possible small sluice idea???

cshirsch

Jr. Member
Apr 10, 2013
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I'm sure I'm not the only one of us that has noticed this but I saw this thing when I went to Home Depot today. It is a device used to direct water from the gutters on on a house and it sure did look like a potential, inexpensive sluice. Put some 1/4" wire mess over the ripples and a few minor alterations and it would probably work for a small sluice. I may go ahead and buy one (under $7) and play with it. Just thought y'all might like to see it. What do you think?

gutter3.jpg
 

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You would have to open the top end. Or use for miller table. Some potential but maybe not much.
 

There's a video somewhere, don't remember if it was on here or youtube, but a guy made a drop riffle sluice out of one of those for separating fines. He used wood dowel down the sides of the 'riffles' stuck in place with kitchen/bath silicone, to stop material going down the sides. Seemed to work ok. I picked one up last time I was at Home Depot (can't really go wrong for $7). I'll have a go at it when I get a little spare time, maybe tomorrow if it's raining (else I'm headed to the river).
 

I was also thinking about using it with some cons to see what it could do. Of course I would pan the cons after I ran it through. I also thought of a few ways to modify the top of it so I could run some water through it. I will pick one up in the next few days and see what I can come up with.
 

Just google "splash block sluice" folks have been using it for years.
 

its rain diverter, and some do use them, the best ive seen setup,is when you set two or more in tandem ,stepped down,i could picture maybe two of them.
 

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I just posted that I can't walk out of lowes without one when they clear them out for $1. 3 in the back of the truck right now.

Here's the video

 

The most inexpensive and lightweight sluice is the "Poop Tube" Sluice. So named because it consists of 3 inch diameter ribbed plastic sewer pipe cut in half. Available at Home Depot and WalMart for around $1.50 a foot. For a few more dollars, you can get fancy and glue it inside some thin wall PVC pipe to make it more rigid. I saw some "Poop Tube" sluices in action in Arizona and they are pretty effective as a prospecting tool. They do a very good job of getting flood gold and small pickers.
 

The most inexpensive and lightweight sluice is the "Poop Tube" Sluice. So named because it consists of 3 inch diameter ribbed plastic sewer pipe cut in half. Available at Home Depot and WalMart for around $1.50 a foot. For a few more dollars, you can get fancy and glue it inside some thin wall PVC pipe to make it more rigid. I saw some "Poop Tube" sluices in action in Arizona and they are pretty effective as a prospecting tool. They do a very good job of getting flood gold and small pickers.
I made a couple of sluices for kid's Christmas presents made out of flexible gutter extensions cut in half similar to the Poop Tube. When I was buying the extensions, I saw the same diverter as the OP and thought the same about it!
 

Lots of people using them. I know one guy that made a recirculating system for testing his claim. I bought one a year ago- still on my to do list.
 

I saw this kid in Arizona doing a clean-out on a "Poop Tube" Sluice. He got some nice color. Since i had a bucket of concentrate handy, i decided to challenge him to a friendly compitition against my $250 dollar medium size KEEN stream sliuce. I urged him to feed the Tube Sluice as fast as he possibly could without losing anything. I noticed he was using the entire length of the tube, while i was only feeding the indicator pad at the top of my KEEN Sluice. When the cleanout of both sluices was completed, i was dumbfounded by the results. It would have taken an electronic scale to show the difference in the gold either sluices captured. It's hard to believe, but TRUE.
 

Forget the poop tube. Go to lowes, gutter and downspout area.

View attachment 949122

InvisaFlow StealthFlow 28-in Downspout Extension $6

How would you feed that? Cut a hole in the top? I see the outlet is not capped. I'm thinking maybe it should be. If it was, you could sink it with rocks and the water would flow in and out the top.
I'm setting up to do some midnight mining and need something small, light, cheap and dark that works. This looks like a winner to me as I would only be using it for testing sites to prospect.
 

How would you feed that? Cut a hole in the top? I see the outlet is not capped. I'm thinking maybe it should be. If it was, you could sink it with rocks and the water would flow in and out the top.
I'm setting up to do some midnight mining and need something small, light, cheap and dark that works. This looks like a winner to me as I would only be using it for testing sites to prospect.
I would cut the top off. If you cut it just right, you'd get 2 slucies outta it.

They also sell this

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But in reality, you want to use a hair dryer or heat gun to soften the plastic down the middle so you'd need to cut it. There's these little columns which keep the top and bottom from meeting and would reduce the material flow. Heat the plastic and push them down.

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