Tips for sluice build

[GodsEarth]

Hey everyone I’m looking for some tips on a cheaper high bank sluice build I’m putting together. My thoughts as of right now (Keep in mind I’m keeping it very budget friendly), is going 10” wide 36”-48” long with Gold Owl matting. I’m making everything out of wood and I’ll have a little 72cc gas powered water pump and 3/4” pvc piping for water delivery. I’ll have the jet holes in pvc shooting up as well as in from the sides.

I’m looking for tips on how much water flow I should aim to have. The pump does about 2300 GPH.

roughly what angle should I have it at? I’ve heard 1” drop per foot.

Is 10” too wide?

I’m building it all out of wood to save some money.

ALL TIPS APPRECIATED! I plan on building it tonight.

Thanks,

Adam

 

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[Goldwasher]

one of the rules of thumb I think I got from doc at gold hog is 10 gallons per minute per inch of sluice width. I have made my grizzlies out of drilled plate I like room to work the material back and forth so my grizzilly is 5 feet long their are mats in both the distruction chamber and under the grizilly and then I have a stack of expanded metal to help meter the flow of gravels and sand down the rest of the mats. most of my matts are home made with some gold hog mats. my latest idea is cutting drop slots 1/4 inch wide and 1/4th inch deep in conveyor matting with a router. have also tried making silicone mats and like all the hiding spots lego blocks give ( not to mention you get to play with legos. I am going to try drop slots with sluice gates in them to see if I can get more fine gold. idea from a beach sand miner in new zealand who posted a paper on his design on the internet. my sluice set up was 35 feet over all last year ran a set up of 20 or 25 feet found gold all the way down both times . when you talk about your spray bars I like staying dry and have found the best ( IMHO) is a 5/8 inch nozzel blasting up into the distruction chamber where the gravel is dumped or shoveled in. shooting acrost at an angle it swerls around and really liquifies the pay dirt. also it does not splash as much and at the very top of the chamber it tends to concentrate the biggest gold. the 5/8th stream of water shoots under thwe pay gravel and churns it and since it is crossing sometimes the material curcles around two or three times before dropping out on the grizzily and therefore it gets reqally waashed so no dirt chings to the rocks. I built my first sluice out of steel from top of a torn down brick wall ( the kind that seperateas factory areas for keeping fire from spreading to fast the brick goes abover the roofing) heavy though alumian I got from an uncle in law that makes roll cages for side b6y side off road vehicles

Ionly got as far as 10 gpm per inch of width... so 100 gpm for the most common small sluice size.

yea..NO!

 

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[Oregon Viking]

Wooden sluice? get a router!

 

[Johnnybravo300]

Tnet is full of threads just like this one. Some go on for 10 or 20 pages and by the end hes no closer to the gold. Weeks after posting guys dont even know if they have gold yet and they want to build highbanker. They always refuse to start at the beginning. I never do understand this.
A highbanker wont help you bro. You say your in a creek, get a sluice box. Learn to use a pan.
You could have been shoveling and stockpiling paydirt all this last week and your busy reinventing the wheel instead and still dont know if you have gold.

This is what burns people out the fastest in this trade imo. Dont put the cart ahead of the horse. Use your energy where you need it. Your just wasting resources at this point.

 

[Gambrinus]

big problems. I tried to make an abs punchplate. Wood will have the same issue.

It is not as hard as the material passing over and through it. The holes quickly clog with pebbles not big enough to make it they dig in.. larger material doesn't help pass it through by impact like with steel or aluminum.

That makes sense. Did you counter sink the holes on the underside of the plate for steel or aluminum? I am sure it helps with that problem but not sure if it was necessary.

 

[Goldwasher]

That makes sense. Did you counter sink the holes on the underside of the plate for steel or aluminum? I am sure it helps with that problem but not sure if it was necessary.

It does help with metal punch. though It never clogs enough for me to motivate myself to put a camber on all those hole. I looked into prefab and was not gonna pay the price. I haven't looked at metal mart in Sac. yet.

The abs punch ended up with 75% plus holes jammed with pebbles after the first test run. i don't think a camber on the underside would have changed that.

 

[N-Lionberger]

My first sluice was made of wood with block riffles, first time I tried using it became water logged and when I tried pulling it from the creek the side pulled off, I also made some wooden rocker boxes, wooden clean up sluice and a partially wood highbanker. The highbanker lived at the diggins. The cleanup sluice and my mini rocker I sealed the hell out of to prevent water logging or having fines migrate.

 

[Johnnybravo300]

There will be endless trial and error changes in your technique, time to think and rethink your strategy along the side of the creek, and even more time to be frustrated where you feel like going back to square one and reengineering your whole process. It happens to alot of guys and that is fine, even makes us better. Building your own equipment is fine eventually when you know what works.

Questioning things, checking tailings for lost gold, accidentally dumping your pay in the creek, losing the snuffer bottle, running out of beer during a camp trip, fighting bugs and dodging predators, sweat in your eyes and dripping in your pan, wondering where to start, waders leaking, all the problems that come into play before you can even get much done. That crap can and will happen to many people already.

One thing you do not want to doubt is that there is gold. All highbankers, sluices whether steel plastic or wood are not designed to catch mica and pyrite and it's not worth digging for anyway.
Identify what you have and then do some figuring on where to take it from there and dont get ahead of yourself.

It's too much work to waste energy like that and you will have plenty of time to brainstorm later. Finding gold successfully has nothing to do with guessing. It's the single most important part of the whole operation. Without that you have nada nothing but wasted time and money.
Start with the basics and you'll save yourself a lot more than money in the end. And make best friends with your shovel. That part alone runs off most wannabe diggers right there. They have enough equipment to get Todd Hoffman excited, then their shovel straight up whoops dat azz.
Always start at the beginning. Theres no shortcuts in this and dont get caught up wanting equipment you'll never need.
Build a highbanker later after you find a high bench up from the river full of gold. Until then it wont help you.

 

[Johnnybravo300]

Double

 

[GodsEarth]

There will be endless trial and error changes in your technique, time to think and rethink your strategy along the side of the creek, and even more time to be frustrated where you feel like going back to square one and reengineering your whole process. It happens to alot of guys and that is fine, even makes us better. Building your own equipment is fine eventually when you know what works.

Questioning things, checking tailings for lost gold, accidentally dumping your pay in the creek, losing the snuffer bottle, running out of beer during a camp trip, fighting bugs and dodging predators, sweat in your eyes and dripping in your pan, wondering where to start, waders leaking, all the problems that come into play before you can even get much done. That crap can and will happen to many people already.

One thing you do not want to doubt is that there is gold. All highbankers, sluices whether steel plastic or wood are not designed to catch mica and pyrite and it's not worth digging for anyway.
Identify what you have and then do some figuring on where to take it from there and dont get ahead of yourself.

It's too much work to waste energy like that and you will have plenty of time to brainstorm later. Finding gold successfully has nothing to do with guessing. It's the single most important part of the whole operation. Without that you have nada nothing but wasted time and money.
Start with the basics and you'll save yourself a lot more than money in the end. And make best friends with your shovel. That part alone runs off most wannabe diggers right there. They have enough equipment to get Todd Hoffman excited, then their shovel straight up whoops dat azz.
Always start at the beginning. Theres no shortcuts in this and dont get caught up wanting equipment you'll never need.
Build a highbanker later after you find a high bench up from the river full of gold. Until then it wont help you.

Great advice. That’s what I just came up with last night after spending a few hours researching different high banker designs and techniques, then drawing up a draft (simple draft). I think I have a great concept for a high banker but I decided It’s going to be more tedious than I originally thought so I’m going to spend a good deal of time panning in multiple locations until I find some gold before I build it.

On a side note, I did find a guy selling 16 gauge (1/16”) aluminum sheets 4’x10’ for $55 each. Is 16 gauge thick enough would you say? I’ll grab a sheet maybe two if (when) I find some gold!

 

[Goodyguy]

Great advice. That’s what I just came up with last night after spending a few hours researching different high banker designs and techniques, then drawing up a draft (simple draft). I think I have a great concept for a high banker but I decided It’s going to be more tedious than I originally thought so I’m going to spend a good deal of time panning in multiple locations until I find some gold before I build it.

On a side note, I did find a guy selling 16 gauge (1/16”) aluminum sheets 4’x10’ for $55 each. Is 16 gauge thick enough would you say? I’ll grab a sheet maybe two if (when) I find some gold!

Just make sure the aluminum is soft enough (5052) to bend. 16 gauge (.064) is fine for your needs.
Happy you took advice to get on the gold before going into production.


Wishing you full pans of Gold in 2020
GG~

 

[GodsEarth]

Just make sure the aluminum is soft enough (5052) to bend. 16 gauge (.064) is fine for your needs.
Happy you took advice to get on the gold before going into production.


Wishing you full pans of Gold in 2020
GG~

Thanks GoodyGuy. I’ll be sure to keep the updates coming. Since you’ve dealt with the fine/flour gold, have you ever used a Blue Bowl or similar? I just came across a video of one in action and thought about trying it out. Happy New Years!

 

[mikep691]

Thanks GoodyGuy. I’ll be sure to keep the updates coming. Since you’ve dealt with the fine/flour gold, have you ever used a Blue Bowl or similar? I just came across a video of one in action and thought about trying it out. Happy New Years!

If you visit my Journal, M & M Mining the Northern Sierras, on page 10 is a video of blue bowl in action. Good tool to have around.

 

[Goodyguy]

Thanks GoodyGuy. I’ll be sure to keep the updates coming. Since you’ve dealt with the fine/flour gold, have you ever used a Blue Bowl or similar? I just came across a video of one in action and thought about trying it out. Happy New Years!

Yes!
But unless you have a good amount of -50 to -100 mesh concentrates containing a fair amount of micron sized gold it's not worth the expense or effort.
Like I stated before, the gold Pan is your best friend. Become an expert with it and you will be surprised at what you can do.

The Blue Bowl is a good tool to use for recovering flour gold. To recover the flour (micron sized) gold you must have several sizes of classifying screens and run each classification through the bowl separately. You will be surprised at the amount of flour gold (-100 -150) you have to recover just to add up to a couple dollars worth. Also it will take you several hours from start to finish. A fun project for winter and bad weather days and nights.

You may also want to make a miller table, they are easy to build and do a great job of separating gold from black sand. (nothing you couldn't do with a pan) Still, classification is the key, when all particles are the same size then it's easy to separate them by specific gravity. You will find that, that principle holds true for all aspects of gold recovery although it becomes even more critical when dealing with smaller and smaller sizes of gold.


GG~

 

[KevinInColorado]

GoodyGuy has this exactly right. Just get the classifiers you’d need for the blue bowl and learn to pan. Read up on this technique here on my website https://findinggoldincolorado.com/finish-processing-your-concentrates-after-a-day-of-digging/

 

[Goodyguy]

GoodyGuy has this exactly right. Just get the classifiers you’d need for the blue bowl and learn to pan. Read up on this technique here on my website https://findinggoldincolorado.com/finish-processing-your-concentrates-after-a-day-of-digging/

Great website Kevin
Also, do you have an eBook version of your book?


Adam,

I know when you first start out it can be expensive gathering equipment. As a do it yourselfer you may want to make your own classifiers.
Here is an easy inexpensive way to do it.

Cut the top 6" to 8" section off a 5 gallon bucket and use a propane blow torch ( a heat gun may work) to melt a screen into the bottom of it then trim the screen.
Just don't over do the blow torch part (the bucket melts pretty easy)

Heat up the plastic at a medium heat and medium pace. Tug hard on the screen until it sinks down into the plastic then hold it there until it hardens and move on to the next segment.

What I like about having classifiers that are deeper than the store bought ones is that when you fill a bucket with water and then set the deep classifier down into the bucket the water comes up through the screen deep enough to make classifying easier. Plus you can classify more material at a time.

Of course using stainless steel mesh is best but anything that works will get you started on a budget. For extra fine mesh I found that a splatter screen for covering a frying pan works great, plus its made of stainless steel and it's inexpensive. Using hardware cloth is not as durable as stainless steel but will last longer if you are careful with it. You can also look for galvanized steel window screen which makes a good 1/8" classifier.



1/8" window screen.



Go for the Gold
GG~

 

[KevinInColorado]

Great website Kevin
Also, do you have an eBook version of your book?

(Section deleted for brevity)

Go for the Gold
GG~
[/COLOR]

Yes, I will PM you

Oops, seems your mailbox if full. So...

It is available in ebook format as a kindle edition via Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Gold...36a40f9f3d4e2caa6c772&creativeASIN=1719553467 ...and then just choose the kindle version

Thanks, Kevin

 

[GodsEarth]

Great website Kevin
Also, do you have an eBook version of your book?


Adam,

I know when you first start out it can be expensive gathering equipment. As a do it yourselfer you may want to make your own classifiers.
Here is an easy inexpensive way to do it.

Cut the top 6" to 8" section off a 5 gallon bucket and use a propane blow torch ( a heat gun may work) to melt a screen into the bottom of it then trim the screen.
Just don't over do the blow torch part (the bucket melts pretty easy)

Heat up the plastic at a medium heat and medium pace. Tug hard on the screen until it sinks down into the plastic then hold it there until it hardens and move on to the next segment.

What I like about having classifiers that are deeper than the store bought ones is that when you fill a bucket with water and then set the deep classifier down into the bucket the water comes up through the screen deep enough to make classifying easier. Plus you can classify more material at a time.

Of course using stainless steel mesh is best but anything that works will get you started on a budget. For extra fine mesh I found that a splatter screen for covering a frying pan works great, plus its made of stainless steel and it's inexpensive. Using hardware cloth is not as durable as stainless steel but will last longer if you are careful with it. You can also look for galvanized steel window screen which makes a good 1/8" classifier.
View attachment 1785715

View attachment 1785712
1/8" window screen.



Go for the Gold
GG~

Awesome information!! I seen some window screens at the hardware store I could use for one classifier, do you know where to get a screen for -100 classification? I’ve been out panning the creek behind my house which is known to have gold but I haven’t had any luck past maybe a scratch of gold dust. How deep should I be digging for an Ohio creek? I’ve gone about 12-16” deep so far in some spots but maybe I’m just not hitting the right spots. We had high waters recently so I’m getting ready to head out in about an hour to try my luck again.

Joining this site was the best decision I’ve made. Excellent resources, tips and advice. Thank you all.

*By the way I made a make shift Blue Bowl out of an oil pan, an oil funnel (I cut and turned upside down), a harbor freight pond pump, 3/4 hose and barbed fittings, and a rubber band around the top of the funnel. As far as I can tell it works pretty good but it’s leaving minor remnants along the bottom of the funnel in the pan. I’ve gotta work out the kinks yet. With the pump it cost around $50 total.

 

[mikep691]

Awesome information!! I seen some window screens at the hardware store I could use for one classifier, do you know where to get a screen for -100 classification? I’ve been out panning the creek behind my house which is known to have gold but I haven’t had any luck past maybe a scratch of gold dust. How deep should I be digging for an Ohio creek? I’ve gone about 12-16” deep so far in some spots but maybe I’m just not hitting the right spots. We had high waters recently so I’m getting ready to head out in about an hour to try my luck again.

Joining this site was the best decision I’ve made. Excellent resources, tips and advice. Thank you all.

*By the way I made a make shift Blue Bowl out of an oil pan, an oil funnel (I cut and turned upside down), a harbor freight pond pump, 3/4 hose and barbed fittings, and a rubber band around the top of the funnel. As far as I can tell it works pretty good but it’s leaving minor remnants along the bottom of the funnel in the pan. I’ve gotta work out the kinks yet. With the pump it cost around $50 total.

I use a standard kitchen strainer. Blue bowl was designed for -30 mesh. Anything larger won't climb the center. I wet classify my black sands through a kitchen strainer, pan the +30 material, then run the -30 in the bowl.

 

[Golddigger BigD]

I’m in Ohio as well and plan on building a stream sluice real soon. I already made a miniature one that works really well. I recovered about 25-30 colors from a couple gallons of preclassified material. What part of the state are you in? Maybe we could do some mining together in the future. You can throttle it down if it is too much flow. But it probably won’t be to much.

 

[GodsEarth]

I’m in Ohio as well and plan on building a stream sluice real soon. I already made a miniature one that works really well. I recovered about 25-30 colors from a couple gallons of preclassified material. What part of the state are you in? Maybe we could do some mining together in the future. You can throttle it down if it is too much flow. But it probably won’t be to much.

Very nice. Yeah I’ve heard a lot of good things about Clermont county and the Ohio River. I’m up north in Mansfield between Cleveland and Columbus. I wouldn’t mind teaming up and doing some mining in the future. I also put together a miniature stream sluice, very makeshift with a small corrogulated Pipe about 4 foot long. I just ran it today but I haven’t went through it yet. I want to make the bigger sluice bad but I need to make sure there’s gold first. I came across a 3.5hp gas water pump 12,000 GPH for $70 on Facebook too. Found all materials I need for around $160, even have a blueprint drawn up.