Show off yer sluice

musher169 said:
Yes, I will let you know what happens. 2/15 Having a b day party and going to be running some buckets of mine from summer and also went a little crazy buying concentrates for all of the guests. The party favors are going to be great. I will have the sluice running and the gold wheel spinning. Of course next to the refreshments! I will experiment with your Ideas.
Click to expand...
looking forward to party pics and info on how it went swapping sluice positions :-D
 

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I love it musher169. Thanks for showing-off yer sluice guy's. I love them all from the Humble to the Holy.... must be a gold miner thing.

Here's a pic of my humble sluice its made out of galv sheet metal. The recovery consist of heavy expanded metal over hog-moss over ribbed carpet.

I really like the fact that* the heavy expanded metal doesn't sink WAY-down in the hog-moss, like it did whith the regular miners moss.


20130501_120138-2-1.jpg
 

I finally got the fluid bed sluices in the water for a field test in the San Gabriel Mts above LA. Caught fine gold and both sluices and stand worked perfectly. The learning curve was short and took underwater videos to study. Below is the 36" fluid bed test and the other videos of the stand and 24" are on Page two of this thread. Checking the overburden did not produce any missed gold but the area did not show much as confirmed by other local prospectors. I found about 20 fine pieces of flour gold which was absolutely fantastic .......... both sluices work excellent.
Mike
 

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Malo,

Congratulations on a beautiful build with just as impressive results :icon_thumleft:

The underwater view showed that you had the perfect distance between tubes for ideal fluidization. However a closer look at the material between the outside tubes and the trap walls revealed less fluidization going on in that area. Since that area is being fliuidized by only one tube, about half that distance would allow for ideal fluidization of that area. But that's just nit picking and not really worth addressing on that sluice but for future builds you may want to factor that in.

All the Best,
GG~
 

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Goodyguy,
You're absolutely right! I made a note to self on one of my videos when I first saw the test. Either move the tube a short distance toward the sides or drill slightly larger holes angled more towards the outside walls and the corners on this build. I have plans to pull the outside tubes and drill as in idea #2. The outside areas have somewhat lower water injected since there is not water being injected from the wall. In future builds I will inlay jets in the outside walls so tubes don't interfere with circulation.
Thanks for the input.
Mike

PS. Perhaps simply placing a 1" filler on each side of the trap would not only increase the fluidization but would also reduce the material to be panned. I'll give some more thought to it.
 

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The filler would be my choice on that build it's the easiest way to go and will not really impact the amount of gold that the trap can hold.
In fact having a little less trap area will aid in keeping it fluidized especially after it becomes full of heavies.

I've found that larger holes only serve to decrease the pressure which in turn will shorten the jet stream. (opposite of what you want to achieve)

GG~
 

Thanks Goodyguy, the easiest path has never been in my best interest, I've already removed the tubes, filled their holes, and getting ready to redrill for a more evenly spaced tubing setup, after placing 1/2" filler wood on each of the sides of the trap. Astro felt the same way, as did I looking at the video when I got home. I put a lot of stock in field testing and then back to the drawing board to make it right! I've read a lot of consternation in this forum about the uselessness of fluid bed but have to disagree whole-heartedly. This is a fairly new and refreshing look at gold prospecting and with a fine tuned machine, it definitely will snag the finest gold and anything heavier without sluice mats and 4 - 5' of sluice box riffles ......... just a shovel and the fluid bed sluice and one pan and you have gold in the vile. I couldn't believe how easy it was to set up in the river. Get a decent drop, flow of water, and shovel away. I was jazzed at the field test, showed gold with a tool that wasn't even refined, and now can't wait to get back into the water. I'm even leaving the tubes semi-loose so I can turn them as I watch to get a better fluidization. Thanks for your input.
Mike
 

Hey Malo, fluid beds rock!
 

malo said:
Thanks Goodyguy, the easiest path has never been in my best interest, I've already removed the tubes, filled their holes, and getting ready to redrill for a more evenly spaced tubing setup, after placing 1/2" filler wood on each of the sides of the trap. Astro felt the same way, as did I looking at the video when I got home. I put a lot of stock in field testing and then back to the drawing board to make it right! I've read a lot of consternation in this forum about the uselessness of fluid bed but have to disagree whole-heartedly. This is a fairly new and refreshing look at gold prospecting and with a fine tuned machine, it definitely will snag the finest gold and anything heavier without sluice mats and 4 - 5' of sluice box riffles ......... just a shovel and the fluid bed sluice and one pan and you have gold in the vile. I couldn't believe how easy it was to set up in the river. Get a decent drop, flow of water, and shovel away. I was jazzed at the field test, showed gold with a tool that wasn't even refined, and now can't wait to get back into the water. I'm even leaving the tubes semi-loose so I can turn them as I watch to get a better fluidization. Thanks for your input.
Mike
Click to expand...

I like the way you think. Reminds me of me :tongue3:

I cant tell you how many tubes I went through in my quest to perfect the spacing, arrangement, and size of holes. combined with the size of the tubes along with the proper placement of the tubes in the trap coupled with spacing between tubes and trap walls. Not to mention factoring in the ideal gpm for proper fluidization. You name it I tried it, from spirals to spinning sprinkler heads to nozzles and everything in between.

I finally arrived at a formula that works for any size trap dimensions from a single tube on up. My largest trap to date (not counting the feeder sluice) is 14 inches wide x 4 feet long and uses 26 tubes and is supplied by a motorized pump and regulated by a control valve. The use of a water column gauge was instrumental in achieving the correct flow for eliminating precise specific gravity materials. Which was invaluable when it came to designing fluid beds for diamond and gemstone recovery as opposed to fluid beds for gold and platinum recovery.

Keep up the good work, You are well on your way to achieving perfection. :icon_thumleft:
My brother likes to kid me by suggesting that I graduated magna cum laude from the "If it aint broke fix it anyway" school of engineering :tongue3:




GG~
 

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prototype.JPGi just got this prototype from colorado gold sticks.it has 1-4 deep beach box matting and a gate at end. cant wait to try it out. even has a pressure plate .its basically a self classification sluice
it8 wide 36 long
 

crazywolfminingco said:
i just got this prototype from colorado gold sticks.it has 1-4 deep beach box matting and a gate at end. cant wait to try it out. even has a pressure plate .its basically a self classification sluice
it8 wide 36 long
Click to expand...

What is that ramp looking thing at the beginning of the sluice?

GG~
 

Justbent said:
socalocmatt said:
I'd imagine that is to hold the punch plate in place.[/QUOTE

Ain't that gonna disturb your flow?
Click to expand...

Yes. Pretty much anything you do to a sluice will disturb the water flow. But that's not always a bad thing.

In the tests that I've run, on my setup (not the same one in the pic), I catch super fine flour gold and some chunky stuff too with very little loss. Again, I have a different setup and I'm still not done testing and refining.
Click to expand...
 

when teddy at colorado goldsticks told me about this unit.it made sense.its a water pressure plate .it slows down the heavies while the light s move faster. really cool idea .so with the gate at end there just isnt any escape room for gold well thats the plan! well try it out though. its a terrific idea. he just listed these on ebay ,i feel lucky getting the first one.maybeitll bring me luck
 

crazywolfminingco said:
when teddy at colorado goldsticks told me about this unit.it made sense.its a water pressure plate .it slows down the heavies while the light s move faster. really cool idea .so with the gate at end there just isnt any escape room for gold well thats the plan! well try it out though. its a terrific idea. he just listed these on ebay ,i feel lucky getting the first one.maybeitll bring me luck
Click to expand...


Let us know how it works out for you...... The gate thing seems to be slowly catching on :icon_thumleft:

GG~
 

A52 stream sluice converted to highbank. I put it together with stuff I had laying around and got the old school Keene hopper for free! It's nothing fancy but will wash rocks and recover gold just fine. Next mod will be hog mats, can't waitimage.jpgimage.jpg
 

Impressive! And I love running the test into your pool!
 

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