New guy needs help with sluicing

[wild eyed willey]

Hi Yall,

I am new to this forum as of tonight. The main thing that brings me here is help with sluicing. I built my own sluice box out of two sections of stack ducting and a stack vent head ( from the air duct section of home depot) dimentions are aprox. 10" wide X 3" high X 48" long.
Material drops first onto a slight ribbed mat section from depot flooring department. next would be my riffles ( several sections of leftover vinal sideing.. I took this rig down to the stream behind the house where I have been finding very fine gold flakes. the first scoop of material basically sat there, not enough water pressure to move it down the sluice... What happened? why doesn't it work?

The stream is small, not much grade, but it is flowing.. I tried adjusting the front and back hights, but still not enough water pressure to move material... Sluice does not have a flare, but I am concerned that the added work to construct a flare might not solve the problem... can anyone shed some light on this for me?

Thanks
Wile eyed Willey
South Carolina

 

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[xracer550]

Hello Willey , My dogs name is "willy" but he is a gold miner too, Maybe try to shorten your sluice to appx 2 ft & dam up the creek a bit so you can get more fall on your sluice , Once you get the material to flow to fast thru the box then you can adjust to your liking , I think it is about an inch per foot . Good luck

 

[wild eyed willey]

Hello Willey , My dogs name is "willy" but he is a gold miner too, Maybe try to shorten your sluice to appx 2 ft & dam up the creek a bit so you can get more fall on your sluice , Once you get the material to flow to fast thru the box then you can adjust to your liking , I think it is about an inch per foot . Good luck
View attachment 694614

Thanks, but there is something I don't understand.. If the stream needs to pitch 1 inch per foot to run the sluice box, if I cut the box shorter i still need 1 inch per foot drop just over a shorter distance... Or am I wrong.

 

[williamsingr]

You can also make a flare just using river rocks and redirect the water pressure building up the rocks to narrow into your sluice and adjust the height to get good flow.

 

[wild eyed willey]

thanks for your help guys,, my sluice is now working well.