High flow rate sluice box

[Hansi]

Hello
My name is Hansi and I currently work in a sand quarry that contains a tiny bit of flour gold. (Approx half a gram per ton of material winch is a mix of river sand gravel and stones)
English is not my language and inches, table spoons or cups is tough mesuring for me.

Sand is separated (0 to a quarter of an inch) with a large amount of water and flow to a pump.
About 30 to 90 tons per hour with 150t of water flow in a rampe 15inches wide.

The plan is to get the maximum gold out of it and would be cleaned every 70 hours. I'm not planing on making money. It's more for fun and the challenge.

My idea would be to place a carpet, then miner Moss locked in place with expanded metal and a few riffles 2 inches high on a surface 15 inches wide and 30 inches long.

Do you think it could catch some gold ?
I cant make it bigger or lower the flow rate. First priority is to be safe and reliable.

Any ideas on improving it ?
I can post a few pictures if it can help.

Thanks for reading me.
Have a nice day and best regards.
Hans

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Family Maps of Hinds County, Mississippi, Deluxe Edition - Grab it through Amazon!

[ekgoldmining]

Hello
My name is Hansi and I currently work in a sand quarry that contains a tiny bit of flour gold. (Approx half a gram per ton of material winch is a mix of river sand gravel and stones)
English is not my language and inches, table spoons or cups is tough mesuring for me.

Sand is separated (0 to a quarter of an inch) with a large amount of water and flow to a pump.
About 30 to 90 tons per hour with 150t of water flow in a rampe 15inches wide.

The plan is to get the maximum gold out of it and would be cleaned every 70 hours. I'm not planing on making money. It's more for fun and the challenge.

My idea would be to place a carpet, then miner Moss locked in place with expanded metal and a few riffles 2 inches high on a surface 15 inches wide and 30 inches long.

Do you think it could catch some gold ?
I cant make it bigger or lower the flow rate. First priority is to be safe and reliable.

Any ideas on improving it ?
I can post a few pictures if it can help.

Thanks for reading me.
Have a nice day and best regards.
Hans

post pictures .whats the space between the riffels and angle from sluice box in case you ta
king about sand from river Rhine write me private

 

[desertgolddigger]

Hansi, Good luck with the gravel gold. When I was up in Sacramento, California, there was a company that dredged sand and gravel at the far end of our military runway. They primarily sold the sand and gravel, but they got more money from the fine gold they dredged up. They really wanted the military runway, as it was built right over that ancient riverbed. That, of course will never happen. It's now a commercial facility, but the government still owns the property for that just in case they ever need to reactivate for the military.

I don't know much about sluices. Will it also be running that gravel, along with the sand? I would think you'd need a fairly wide and long setup for that. But there's lots of people here that probably can tell you what you'll need. Will you have grizzly over the miner's moss? I would think it would help retaining the gold.

 

[Hansi]

post pictures .whats the space between the riffels and angle from sluice box in case you ta
king about sand from river Rhine write me private

It isnt built yet, just scavenged some expanded metal with 1" holes and some angle iron and flat bars.

I can't really change the size where it would sluice. The only parameter I have is the mating I choose, expanded metal size or no expanded metal, riffles height, angle and gap between.

 

[Hansi]

It isnt built yet, just scavenged some expanded metal with 1" holes and some angle iron and flat bars.

I can't really change the size where it would sluice. The only parameter I have is the mating I choose, expanded metal size or no expanded metal, riffles height, angle and gap between.

Also.
Gravel is siefted separately and theres a soup of sand fast flowing in that space.
The soup is a 150t/h water with up to 90 tons of sand maximum 6mm.
It would fit inside a running pre existing industrial facility wich extract sand.

 

[arizau]

Hello
My name is Hansi and I currently work in a sand quarry that contains a tiny bit of flour gold. (Approx half a gram per ton of material winch is a mix of river sand gravel and stones)
English is not my language and inches, table spoons or cups is tough mesuring for me.

Sand is separated (0 to a quarter of an inch) with a large amount of water and flow to a pump.
About 30 to 90 tons per hour with 150t of water flow in a rampe 15inches wide.

The plan is to get the maximum gold out of it and would be cleaned every 70 hours. I'm not planing on making money. It's more for fun and the challenge.

My idea would be to place a carpet, then miner Moss locked in place with expanded metal and a few riffles 2 inches high on a surface 15 inches wide and 30 inches long.

Do you think it could catch some gold ?
I cant make it bigger or lower the flow rate. First priority is to be safe and reliable.

Any ideas on improving it ?
I can post a few pictures if it can help.

Thanks for reading me.
Have a nice day and best regards.
Hans

First....welcome to the forum.
Though short (30"), your proposed setup seems traditional thus reasonable. When in use, make sure the capture area is constantly active/does not pack up with material. You can check that by feel. If not exchanging then a slope change is probably in order. If you can't change the slope then you can experiment by changing up the configuration of the riffles or maybe the size of the expanded metal. I've read where some use ribbed mat instead of carpet under the moss.
Let us know how your setup does.

Good luck.

 

[N-Lionberger]

First....welcome to the forum.
Though short (30"), your proposed setup seems traditional thus reasonable. When in use, make sure the capture area is constantly active/does not pack up with material. You can check that by feel. If not exchanging then a slope change is probably in order. If you can't change the slope then you can experiment by changing up the configuration of the riffles or maybe the size of the expanded metal. I've read where some use ribbed mat instead of carpet under the moss.
Let us know how your setup does.

Good luck.

Yeah I’m in the deep V rubber mat under expanded for fine gold recovery camp. It works great. Not the fine ribbed rubber you get from the hardware store or see at the header of a river sluice, the deep V rubber.

 

[Reed Lukens]

With those kinds of values, setting a rag wash plant into your system will make you a lot of money. There was a book on how to build a rag wash plant into your system, but it will take a bit of research to find it these days.

 

[Clay Diggins]

Many sand and gravel miners already use a gold circuit in their processing. Typically they use an amalgamation barrel after the sand and waste spirals.

I doubt you will find many values in that light sand slurry you are showing. Trying to mine the lightest fraction is really not going to be productive when you are trying to recover gold. Your slurry picture shows a lot of entrained air as well as evidence of vegetable oils still in the slurry - both are a no no when attempting to wet process gold. Without enough room in your sluice run to create a lamellar flow and low pressure zones to capture the heavies I doubt you will capture enough to make your efforts worthwhile.

I suggest you look around at other sand and gravel miners and how they have set up their gold recovery circuits. No need to reinvent the wheel. Good luck.

Heavy Pans

 

[Hansi]

Many sand and gravel miners already use a gold circuit in their processing. Typically they use an amalgamation barrel after the sand and waste spirals.

I doubt you will find many values in that light sand slurry you are showing. Trying to mine the lightest fraction is really not going to be productive when you are trying to recover gold. Your slurry picture shows a lot of entrained air as well as evidence of vegetable oils still in the slurry - both are a no no when attempting to wet process gold. Without enough room in your sluice run to create a lamellar flow and low pressure zones to capture the heavies I doubt you will capture enough to make your efforts worthwhile.

I suggest you look around at other sand and gravel miners and how they have set up their gold recovery circuits. No need to reinvent the wheel. Good luck.

Heavy Pans

Thanks for taking time answering me, I really apreciate your and other people spending time learning me intereting stuff.
About amalgamation... you mean mercury ? I'll never use it and even if I would like too, I don't believe i could buy some.

Yes indeed, there is a lot of air in that slurry, wouldnt think it it could cause problem but I can lower the pressure with different valves in the "Luge" and increase it in the washing area, it didnt clogged but had way less air and turbulences.

There's no oil in the sand we mine.

Well I'm not doing it to be worth the effort, I wont invest a lot of money, just spare time.
If I learn new stuff, and it gets me a few grams I'll be happy and think on how to improve it.

Most of the time my job is boring and just supervising that machine, during normal operations I can paint the decks and stuff... I heard a story, years ago the quarry operator started the dredge in the morning and moved to the office half a mile away and went back when the day was over.

 

[Hansi]

With those kinds of values, setting a rag wash plant into your system will make you a lot of money. There was a book on how to build a rag wash plant into your system, but it will take a bit of research to find it these days.

Well after a few research I found nada, must be quite old and or completely outdated or not fitting moden days operations.
This also may be because I'm not a native english speaker and I missed something or my google skill ifnt good enough.
If you have more information or a link to share I'd really appreciate.
Not sure if I can get rich with about 0.05g/t
Thanks.

 

[Clay Diggins]

About amalgamation... you mean mercury ? I'll never use it and even if I would like too, I don't believe i could buy some.

I'm confused. Does your country not permit the use of PVC (polyvinyl chloride plastic) or Fluorescent lightning sources or do you personally decline to use those items that have a significant mercury content?

I don't know of any modern country that has banned the use of mercury, "modern country" and the "use of mercury" pretty much go together.

Avoid mercury if you wish but mercury amalgamation is a standard in good mining practices. Like many other things in life there is a good way to use mercury and a bad way. Your fears are based on a knowledge of how badly things can go when industry safety standards are not followed. Learn how to use mercury safely and your fears will be allayed.

There's no oil in the sand we mine.

I'm referring to the natural oils from vegetation that are found in most soils and streams. Unless your source is a sand bar in the driest of deserts your sand does contain oil. The brownish tint to the slurry and the foaming are caused by the presence of natural oils. If you see any bubbles lingering on the calm portions of the slurry surface those are due to the oil content of your material.

The oils are the only thing lighter than sand in your system. Oils will trap small gold particles and float them out of your recovery system. The aeration will help the gold float to the surface where it will be trapped in the oils and washed out of your recovery system. This same principle of aeration and surface oils is used to recover small gold in commercial mining. In an uncontrolled system like you are proposing the same combination of aeration and oil will cause you to lose gold.

Things like not worrying about excessive aeration, assuming gold will be in the sand fraction or disregarding the oil content of your source material will cut your chances of good gold recovery significantly. Try your sluice idea. In the long run you will learn more from a hands on experiment than you will on an internet forum. Please let us know how your experiment works out.

Good luck.
Heavy Sands

 

[Hansi]

If you see any bubbles lingering on the calm portions of the slurry surface those are due to the oil content of your material.

I didnt spotted any of theses, after a few researches i found nothing talking about it on the rhine river.
It doesnt mean theres no oils in but maybe not enough or I dont know.

Things like not worrying about excessive aeration,

I had a look yesterday and I can reduce aeration, it's not perfect but better with lower pushing pressure and more wash pressure on top of the siefting mats.
Natural oils you mentionned could also affect it.
I will take all your and other's information and build the best sluice I can according to the parameters and criterias I have. (Built from scratch, Cheap, wouldnt affect work, cannot be seen from the outside...)

I'm confused. Does your country not permit the use of PVC (polyvinyl chloride plastic) or Fluorescent lightning sources or do you personally decline to use those items that have a significant mercury content?

Sure we do use a lot of.
Didnt thinked about it.
Should we use more ?
I'm building this for a hobby, I have a wide variety of freedom at work as long as I doesnt affect the amount of raw material I'm extracting every day but using mercury is certainly not.

Avoid mercury if you wish but mercury amalgamation is a standard in good mining practices. Like many other things in life there is a good way to use mercury and a bad way. Your fears are based on a knowledge of how badly things can go when industry safety standards are not followed. Learn how to use mercury safely and your fears will be allayed.

Built from scratch, with zero knowledge and the use of mercury is far from industrial safety standards.
If I fail / a mistake happen I release mercury in the biggest water storage of europe.
If my sluice box fail... I get zero to very little gold, lost some time building and thinking or maybe clog my machine...
Worst case in the second scenario is that it takes me 15 minutes to clean and unclog the sand.

 

[N-Lionberger]

I didnt spotted any of theses, after a few researches i found nothing talking about it on the rhine river.
It doesnt mean theres no oils in but maybe not enough or I dont know.


I had a look yesterday and I can reduce aeration, it's not perfect but better with lower pushing pressure and more wash pressure on top of the siefting mats.
Natural oils you mentionned could also affect it.
I will take all your and other's information and build the best sluice I can according to the parameters and criterias I have. (Built from scratch, Cheap, wouldnt affect work, cannot be seen from the outside...)


Sure we do use a lot of.
Didnt thinked about it.
Should we use more ?
I'm building this for a hobby, I have a wide variety of freedom at work as long as I doesnt affect the amount of raw material I'm extracting every day but using mercury is certainly not.


Built from scratch, with zero knowledge and the use of mercury is far from industrial safety standards.
If I fail / a mistake happen I release mercury in the biggest water storage of europe.
If my sluice box fail... I get zero to very little gold, lost some time building and thinking or maybe clog my machine...
Worst case in the second scenario is that it takes me 15 minutes to clean and unclog the sand.

I doubt Clay is suggesting using the mercury in a system that would allow it to be exposed to the environment.

 

[spaghettigold]

hallo hansi and everybody.
even i you have only 0,05 grams per ton you can make over a kg of gold per year.
It,s baffling for me your boss doesn,t already clean the gold and other heavies from the sand, since its common practice ( i think) in most Quarries on the Rhine(Holcim for example) and it would be the byproduct of a already paid process and profitable operation.
If I was in your place i would take this opportunity very ..VERY serious,make a solid agreement with the boss and invest the time to make the necessary adjustments to the plant.
i may be not far away from where you work,if you like to get in touch you can send me a private message and i can give my 2cents via a phonecall.
cheers,Gruss Emilio,

 

[Hansi]

hallo hansi and everybody.
even i you have only 0,05 grams per ton you can make over a kg of gold per year.
It,s baffling for me your boss doesn,t already clean the gold and other heavies from the sand, since its common practice ( i think) in most Quarries on the Rhine(Holcim for example) and it would be the byproduct of a already paid process and profitable operation.
If I was in your place i would take this opportunity very ..VERY serious,make a solid agreement with the boss and invest the time to make the necessary adjustments to the plant.
i may be not far away from where you work,if you like to get in touch you can send me a private message and i can give my 2cents via a phonecall.
cheers,Gruss Emilio,

Hey,
Thanks for your support !
I dont really know how accurate the 0,05 is. This value can really change from a place to another and also depend on depth.