Just Curious? What Combination(s) Of Matting Are In Your Highbanker..... Successful?

[John-Edmonton]

I assume we all have different types of bedrock we dig in, with different combinations of minerals present. I ONLY have flour gold where I highbank, so I run my water a little slower, classified 3/8" over expanded aluminum over miners moss over vortex matting. For shorter digs, I just run the expanded aluminum over vortex matting. At one time, I just ran small "V" matting down the whole bed, which actually worked quite well. I was classifying at 1/2" and I figure I lost gold because of the extra turbulence created from the 1/2" material. I did try the dream mat, and was losing a lot of flour gold. I have a lot of heavy black sand where I live. That might contribute to my loss.

Of course, at the end of the day, it's about trying to save the maximum amount of gold applying the laws of physics and having fun!

 

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[Darth Placer]

I'm using Hungarian riffles over expanded metal... on top of Vortex belting on my 4" dredge.
I have 1/4" stainless woven wire mesh over the top section of sluice to class out the fines. The openings are a little smaller (0.18") but it has much more open area for the fines to drop sooner. https://www.grainger.com/product/3DMH7

If your seeing black sand in your tailings and concerned about losses just do a cleanup when that happens... make sure you don't overfeed. In other words don't dump the entire shovel in at one shot... give the sluice some time to digest it all. Wait until the riffles are half cleared... don't load them up.

You could always test by running into a mason tub and re-running your tailings to check for losses. It's important to be able to trust your equipment.

In my 2.5" dredge/highbanker it's pretty much the same. 1/2" grizzly in the hopper ... 1/4" punch plate over the top section... Hungarian riffles over raised expanded.. on top of Vortex belting. I do use some 10 mesh woven wire in the top 12" of box directly on top of Vortex belting. No expanded in that section. It's an awesome setup for fine gold.

That 10 mesh helps keep the larger stuff out of the nooks of the vortex and is less likely to build up like expanded metal does. The top 12" of sluice can be cleaned out without having to do a whole cleanup. It helps when checking out different spots.

 

[Goldwasher]

1/2 classified. run an inch of water at least. You won't have turbulence issues.

it's pretty hard to over feed a hi-banker with a shovel

40gpm minimum flow

Vortex matting isn't vortexing when it has moss over it. It's doing the same thing as vmat would. Holding what makes it into it. Nothing more.

Riffles with no expanded over vmat or vortex 1/2 material and good deep smooth flow will do just fine.

I still prefer moss over vmat. Large raised expanded. Just a few flat bar riffles, welded to and set at the angle the expanded for coarse gold.

I use the same set up in my main stream sluice. running golf ball and bigger rocks through it.

I recover gold from 200 mesh to nuggets with that type of set up. I have never found more than a few small colors or two in my tailings. Out of four or five test pans.

You can't judge it by how much black sand makes it through the sluice.

 

[N-Lionberger]

I run heavy expanded over moss and v mat in the main box, under the hopper I have 1/4" punchplate over astro turf.