New sluice box fun

[G-bone]

Over the last few months, I've been doing some hiking and exploring.
Some in the forests and some in the desert.
During those outings, I have been gathering material samples from areas that look promising (at least to my big GREEN eyes).
I've made sure the areas I take from are clear and not on someone's claim.
So I have about 8 buckets worth of material sitting in the back yard, waiting to be processed.

I picked up a Royal folding Sluice box and stand for Christmas as well as building my arsenal of tools. I ordered Gold Hog Mats to replace the standard Riffles, expanded metal and carpet that came stock. I've been stock piling gear and doing little things here and there when I get the time. So finally got some time to cut and install the mats, get some tubs and get it all plumbed.
It's hard to find the time to do what you want to now a days....

So I finally ran my sluice as a recirculating setup tonight.
I ran probably 1 bucket of classified material and ran it through a couple times.
Spent my time just noodling with thte setup and flow rates to see what things do and how it all ticks.
From that bucket, nada thing.
But LOTS of black sand and old buck shot.
I can already tell the that the 1200 GPH pump is not enough.

I'll be running some more tomorrow after work (actually today) and try a few things to see if I can get the flow rate up with a bit more angle.

Started thinking about some type of Fluid Bed trap at the end of the sliuce for the tailing's too.
Is there anything like that already? Thats had to have been tried.

Anyway, Cheers.

G

 

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[Gelmac]

That is a good start.
I have 2 (1200 GPH) pumps. If you find the flow insufficient just angle the sluice abit steeper till you get the desired flow. As you said it is a classified material you don't want to blow your gold out the end, but that depends on your type of gold. To catch fine gold you need low flow of water as more water would blow the fines away down the tailings end. Just play around with the settings of the sluice to find what works best for your type of material and gold.
If you do a little research on the forum for "Fluid bed Sluice" you'll find plenty of threads/posts with lots of info about these types of gears. For example GG (GoodyGuy) has built nice fluid bed sluices and incorporated the idea in his highbanker setup.