help with long sluice box

mountainman22

Jr. Member
Nov 5, 2012
49
2
Canon City
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
Hi everyone I am in need of help yet again . I have a 4 foot very complex sluice box. There's no flow good enough to push my material past the second half of ny sluice. Im really weary of small sluice box. I don't know why, I just have a hard time thinking I will lose gold. If I build a 30" by 12" sluice do you think it would work well enough to process 20 five gallon buckets if classified material?
 

Hi Mountainman22,
My main sluice is a Keene A52 which is 4' long. When I am going to an area that I know may have a slow water flow, especially in late summer, I will use my 2' sluice. I will run a test of 1/2" classified material. If the flow will not handle that size I will then classify down to 1/4". That will usually do it. I don't notice any differance in a loss of gold from a longer sluice. I have no problems running a large number of buckets. Hope this helps.

Good Luck!

B H Prospector
 

You may want to re-consider the width of your sluice. The reason they usually are 10 inches wide is so they will easily dump into a 5 gal bucket. 2 feet long is enough..... generally. You will find that most of the gold will fall out in the first riffle or two. Proper flow speed is essential. If your stuff washes out in less than 15 seconds... flow is too fast. If it stays in the sluice more than 30 seconds.... too slow. TTC
 

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