running while maintaining the proper flow and angle of your sluice for the material being ran.

If you only use the deep groove in combination with the vortex mat, then it's important to classify your material down to at most 1/4" and only run the sluice at enough angle and flow to allow the gravels and light sand to continue moving on down the mat. As long as you see some material bouncing around in the pockets of the mat it's working and you will collect all the gold that you run.

Also inspect your 1/4"+ gravels for any gold that was too big to fit through the classifier.
The deep groove mat that you place at the top end of the sluice is really just to have an easy inspection area to see if you are catching any gold. A 4" length of it is plenty.


Sorry to hear about your situation,
PM me the dimensions of your sluice and I'll send you the vortex mat FREE, if you pay for the cost of shipping.
If you can get your money back on the deep groove mat I'll also send you enough deep groove to do yours for free.

GG~

 

[loco oro]

you can check out gold hog matting, lots of people saying lots of good things about it!ive checked out his site, and gotta say his (science) seems sound. i would love to get some for my sluices , but its not in my budget.

 

[Follows Camp Craig]

Ohh, yeah! old school rebuild..

Ditch the 1/8 " loop carpet, explore the different channel matting/ moss, via. Mc Master Carr online catalog.
Caution, it reads like the old sears roebuck catalog from days of old but on steroids. its just for the true tinkerer.
(Plastic prospectors need not apply).

 

[goldenIrishman]

LOl Mc Masters/Carr is one of my favorite toy stores! If they don't have it... you don't need it!

 

[ĸiŅğ of ĸiŅğs]

So another question that I have is, is miners moss worth using? If so, would a aquarug be the "poor mans" route lol since they're pretty similar.




Also for my classifying, here's my classifier



It does what I need it to do, especially since my prospecting spot is at a river in the middle of the city here in Denver, and it's mostly small flakes but if you're willing to spend the time, have good prospecting tools then you can find a good amount. I have no complaints because my youngest son has taken interest into sluicing, and gold panning.

 

[panningjack]

Miners moss is great in most cases. Just depends on the material that's running through your box. Does that aquarug have backing on it? Miners moss without backing is best, but I have used the backed kind before with success. You can buy backed miners moss cheap. It's usually labeled as a mat to set outside a cat litter box

 

[ĸiŅğ of ĸiŅğs]

Well is there anything that I should use over the vortex matting to help catch gold, or should I just go with the vortex matting covered with the metal plain, and the metal riffles?

 

[Goodyguy]

Well is there anything that I should use over the vortex matting to help catch gold, or should I just go with the vortex matting covered with the metal plain, and the metal riffles?

NO!

There is no need to put anything over the vortex mat. It is an active gold recovery medium that is superior to Nomad (miners moss) or carpet.

By active I mean that it provides an active exchange of light material for heavy material due to it's unique vortex action, plus it doesn't get loaded up and packed solid with sand and gravels like miners moss or carpets. In addition it is much easier to clean.

Vortex Mat (rough top conveyor belt) is what is used exclusively in the Gold Cube which is the state of the art in a super concentrator. Even Gold Hog uses a Gold Cube to test their own mats fine gold recovery efficiency.

Once you've used the vortex mat properly you will get rid of the miners moss and never go back. Old habits are hard to break and some still swear by the miners moss and they are welcome to it. As for me, as far as using miners moss is concerned not no, but as Hoser John is fond of saying "LL NO!"

If you really want to put something over the vortex mat then put expanded metal over it, that way you will be able to trap larger gold than will fit into the pocket traps built into the vortex mat. Riffles are OK but not necessary. (trial and error applies)

Really depends on the material being run and other factors such as what size of sluice, whether it is used with a trommel, dredge, highbanker, wash plant or as a stream sluice. In most cases I would not recommend the use of riffles in a stream sluice when super mats are in use, whether it be the gold hog mats or vortex mats or any of the other high efficiency mats now available. Exceptions would be the matless plastic stream sluices with built in riffles such as the Le traps, MacKirks, etc.

I use vortex mat in nearly all of my sluices; stream, trommel, highbanker, super concentrator, and dredges up to 4", the only exceptions are my fluid bed gold traps and drop riffle sluices.

Miners moss is most commonly used in sluices that consistently recover larger gold than 1/4" due to it's larger weave and larger gold trapping capability.
But for most on this forum sluicing 1/4" and up nuggets is rare, however recovering 1/8" and smaller pickers, flakes, and fines along with micro gold is the norm and as such it pays to be set up properly to not lose those most abundant sizes of gold.

That is not to say that some smaller gold is not found in miners moss but that it's just not as efficient as vortex mat at trapping all the smaller gold especially gold down to smaller than fly poop size. And don't worry about loosing large nuggets down the vortex mat, if it's set up properly nuggets will just sit there on the mat due to their weight and not be washed away with the lighter weight gravels. If you are likely to encounter nuggets then I would recommend the use of expanded metal over the vortex mat.


Hope this helps,
GG~

 

[ĸiŅğ of ĸiŅğs]

Oh I see what you mean, I was calling it metal plain, but you were calling it expanded metal lol. So it sounds like the best way to "rebuild" my sluice would be this - 6" Flare just leave as is (bare metal), then 4"-5" of deep groove matting, followed by vortex matting for the rest of the sluice with expanded metal laid over the vortex matting. I'll be using GE Silicone I to seal the deep groove matting to the sluice, now should I add the silicone under the deep groove mat section as well as around it to make sure nothing can sneak under it?

 

[Goodyguy]

Oh I see what you mean, I was calling it metal plain, but you were calling it expanded metal lol. So it sounds like the best way to "rebuild" my sluice would be this - 6" Flare just leave as is (bare metal), then 4"-5" of deep groove matting, followed by vortex matting for the rest of the sluice with expanded metal laid over the vortex matting. I'll be using GE Silicone I to seal the deep groove matting to the sluice, now should I add the silicone under the deep groove mat section as well as around it to make sure nothing can sneak under it?

Leave the vortex unfastened for easier clean up.

Place it into a 5 gal bucket half full of water or into a small mixing tub, then with the mat upside down grasp it at both ends and work it up and down in the water. That way you are opening up the pockets in the mat and making it easier for all the trapped material to rinse out.

One more thing..... Very Important! After putting the sluice in the water get rid of any air that is trapped in the pockets of the mat by either spanking it by hand or using a brush to remove them or whatever works but make sure you get all the trapped air bubbles out of the mat before running any material.

GG~

 

[mtau]

Well said Goodyguy: and very generous of you to offer the vortex and "V" groove for shipping. I took out the carpet in my trommel sluice, and replaced it with vortex. It doubled my recovery. One thing I might add, is: expanded should be "raised expanded"

 

[Goodyguy]

Well said Goodyguy: and very generous of you to offer the vortex and "V" groove for shipping. I took out the carpet in my trommel sluice, and replaced it with vortex. It doubled my recovery. One thing I might add, is: expanded should be "raised expanded"

Good catch Mtau,.... Yes definitely "raised" expanded is by far the way to go!

 

[Follows Camp Craig]

"I'm happier than a seagull with a pizza box"

I like the way this post is panning out.

 

[ĸiŅğ of ĸiŅğs]

Leave the vortex unfastened for easier clean up.

Place it into a 5 gal bucket half full of water or into a small mixing tub, then with the mat upside down grasp it at both ends and work it up and down in the water. That way you are opening up the pockets in the mat and making it easier for all the trapped material to rinse out.

One more thing..... Very Important! After putting the sluice in the water get rid of any air that is trapped in the pockets of the mat by either spanking it by hand or using a brush to remove them or whatever works but make sure you get all the trapped air bubbles out of the mat before running any material.

GG~

I see, thanks for the heads up about getting the vortex matting wet, and free of any air bubbles otherwise I probably would have not thought of that when spring time arrives and I went sluicing lol. When you say "raised expanded metal" are you referring to how the portion of expanded metal has that kind of bent upwards type of look to each of the metal diamond type plate shapes? Because if so, my sluice came with that type of expanded metal when I got it, but came with "s*&tty" low profile ribbed matting, and very thin crappy carpet which is why I'm attempting to upgrade with deep v-groove matting section in the front, and vortex matting for the rest of the sluice.

Without GG I'd be having a hard time with upgrading my main sluice box, and been in a funk for months to come; So a big thank you goes to GG for his gracious generosity!!!!!!

Since my birthday was Wednesday the 18th, I spent the last of the money I had for the month on a 12" mini clean up sluice which I'm waiting for it to arrive, I'm hoping to make it into a DIY recirculating clean up sluice which should be pretty easy because I have 2 large saltwater aquariums, and have lots of pumps, powerheads, and tubing to make pumping water to the sluice easy. I just need to make a stand for the sluice to sit on so I can run concentrates, I'm thinking that I could make the sluice stand out of 1" copper piping which is relatively priced at HomeDepot, and easy to cut since I already have a tool for cutting copper pipes since I made a stand to hold the lights for one of my aquariums out of copper pipes.

My fish tanks are my number 1 hobby, and alot of my disability money goes to them (aquariums are scientifically proven to easy stress, because watching the fish in aquariums is know to calm people), my 2nd hobby is fishing because every year I get my fishing license and take my 2 boys fishing in the summer, and finally my 3rd hobby is prospecting for GOLD!!!! I've only been prospecting for gold for 2 years now, and yeah I found a bit of gold, but all of the gold I've found has been with panning. My gold pans are the cheap black ones from ebay lol, but they work; I'll be upgrading to garrett gold pans over the next couple of months, and upgrading my classifier from a kitchen colander to garrett classifiers.

 

[ĸiŅğ of ĸiŅğs]

So my sluice is almost done being upgraded, I've got the front inspection deep groove matting in place using a certain type of Loctite superglue that when it dries it turns into a silicone form instead of that dried up cracking type that superglue is notorious for. I just need to apply a bead line of GE Silicone I to the edges of the grooved matting, I've got the vortex matting cut to size for the sluice, but I did alter the last 3" of the sluice by cutting 2" off of the raised expanded metal giving me 3" of the deep groove matting at the end of the sluice.

The reason for the new alteration is it gives me another inspection area on the sluice so I can make sure that any gold isn't getting past the vortex matting, and getting stuck in the end of the sluice in the 3" deep groove matting section.

 

[mrlindeman]

I took my 36 inch by 8 inch river sluice and did the following on a budget. I replaced the mattings with non glued down high profile v-rib from where the flare meets all the way down. I covered that with 1/2 inch alluminum expanded to cover all the v-rib. I got rid of the hungarians all together and my recovery is exelant. The sluice can be run at home as a great concentrator by hooking up to a 1200 gph pump and wash bar and removing the expanded.

 

[GoldpannerDave]

I like to use rubber contact cement for the deep groove matting but any waterproof adhesive will do. I also like your idea of using the roughtop conveyor belt because that's what I use. The trick to getting gold to stay in your sluice lies mostly with the proper pre classification of the material you are running while maintaining the proper flow and angle of your sluice for the material being ran.

If you only use the deep groove in combination with the vortex mat, then it's important to classify your material down to at most 1/4" and only run the sluice at enough angle and flow to allow the gravels and light sand to continue moving on down the mat. As long as you see some material bouncing around in the pockets of the mat it's working and you will collect all the gold that that you run.

Also inspect your 1/4"+ gravels for any gold that was too big to fit through the classifier.
The deep groove mat that you place at the top end of the sluice is really just to have an easy inspection area to see if you are catching any gold. A 4" length of it is plenty.


Sorry to hear about your situation,
PM me the dimensions of your sluice and I'll send you the vortex mat FREE, if you pay for the cost of shipping.
If you can get your money back on the deep groove mat I'll also send you enough deep groove to do yours for free.

GG~

It is nice seeing people do good things for other people. May your next pan be especially heavy.