Making a homemade sluice, not sure how I want to build the ripple section.

Made a small sluice, will work in a tub with recirculating water. Seen several examples on line.

The part the ripples are made of is where the confusion starts. Some just use a plastic black mat with horizontal lines, others use expanded metal only on top of a rug, and yet some use a combination of the two plus minors grass on the bottom for fine gold. I almost forgot to mention L-channel.

I will be bringing placer gold samples to concentrate down for panning.

I would like a comment on a working sluice, homeade or store bought that works. Why you think it works better. What medium makes it work.

My next project may be a boilerbox type. But for now I want to keep it simple to locate possible gold sites. I find owning and working a claim would be neat.

I used wood. May line it with ductwork.

Thanks





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Thats great Bushwacker. I will let you know how it works outs. We actually are getting a windstorm and possible snow this weekend, so may not be able to try it this weekend.

I can buy or make a set of classifiers, thats no problem, I used expanded metal in the bottom of a coffee can right now. I Know you have to move dirt buy the yard, so that may not be feasable. Im just getting my hands dirty at this.

The expanded metal over astroturf is the info I needed. Maybe a piece of rubber mat the first few inches. I can always add l channel later if I dont like the results. I may have to play with the expanded metal hole size. I have a garden hose and can reduce the intake to create all the pressure I want. But I may take this out with me into the desert or mountains, and Ill have to port water, I have a 55 gallon drum for that.

Ill post a picture when its done and working. Thanks, I owe you one.

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I look forward to the pic, if I can see it I can build it. Had carpet in the shed, and the neibor just threw some out also, gonna have enough to play with.

When you post your pic, if your have it ready, jot some measurements down also. Im not above buying a storebought, but its a personal thing to duplicate what I see on here. After seeing the set ups, the mechanics is easy. Knowing what height to set the sluice and how much water is also something I havent learned.

I dont have wet clay to deal with, its dry here most of the year. But may set up a crusher for rocks, and run my screened material through a piece of ribbed black pvc pipe into the sluice.

The burlap is a good idea, but all material will end up in a large tub and run through several times.

I seen one design that catches most of the gold up top. Pretty sure I can duplicate that. Not with my first build.

You are correct that I will need something I can pack in.

Lacking any real tools, torches, rivit guns, and metal brakes, Im making do and learning the basics. I have been very lucky to have fab shop and maching experienced. Im pretty good with just a hammer and steel and eyeballing things.

My little wonder is all scrap wood and materials, just like the old miners would use.

I may try to get some expertise from the old hands here on how to step down my 18 volt batterys into 12 volts for portable pumps. It may pay me to hook up a small inverter, with these batterys, to run a small 120 shopvac.

Im also seeing dry sluices using shop vacs, well, I dont understand how they work. Gonna need to get up close and personal with one of them. Thats totally different from grabbing samples out of crevices and breaking open boulders.

Thats the cart before the horse. One step at a time. Need to find a place I can mine first. By spring I need to be at least proficient in the basics and be able to keep what Im finding.

Ty for the help.

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Expanded metal serves it purpose, but not for your primary riffle. You WILL catch gold with that method, however the idea behind good riffles is that "The nuggets take care of themselves... it's the fine stuff you need to worry about". That being said, the fines are your "bread and butter"... the nuggets are your filet minon, so you need to take special care to lose as little fines as possible. True hungarian riffles are not difficult to build, so to leave them out would be detrimental and a waste of your time. Now, there are always exceptions... if you are building a beach box where all of your gold will be super fine AND your material is basically pre-classified down to grains by nature AND you are using low water flow with perfect laminar then expanded metal would work well and in some cases be over kill. I don't mean to confuse you, there is a lot to learn so just stick to the basics. A simple sluice is a great start, but do you know how to pan? If not watch videos on youtube and get some practice in.

Cheers

Sean

Posted on: December 29, 2010, 00:10:55

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Here are some pictures of my favorite sluice. I also have a huge sluice that is killer but take a tremendous amount of current to keep clear. The sluice itself is 24" by 6.25". I tried to take a lot of good pics so you can get ideas on how to make it function.



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Just play around with it. You will get the hang of it and each person performs the task at hand differently. What works for me may or may not work for you. Experience is your best friend for this.

Good Luck,

Sean

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