Sluice questions, water flow and riffles

[GoldReport]

I'm building my own recirculating sluice/highbanker setup. It's 26" long 4.5" wide. The expanded metal I'm using is from a local welding shop they had laying around.

My first question is whether the riffles are too big?
Second question is around water flow. I have a bilge pump I wired in to a power supply so I can run off an outlet. The label says 600 Gph. When its running it seems like good flow but hard to guage. Too much or too little?


I'm building this as cheap as I can so excuse the wood and overall jankiness. I'm running essentially dirt just to test the system out. I plan to build a hopper above like a typical highbanker which would help I think.

 

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[russau]

Well a guy has to start somewhere ! Different size /style riffle systems capture different size shape gold. As long as your building material is free and ava. try making several different set up's and run the same material through each one to see what works for it's style . A bag of con's will help you in seeing how gold works in these "test" sluice's and keep good notes on what the water flow & depth works best for that size gold . measure the angle of the downward slope of the sluice & and keep the sluice level sideways !!!! Always recirculate your water and save your "waste con's " !!! when you really get a handle on the sluice's ability to save different size / shape's of gold , then rerun that "saved " material and see what you lost over this time ! GOOD LUCK and please post your adventure !

 

[GoldReport]

Well a guy has to start somewhere ! Different size /style riffle systems capture different size shape gold. As long as your building material is free and ava. try making several different set up's and run the same material through each one to see what works for it's style . A bag of con's will help you in seeing how gold works in these "test" sluice's and keep good notes on what the water flow & depth works best for that size gold . measure the angle of the downward slope of the sluice & and keep the sluice level sideways !!!! Always recirculate your water and save your "waste con's " !!! when you really get a handle on the sluice's ability to save different size / shape's of gold , then rerun that "saved " material and see what you lost over this time ! GOOD LUCK and please post your adventure !

Well a guy has to start somewhere ! Different size /style riffle systems capture different size shape gold. As long as your building material is free and ava. try making several different set up's and run the same material through each one to see what works for it's style . A bag of con's will help you in seeing how gold works in these "test" sluice's and keep good notes on what the water flow & depth works best for that size gold . measure the angle of the downward slope of the sluice & and keep the sluice level sideways !!!! Always recirculate your water and save your "waste con's " !!! when you really get a handle on the sluice's ability to save different size / shape's of gold , then rerun that "saved " material and see what you lost over this time ! GOOD LUCK and please post your adventure !

Do you think these riffles will capture fine gold? Since that's all we have here in the northeast

 

[BoulderTroll]

Do you think these riffles will capture fine gold? Since that's all we have here in the northeast

It certainly will catch some. Probably more than 90% of the fine gold.
And Russ is right, you want to set up some sort of test to find out how well it actually works. Run some dirt with a known amount of gold, and then test your tailing to see how much you lost.

 

[GoldReport]

It certainly will catch some. Probably more than 90% of the fine gold.
And Russ is right, you want to set up some sort of test to find out how well it actually works. Run some dirt with a known amount of gold, and then test your tailing to see how much you lost.

Thanks, is there an alternative to using gold for a test? I don't have any at the moment.

 

[BoulderTroll]

Buy a bag of paydirt online?

Thanks, is there an alternative to using gold for a test? I don't have any at the moment.

Another option could be lead. Maybe scrape some tiny pieces off a fishing weight?