messn round with new sluice,any ideas?

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loco oro

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Aug 15, 2013
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mess'n round with new sluice,any ideas?

xtrap2.jpgxtrap3.jpgxtrap5.jpgxtrap6.jpgxtrap8.jpgxtrap9.jpgxtrap10.jpgi cant afford to buy my toys,i have to make them,this is one of my projects,figured i would see what some of you thought.if i ican get it to the piont where i am satisfied with it i may scale it up.so far my best results are when ,its dead level,if i start to add drop ,it gets to bioling ,so have decrease velocity of water,when i do this it tends to build up,but when level,and water pressure cranked,with 1500gph,it seems to do quite well,now i havent had it on gold yet, but i've done lead tests ,with flurescent painted filings,and seems good,first (gate) i have set at3/8in above ribbed matting,lots of velocity,2nd gate is5/16 in above rib mat,3rd is1/2 in no mat,then xpanded metal,4th is5/8in no mat then xpanded metal.i class everything down to 1/4 . just thought i would like to here any sugestions to improve.i just wanted to see if i could get cleaner cons with something like this.
 

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Got any video of it in action? Looks very interesting and nicely built. I bet that was a lot of work to make right!
 

Awesome, let us know how it goes!!

JB
 

thanks kevin,actualy was fairly simple to build,took an afternoon,but sadly i dont have it right yet,this is why i posted this,cause i respect alot of you guys on here,my issue is there is such a fine line between it functioning,and not at all.my issue is velocity,vs. drop, if that makes any sense,i am used to the norm sluices,this is more of experiment for me,i wanted to make this a recirc,if i add drop, it boils in the traps ,behind the gates,thus losing , so i tryid backing off water a bit while it is at a slight drop and then material tends to build up,so i keep it dead level ,and water cranked is when it preforms the best, i started with 1 oz of lead filings mixed in with 5 gal 1/4 in classed material,and when level,high velocity,i recovered 75%of lead after panning to see what i got, the lower the gates the more velocity in each trap,i plan on putting a (cap) with gates at a set length ,so it would enclosed until cleanup. my goal was to try to have very clean cons, with out loss,only black sands and gold, and i'm not there yet .i will post a vid,have to wait till me oldest daughter gets home to do it,shes the pic&vid expert,lol.
 

maybe screen where you'd insert material to prevent unwanted rocks, also at at angle so said rocks roll away
 

Loco... you're a man after my own heart! I've always built as much of my gear as I can. Not only do you get a working piece of equipment, but you also know how to fix it if something goes wrong.

One thing I'd consider doing would be to add some angled filler pieces on the upstream side to smooth out the holding blocks for your flow gates. That should help keep the materials from loading up in those corners as well as give you a low pressure zone on the down stream side of them. Kind of like in nature when a stream widens out. Pressure goes down so gold drops out.

Shoot some video of it in action so we can see the flow through the sluice and it will be easier for us to make informed suggestions. Interesting design idea no matter what.
 

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munkirinch said:
maybe screen where you'd insert material to prevent unwanted rocks, also at at angle so said rocks roll away
Click to expand...
i class everything down to 1/4 inch already ,this design isnt for raw unclassed material due to the gate hieghts, first one is only 3/8 in above ribbed mat ,to keep velocity up.no need for any classifing aperatous .i made this with the intentions of taking classed material ,and hopefully ending up with only heavys from classed material,this way the sluice is calibrated to less than 1/4inch material at all times, these gates are adjustable,but only till i get the (sweet spot) ,then i will (fix) them to a cap board at there set depths,the cap i believe is nessicery for the high velocity going through this thing, the material must travel ,under the gate,then climb vertically , small heavys dont make the climb, lighter crap keeps on going.
 

g irishman, i apericiate the advice, those blocks will be removed,this was a oversight on my part, when i built it, i was only concerned with getting them in there, i should have cut the slide groves in the sides of sluice rather than placing blocks in there , if i get this unit to where im happy with it i am going to scale it up to 10inches wide and will make all changes to that unit.right now i am still trying to get the bugs worked out . i am making vid today i hope.
 

a system very similar to yours was built years ago by a New Zealander named Trev Alty. he has the entire device with pictures/measurements/angles of the slop.its over on goldminers at yahoogroups. he called it a New Zealand boil box. Mike Pung used it with permission from Trev to develop his Gold Cube and others have used this idea for their device also.when you get done with your design, you need to make it in ABS palstic for being cheaper than alum and lighter. and real easy to work with.
 

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good info man, thanks russau!i will be making vid guys, but i am adding a few aspects to it as i speak,and will vid it all together, i seen things like it ,and really liked what i saw,i figured i would give it a whirl,i will have it on a creek this weekend to video everything together.
 

Ha ha. my first sluice had a gate, you have multiple gates.
How cool is that. you can "jockey" the flow at various stages.

What an eye for hydrology.
 

If you build your own equipment you will understand it better. Kudos Loco oro

Interesting old design from the late 20's of similar type of sluice. Patent #1670206 Sluice Box Trap by F.S. Morgan
 

dad1.jpgdad2.jpgdad3.jpgdad4.jpgdad6.jpgsorry no video, havent been out yet ,but here are some changes i've made to it, added riffles just before the traps for first three,added low profile ribbed mat in the last two traps, and added clear vinyl cap, and removed blocks, i have tried it and works well on cons, and i think it will do really well on beach sands, of the great lakes which is what i primarily intended.you might wonder how i feed it, i use a pvc (y) with the straight inlet for water ,and the angled inlet with large funnel to feed cons/sands,the slope that i find to work best is just 8degrees off level,any more and the flow gets a lil crazy behind the gates,and any less it tends to keep to much crap, it is small enough to fit inside my highbanker without riffles,so i can go from banking to supercons right there at the location,,alot less crap to pan through,at the end of the day. so i reached my objective with this project, but i am not sure yet if i would want to scale it up ,dont think i have a reason to , after all its only for cons and raw sands.its my 30.00 consentrater.
 

That is fantastic job you have done there. Can you shoot a video of it in action. Thanks.
 

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