Setting a sluice in a small stream and leaving it.

[watersteps]

I would guess that most people would say "that won't work" . Well here is my idea, I want to place 1,2 or 3 sluice's in a small stream on my own property. Now, I live in Potter County, PA. and the stream is about 600' long. I don't have a sluice or know which type to build, but what the heck if it works while I metal detect other areas, why not?
The last thing is, is there any gold in Potter County, PA.?
Anyone got any ideas?

 

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[winners58]

used to be plans online about 10+ years ago that were made of angle iron, sheet metal bottom and the large 4lb expanded mesh
with some sort of mating, if I remember they looked like 16"x24". probably heavy, then they were bolted to the bedrock
they would have to be on the gold line of winter water levels. come back in the spring and get the gold...

 

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[watersteps]

I have attached some pictures of my home made sluice.
I started with a piece of heavy aluminum contractors flashing 24” X 36”. I bent 2, 6” - 90 degree sides on the 24” width, this gives me a 12” shoot with 6” high sides.
I next cut an old aluminum door threshold and cut in half long wise to use for the riffle frame. I purchased a piece 1/2” aluminum angle 6’ long, I cut this piece into 6, 11 1/2” pieces and notched each end to fit under the threshold pieces. I spaced these pieces 7” apart except for the last piece a spaced at 4” and pop riveted them together.
Next I took some old galvanized angles that came from a very cheap storage shelving and bent them over the 6” sides to make them stronger.
I purchased a 12” x 36” piece of miners moss and laid that in the sluice and placed the riffle frame on top of it. I drilled 4 holes so I could bolt the riffle frame to the sluice and hold down the moss.
Now this ain’t real pretty but in only cost me $21.00 to build.
I am sure that if I snag any gold it will be very fine so I didn’t add any expanded metal on top of the moss. That may be a mistake, but that remains to be seen.
It turned out to be stronger then I thought it would and should hold up well.
Next I will take it down to the stream on my property and anchor it down for a week or two and see what happens.
I will takes some pictures of the sluice in the stream.
The last photo shows the sluice after it painted camo.

 

[Jason in Enid]

Not going to work. Those "riffles in a creek" stories are just that.... stories.

Think about it for a moment. If you wanted to use that sluice to capture gold, you would find the perfect gold drop-out location, set up sluice with the perfect angle, probably set up a wingdam to get the flow just right... THEN you would start shoveling, and classifying and running that material through the sluice. You;d do that for hour after hour in the HOPES of catching some good gold. You would be moving yards of material through the box.

How is your plan comparable? You're going to stake this sluice into a stream and walk away.... How is the gold bearing material going to get UP out of its rocky prison to flow through your sluice? If there is enough water flow during spring storms or snow melt to churn up the bottom, one of 2 things will happen. The box will be ripped out, pulverized and washed downstream. OR the box will simply become buried in rocks and sediment. If you can dig it out later, it will only contain the same ration of gold as the other material outside the box.

 

[watersteps]

When it rains this stream turns into a raging water flow that moves 3 and 4 inch rocks down the stream. It rains several times each month and the stream changes in depth and width. Hey I'm having fun and who knows what I will find.

 

[Goldwasher]

While talking to my neighbor, he told a story of loggers dropping logs into the E Fork of Lewis river up by Dole valley during low water and then coming back to dig out the accumlated finds in the summer hoping for gold.

More like hoping to find logs...cause they are way way down stream now.

 

[Goldwasher]

I have attached some pictures of my home made sluice.
I started with a piece of heavy aluminum contractors flashing 24” X 36”. I bent 2, 6” - 90 degree sides on the 24” width, this gives me a 12” shoot with 6” high sides.
I next cut an old aluminum door threshold and cut in half long wise to use for the riffle frame. I purchased a piece 1/2” aluminum angle 6’ long, I cut this piece into 6, 11 1/2” pieces and notched each end to fit under the threshold pieces. I spaced these pieces 7” apart except for the last piece a spaced at 4” and pop riveted them together.
Next I took some old galvanized angles that came from a very cheap storage shelving and bent them over the 6” sides to make them stronger.
I purchased a 12” x 36” piece of miners moss and laid that in the sluice and placed the riffle frame on top of it. I drilled 4 holes so I could bolt the riffle frame to the sluice and hold down the moss.
Now this ain’t real pretty but in only cost me $21.00 to build.
I am sure that if I snag any gold it will be very fine so I didn’t add any expanded metal on top of the moss. That may be a mistake, but that remains to be seen.
It turned out to be stronger then I thought it would and should hold up well.
Next I will take it down to the stream on my property and anchor it down for a week or two and see what happens.
I will takes some pictures of the sluice in the stream.
The last photo shows the sluice after it painted camo.

Dude, promise we want you to have fun and find gold..

I will make fun of culvert hunting and leaving sluices because of the subject not the author.

cause it's been around for years and no one can wash the stink off.

Whats cool is that you kinda have a useable sluice now and can take it out the actual way you find gold...prospecting.

One issue and unfortunately because of the way gold moves. It's important.

You need to fix your riffles.

Any fine gold that makes the moss in the middle will get caught(you need vmat under it though)

But I noticed the way you cut your angle short of where you cut one side to attach. No biggie again cause of the moss.

But that side channel material with no sort of sto..gold WILL ride on out.

When you introduce material to the head of a sluice. when you see gold or lead you will see it push to the sides.

Not all of it but it builds up there. If that happens in your sluice making it into that smooth channel..

SHE GONE!!

Looks like you can build stuff so no doubt you can fab a fix.

If you want to keep it. Please don't leave it in the creek bed somewhere. it has better actual uses.

 

[watersteps]

What is vmat?? And I should put it under the moss?

 

[arizau]

Here you go for v mat. https://www.google.com/search?q=v+m...69i57j69i60.4366j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8.
Moss is usually reversible , in other words either side up so it is porous throughout leading to gold just sinking through and washing out the bottom of the sluice. The v mat kind of acts as a bottom for the moss and it also will catch gold that sinks through the moss in it's grooves before it washes out.

 

[watersteps]

Thank You I will look around for some.

 

[winners58]

I've seen lots of areas that get washed off bedrock that if there was someplace for the gold to catch it would.
why is the bedrock slick, it's scour, any sluice would get a pounding after a week of rocks hitting it.
some ribbed rubber mat or carpet under the moss keeps the gold from migration under it.
maybe set it up in a side area that you could feed buckets for weeks or push dirt to like a ground sluice
Might try expanded metal over the Miners moss, gives it some motion to exchange the lighter stuff off.
.

 

[Goldwasher]

Thank You I will look around for some.

sometimes you can find it at the hardware store or even wally world as

"tool box liner"

Sometimes at Home Depot or Lowes you can find vintly bulk runner material. or thin carpet on the roll that you can use.

Heres some on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Mining-Profi...t+prospecting&qid=1557847923&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Or you can use something like this. just ditch your riffles and put this in the bottom of your box. attach with a flat bar and wing nut at the top.

https://www.amazon.com/SE-GP-SB35-M...Riffled/dp/B07J6DWHM9/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=v+m

Like Winners mentioned if you do go with moss some expanded metal is in order.

In fact because of where you are you could get away with just raised expanded over moss. Since the gold will all be considered "fine".

 

[watersteps]

The sluice was updated and placed in a stream May 15 2019, water was about 10 inches deep and flowing very fast. Now to wait for a few weeks or months.

 

[N-Lionberger]

How did you mount it down? The only way I can see somthing like that working is if you bolted it directly to bedrock in a location you know gold will travel across that stays exposed doesn't get buried in cobble, the sluice would have to handle getting freight trained by cobbles so it would have to be rather stout in construction. I think it may take longer than a few weeks or months I'm guessing years. in all likelyhood it will fill with heavy sand fairly quick and any gold that enters will slick right off...

 

[N-Lionberger]

There are easier methods I heard about that involve coating things in various kinds of grease and leaving them in river flows to capture those micro fine particles, burlap coated in fish oil wrapped around pilings is supposed to be quite effective, I have also heard good things about coating visquine in crisco and letting it lay in the current like a dredge damper. I bet I'd really up my level of fines if I grease the damper on my dredge.

 

[watersteps]

The sluice is staked down with a 24 inch rebar stake, it was hard to find a place to hammer the stake in, rock under the stream. I will check the sluice every week and clean it out and bring the finds home for separating.

 

[N-Lionberger]

Have you sampled the ground yet?

 

[Goldwasher]

The sluice is staked down with a 24 inch rebar stake, it was hard to find a place to hammer the stake in, rock under the stream. I will check the sluice every week and clean it out and bring the finds home for separating.

Gold only moves in extreme storm events. Even moderate rainstorms aren't moving gold in the bed load.

Concentration in cracks takes a long time. a really long timein areas with very little gold.

in your county it could take a lot of effort to find gold via real prospecting methods.

If the kind of gold that could maybe end up in a sluice that was left alone was in your area. There would be major historical mining activity.

If I was stuck in Pa. looking for gold I would be chasing something that may actually turn up. Buried treasure legends.... forgotten colonial caches... civil war loot.

Most likely something that actually exists.

 

[Jason in Enid]

Watersteps, I know you are getting a lot of negative posts here from myself and others. I hope that you take this in the spirit its given. It's not that we want you to fail, or we just want to jump on you. Its given as experienced advice, and we would rather see you recover gold than waste time with bad methods.

However, you are a trooper and you have forged ahead to see for yourself. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT! We've all probably done it with projects in our past. I would ask that you post your results, for good, mediocre, or bad. Your thread is now in the eternity of the internet. Other people in the future will have your same thought, research it, and find this thread. So for the sake of our future prospectors, let us all know how it goes!

 

[goldenmojo]

post some pics of the op

 

[watersteps]

Thanks for the honest feedback.
I understand I have little to no chance of finding any gold, the thing is I am trying to find it. I don't have to find gold I will live without it.
I will place more sluices in this stream, some will be of a different design some will be the same.
The first sluice has been in the stream for 7 days I will keep checking it and when it looks full to me I will clean it and let everyone know how I make out.