Hi Banker issues. I am going crazy.

[therobertsmith]

Some is. I have a 20 classifier now until friday when the other's come in. Even when I run the 20s it still clogs up. It seems the sediment sticks back together in the box. I am wondering if I should stir the bucket first to break up the mix. It is hard as concrete if it sits for 2 days.
I just spend a hour in lowes trying to find a bigger fitting for a larger pump. Seems everyone wants to know what its for and then they all say "oh I see that show on Discovery"
Shake my head and walk away. But here is my upgrade.

 

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[russau]

I use my battery charger to run my bilge pump. not a battery alone. I do this at home when I have the time . I regulate the pump through my charger . its a 6 / 12 volt to slow it down I just switch it to 6 volts. by doing this itll decrease the volumn and not the pressure. I do have a valve on it BUT only because im to lazy to take it off. using a valve does decrease the volumn of the water BUT itll also INCREASE its pressure and I don't think you want to do that.sounds like you need to screen your material more and run each cut seperatly or get a bigger pump or a small gas powered pump to do the job! Ive been bringing tooo much equipment to the creek over the years and its not needed there. I like your idea of bringing your cons home to run in the Winter time and just quick pan it down to see how your doing at the creek. like Bill_Saf and I did when I was up with him! THANKS again Bill for the invite! it sure felt good BUT man did I hurt latter , but it hurt soo good!

 

[therobertsmith]

It was definitely a chore carrying all those buckets this winter. Lucky I have 4 kids. Being new to the game I should have used color coded buckets to know which spots I dug from. I have a ton of material and I have to guess where it came from. I think I will run my classified material through then wash out and then run it through a smaller screen and so on.
I took it to the creek the other day and way to much to carry. Even with the creek less than 25 yards from the house it was still a lot but I was able to get that pump to work for a straight hour without issues of clogging. I need to work on a kiss solution for this.
Thanks again for the advice and if I can get some video together I will post it up for criticism.

 

[russau]

screen it at the creek and use a black sharpie to lable its contents/location! works every time!

 

[therobertsmith]

I just started doing that finally. With the water level so low it was by luck I was able to run the machine. Now that we have had a few days of rain the creek should be up some to do it now. Thanks again for all the advice guys.

 

[KevinInColorado]

For -20 material you will do better to get rid of the riffles I think. Expanded metal with stuff under it is best for catching fines (compared to riffles).

 

[arizau]

If your feed material has a lot of fines especially minus 20 mesh you may be overfeeding it. That is one probable cause for the banking of material at the riffles. Once banking of fines occur the water can only peel the banks from the top down (the underlying material mostly stays stationary as this is occuring) especially since there is a solid lip on the upstream side of the riffles. Multiple banked riffles compound the problem since, as the top ones clear the lower ones are added to and, all the while, newly introduced material pretty much sails over all of them. At least let your top riffle pretty much clear down to gravels only before adding more feed. I would also experiment with sluice angle.

Good luck.

PS: For stream work I would not classify very much or at all except for large stones and I would still pay attention to the feed rate compared to the conditions at the riffles. Maybe classify only to a size that is about five times the size of the grizzly opening at most.

 

[nh.nugget]

You said that your material turns to concrete after a couple of days. Some of the material that I sluice is almost like cement it has a lot of silt in it. I have to keep some water in the bucket and stir it up as I run it or it will load up my box as well. I also run the material a little slower than if it were more gravely or coarser.at what angle do you run your box at? My box is about 3' long it runs at a 3/1 pitch or 1/3 get them confused anyway it drops 3" from beginning to end some times I have to increase the pitch a little more depends on the material. hope this helps a little.

 

[therobertsmith]

I have been playing with a homemade miller table the last few days and fine tuning it. Only damage was a cut finger and hot solder dropped on my bare foot.
I am going to run the banker tomorrow and classify my material again. I have been playing with angles. Mine is almost 3ft long so I tried about a 2.6 inch drop then 3 inch. I have a degree meter and I have run it at 5 degress to 10 degrees. I figure when I run unclassified material in the creek most of the bigger heavier stuff should fall before the first riffle. I have a lot of small fine gold as panning and the miller table shows it well.
Another question, when panning ran material or using the table I am finding a lot of greysilver

 

[therobertsmith]

Stupid phone.
But I am finding a lot of silver/grey metallic pieces. The stuff is very hard and when squeezed with needle nose it shatters or it just shoots out. Any ideas on this material? I have been fortunate to find some gold finally but it is small. My first big one was the size of a clipped finger nail but my daughter was curious and it got caught in the vial threads and bent it all into the lid.

 

[therobertsmith]

Just a few pics from my two day work. My first build and still not finished but I am finding goodies.

 

[nh.nugget]

The silvery/gray stuff without seeing it sounds like pyrite that's a good sign you're near the gold. Out here we can't get one without the other.