Miners Moss?

O

oregonmp03

Full Member
Oct 13, 2014
193
184
Aberdeen, WA
Detector(s) used
Fishers
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
I just bought a new dredge and box is lined with the blue miners moss. I've never used it until today but I've always used regular carpet and the black rubber in my dredges. I was wondering if people had any opinions about what's better or what they like better. I feel like a lot of fines might get through and vibrate out the bottom of the box and that I need something underneath. Also what's the easiest way to clean it out, seems like a lot of particles were still in there even after I cleaned it.

Thoughts?

Thanks
 

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If you're in the area nearish yuba, I could get you some directions to a "wild west" (but still public based on my research) area that is kinda sorta near you.
 

MrTim4Gold said:
You must run V or vortex under the moss..it will settle to the sluice and slide right out the bottom, dont rely on your riffles to clamp it down..every cleanup my V mat under my blue moss is loaded with black sand... Say No to losses!!
Click to expand...


Actaully Tim it depends on your equipment ( manufacturer ) or design. Most Keenes do operate this way but as stated Jeff at Proline specifically states not to use anything under the moss.
Being swayed by the legions of people telling me otherwise I tried vmat under my moss on my old Proline and caused the buckles to wear out and bend the tabs from being overtightened, and the miners moss to be squished down under the dredge riffles causing poor exchange. I have since owned 3 Prolines and love them and THEY DO NOT REQUIRE MAT UNDER MOSS.
Water does not drain from between each riffle without tilting the dredge which is another example of not needing vmat in a Proline with Moss
Try it for yourself, its obvious and you can watch in the box that your active exhange of heavies is disturbed and your values go down the toilet with anything under the moss, it was not designed for it and its super obvious
Everyones dredge is different and Ive run Keenes, Prolines, and a home made but its safe to say that no dredges are the same as far as how they run; know your dredge. There is no "1 size fits all" for dredge operation across the board
 

Last edited:
I'll jump in and reiterate what has been said. I used a lot of different sluice and dredge systems over the past 35 years. I kinda got used to seeing carpet and stuff incorporated a certain way. I bought a Proline Dredge and thought: "This looks like it needs improvement". So I changed it a little. WRONG thing to do. After seeing pickers at the end of my modified sluice I called and talked to Jeff at Proline and immediately took it back to "stock". And it works perfect the way it is set up by the manufacturer. Only thing with a Proline is the upper water load. Water sluice intake and slope dictate that feature.....Jeff can explain it to any and all that want to know!....and he is more than happy to do so!

These manufacturers know their stuff. They design their stuff to work.....because ifn they don't their name, reputation and sales will be destroyed. As they say: "You don't want to mess with mother" and you don't want to change a system unless you talk to the manufacturer and get the AOK!


Bejay
 

Bejay said:
I'll jump in and reiterate what has been said. I used a lot of different sluice and dredge systems over the past 35 years. I kinda got used to seeing carpet and stuff incorporated a certain way. I bought a Proline Dredge and thought: "This looks like it needs improvement". So I changed it a little. WRONG thing to do. After seeing pickers at the end of my modified sluice I called and talked to Jeff at Proline and immediately took it back to "stock". And it works perfect the way it is set up by the manufacturer. Only thing with a Proline is the upper water load. Water sluice intake and slope dictate that feature.....Jeff can explain it to any and all that want to know!....and he is more than happy to do so!

These manufacturers know their stuff. They design their stuff to work.....because ifn they don't their name, reputation and sales will be destroyed. As they say: "You don't want to mess with mother" and you don't want to change a system unless you talk to the manufacturer and get the AOK!


Bejay
Click to expand...

Remember that the Manufacturers are there to make money and they build their equipment for the best profit margine. They will tell you what works fine but that doesn't mean that there isn't a better way. The over under Proline conversion works best hands down and has been proven again and again by working gold dredgers for years. Then I also run my moss differently in different parts of the box. Some straight up, and in the beginning I run it upside down under a few riffles. Years ago there was a study done on moss and whether to run it upside down, etc. It runs nice upside down. I couldn't find the link to all of the studies done on moss but here is a good link for all to read before it dissapears off of the web - Prospectors Cache Forum - Viewing topic #58093 - Test results: Ribbed carpet vs. Nomad 8100

There are many different types of miners moss and some work way better than what came stock in your store bought dredge :occasion18:
 

A manufacturer who puts profits over satisfactory results won't be around for long. So given that consideration one might want to do a little research before buying an unproven brand....just because it is cheaper!

Bejay
 

Very true but we as consumers must still know what is the best product for us out there. Keene still sells the triple sluice dredges because they were the best that they ever had. No they're not in the catalog and you have to call for a price but they are still for sale and still the best. The best dredge ever produced was the Promac 8" Triple
promackdredge.jpg Photo by Coochee | Photobucket and it was produced by Promac with Keene as a partner more or less. SO as a buyer it is up to us to know how good is really good enough because there are plenty of marginal products out there. Like with the Proline 4" or the Keene 3 stage 4", they are satisfactory as you stated but there are a lot better products out there. A step up from these 2 would be a true over/under and a step above the over/under is the triple side by sides. Then above that comes the side by sides with dual classification like in the Promac Super 8" Triple pictured above. There have been a lot of satisfactory dealers out there that didn't make it because they were just satisfactory. Keene and Proline have a combination of satisfactory and above satisfactory items and it's up to us as the consumers to know what it is that we are buying. Here's another good article on recovery. » Double-screen Classification System in Dredging
The fact is, a single level sluice like the Proline has room for improvement, so I improved mine. And I mean I really improved mine because I know my equipment. I run my 4" with a 9hp HP500 pump/Gast compressor maxed out and it was tested by 49er Mike and plenty of other well known dredgers over the years that agree that the simple home made over/under added on to the 4" Proline is a cut above. Would the 4" Keene Deep Water triple be able to match it? It would be close because the added horse power on both dredges puts them over the top of every other satisfactory dredge out there. The only way that my 4" Proline might take it is because of the oversized flare that gives me basically no plug us because of the added pressure brought in by the HP500 pump... but it's really hard to beat any properly tuned triple sluice dredge so it's going to be close either way. I'm sure that you remember the 4" Keene Deep Water Triple, it was the one with a 14" center box. Lots of people ran them as 5's but they were originally the Deep Water 4". The 5's had the 20" center box.
 

Reed Lukens said:
Very true but we as consumers must still know what is the best product for us out there. Keene still sells the triple sluice dredges because they were the best that they ever had. No they're not in the catalog and you have to call for a price but they are still for sale and still the best. The best dredge ever produced was the Promac 8" Triple
promackdredge.jpg Photo by Coochee | Photobucket and it was produced by Promac with Keene as a partner more or less. SO as a buyer it is up to us to know how good is really good enough because there are plenty of marginal products out there. Like with the Proline 4" or the Keene 3 stage 4", they are satisfactory as you stated but there are a lot better products out there. A step up from these 2 would be a true over/under and a step above the over/under is the triple side by sides. Then above that comes the side by sides with dual classification like in the Promac Super 8" Triple pictured above. There have been a lot of satisfactory dealers out there that didn't make it because they were just satisfactory. Keene and Proline have a combination of satisfactory and above satisfactory items and it's up to us as the consumers to know what it is that we are buying. Here's another good article on recovery. » Double-screen Classification System in Dredging
The fact is, a single level sluice like the Proline has room for improvement, so I improved mine. And I mean I really improved mine because I know my equipment. I run my 4" with a 9hp HP500 pump/Gast compressor maxed out and it was tested by 49er Mike and plenty of other well known dredgers over the years that agree that the simple home made over/under added on to the 4" Proline is a cut above. Would the 4" Keene Deep Water triple be able to match it? It would be close because the added horse power on both dredges puts them over the top of every other satisfactory dredge out there. The only way that my 4" Proline might take it is because of the oversized flare that gives me basically no plug us because of the added pressure brought in by the HP500 pump... but it's really hard to beat any properly tuned triple sluice dredge so it's going to be close either way. I'm sure that you remember the 4" Keene Deep Water Triple, it was the one with a 14" center box. Lots of people ran them as 5's but they were originally the Deep Water 4". The 5's had the 20" center box.
Click to expand...

One day RL, we will dredge alongside each other. What knowledge you have to offer.

Much thanks
 

Life is good! Knowledge better than ever...but placer mining results has been a little slim. Never been a lode miner but workin on it! Have a good friend who is an expert lode miner and with my geology background and many years of mining I think I have a good chance of venturing off in that direction with him. More than one way to skin a cat. Dredging court cases and challenges will be interesting to watch and see how all that ends up. Sometimes the looking and discovery are almost as fun as the large recoveries. But we have strayed off the thread topic. So later.

Bejay
 

Sick4gold said:
Actaully Tim it depends on your equipment ( manufacturer ) or design. Most Keenes do operate this way but as stated Jeff at Proline specifically states not to use anything under the moss.
Being swayed by the legions of people telling me otherwise I tried vmat under my moss on my old Proline and caused the buckles to wear out and bend the tabs from being overtightened, and the miners moss to be squished down under the dredge riffles causing poor exchange. I have since owned 3 Prolines and love them and THEY DO NOT REQUIRE MAT UNDER MOSS.
Water does not drain from between each riffle without tilting the dredge which is another example of not needing vmat in a Proline with Moss
Try it for yourself, its obvious and you can watch in the box that your active exhange of heavies is disturbed and your values go down the toilet with anything under the moss, it was not designed for it and its super obvious
Everyones dredge is different and Ive run Keenes, Prolines, and a home made but its safe to say that no dredges are the same as far as how they run; know your dredge. There is no "1 size fits all" for dredge operation across the board
Click to expand...

I completely agree..even on my Keene the mat isn't squishing under the riffle but it is overtightened on the end! I love Proline..they a great machine, but im just a broke white boy! You are right..not 1 fits all..he will have to play and test...thats just as fun as running to me! run often mod always
 

Went today, but there was a lot of rain and my motor quit on me after only 30 minutes so it was pretty brutal getting setup and then having to tear down that quickly. I'll have to figure out what's going on with it......just bogged down and then slowly died. Still had gas, no clogs, nothing.........worst part was I just got down to bedrock and was seeing gold. Did a clean out as I packed up and didn't see any gold in the miners moss but when I lifted up the miner's moss and there was a big picker sitting right in the v-mat about 3/4 of the way down the box, so I was happy.

I'll clean the cons later, and I'm a bit bummed about the motor.
 

oregonmp03 said:
Went today, but there was a lot of rain and my motor quit on me after only 30 minutes so it was pretty brutal getting setup and then having to tear down that quickly. I'll have to figure out what's going on with it......just bogged down and then slowly died. Still had gas, no clogs, nothing.........worst part was I just got down to bedrock and was seeing gold. Did a clean out as I packed up and didn't see any gold in the miners moss but when I lifted up the miner's moss and there was a big picker sitting right in the v-mat about 3/4 of the way down the box, so I was happy.

I'll clean the cons later, and I'm a bit bummed about the motor.
Click to expand...

Be careful over there! I have had over 4 inches of rain in the last 48 hours according to my weather station. I hope your dredge has an anchor!
 

oh we pulled it, we're back at home. Creek rose and got muddier while we were there so it was probably for the best. I just wanted to get one last time in for the year so I could get a discovery and monument for my new claim.
 

I would dump some gas in the carb and make sure it's not fuel. could be low oil shut off also and if you're not using 10/30 or better that can cause it to react when the oil is just a little low. I use 10/30 Mobile 1 synthetic.
 

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