Recirculating Sluice Box - Ongoing Project

I have found that I never complete a DIY Project.
I get to a stage where the item does what it was designed to do , but what happens is there always seem to be slight hiccups (Major hiccups early stages) , and the design is altered to overcome these hiccups.
This is because you won't really know whether your model performs perfectly , if at all , until you have actually got a completed model and has been put into actual practise.
There are ALWAYS little modifications that can be added to improve and streamline performance.
For those people that just want to get out there and do it , they cannot really relate and they prefer to just go and buy one and start whacking away.
I myself am never satisfied and have a lot of trouble accepting that second best is usually good enough.
I'm not big into looking pretty , but I do prefer equipment that does the job that I want it to do , and am REALLY BIG into getting it for as cheap as possible.The biggest saving is on labour which I have plenty of FREE time to mess about , and I actually love messing about than actually shovelling cubic metres of material out of a creek bed.
Anyway , I am not a writer so this thread may not read well and most likely be all over the place , but I attempt to share my knowledge of having travelled the path of building a useful recirculating sluice box.
I shall post a little bit at a time as I said ,I am not a writer , but would love some sort of interaction from anyone interested or even anyone who is Uninterested so I can learn whether I am failing in some way that I can alter.
Well that's it for now.
I am writing this in real time and wish to avoid losing all my work should my Computer choose to die or whatever.
Next post will be a background as to why I started the project.

My elder son purchased one of those Garrett Gold Pan kits for around $80 and I felt obliged to give him the opportunity to participate in the hobby , as he doesn't drive and would have been limitted to pushbiking it from the nearest railway station out to a panning area.
Anyway , after the first outing to Malmsbury , which was unproductive, I took him out to Steiglitz , and after most of the day spent unproductive , he finds the tiniest flake of gold in the pan.
I was so happy for him , and so envious that I blurted out "You ------ dirty ----"
Needless to say that further panning revealed nothing else , but that single tiny flake was the hook that got me started in investing my own time towards panning rather than just to assist my son.
The next trips were almost always to Slaty Creek in Creswick , which was pointed out to me via this very Forum some 2 or 3 years ago ( may have been more , my memory shocking)
Also , since that first flake my son buys himself a river sluice.
So anyways, we got a flake or two and some tiny specks , but it was a day out and the enjoyment my son was getting made it worth my while even though I am old and my body is busted and not happy with all the bending of the ol' back.
But then summer came and the creek stopped flowing and by this time the bug had got me and the thing I noticed is that with zero flow there was much more of the creek bed available to work so I read up on recirculating sluices to see what I could come up with.
I was also interested in trying places that actually had zero water , because I figured there may be plenty of gold about as nobody hardly would have been there.
So next post I start with the knowledge I procured , but not in a timeline fashion , but in a haphazard way , just to mention a few things that any diy peeps may not have considered.
I guess I best post a photo of my project because members may be hanging out to see what it looks like so best I go set it up in my backyard and try take a photo - back later.

I post these poor quality pictures using my poor quality phone camera and my poor quality knowledge of how to use it.

The thing that may not occur in your mind immediately , is that when using a recycled water system , the water gets contaminated by the introduced material.
And if that material contains wood or grass , then this material can foul the pump so this situation needs to be addressed.
If the material contains clay particles and dirt , which it pretty much will unless you are perhaps working at a beach , then the water gets dirty very quickly , which of itself is not really an issue.
But the more clay introduced the more clay will be absorbed by the water and some sort of settling method needs to be introduced to allow the clay to settle due to gravity and prevent the water from turning into gravy type viscosity , which the mat in the sluice would not appreciate.Gold will not get trapped
There are a number of ways to tackle this including having a large reservoir of water which takes longer to foul.
Settling ponds are what the Big Boys use many DIY peeps use a second or 3rd tub to allow for this method.
My setup involved carting my own water to the site and meant physically transporting it by hand and I wanted as mimimum amount of water as possible.
Having the output of my sluice feeding directly into my only tub , causes a lot of turbidity and means any clay already in the system constantly gets reagitated into the circuit , and no opportunity to settle unless the tub is very large.
My tub is currently 36 litres I think , but I only fill it half way so am operating with about 20 litres or so.
What I did to stop the water continuing to splash into the residual clay was to put a tub within a tub within my reservoir tub
So for instance I could be using a 2 litre ice cream container inside a 4 litre one and hove that underneath my sluice box output.
So all the fresh tailings splashes about the 2 litre tub and overflows into the 4 litre one with zero splashing ocurring.Only clay permeated within the water flows over , and the same with whatever is in the 4 litre overflows into my main reservoir tub.
I actually use sturdier tubs but ice cream containers would work.
What happens at the end of the day a thick sludge of mud accumulates at the bottom of the reservoir tub , but it does not participate any more with the recycling process.
The 12 volt electric pump also sits in an ice cream tub to stop it sitting on the bottom of the reservoir tub and prevent clay clogging its intake.This also help stop grass and leaves getting in the way of it as well.
When I sort a way of getting video to happen I will post if anyone is interested.

The important thing to realize when using minimum water is to lose as little as possible. Run out of water for whatever reason and either your day is done or more work needed replenishing the missing amount.And its not when you lose nearly all your water , its when you lose enough water to stop your system working , which in my case is only a litre or less.So with my equipment and how it works , I need to do a cleanup extremely often.But for me that is not an issue as I get zero satisfaction shovelling all day and then doing a Huge cleanup.
I get my kicks out of seeing what I got in the same way as peeps that only do panning.Basically my system is more an alternative to panning.Easier and quicker but just as much pleasure.
The reason I need to clean up often is related the the fact that my tailing fill up the first tub , and I do not want them overflowing and filling the second tub and then the main tub.In that instance the while system needs to be cleaned and there goes all your water and your day.
I classify my material from the creek bed down to over an inch because that is the size mesh I found.When I find some good mesh an inch square that will be perfect.
I probable collect about 8 litres of material before each cleanup.Of this 8 litres maybe 3 litres passes through my trommel , and the rest comes back out of the trommel.
I shall explain how the trommel works later. This 3 out of 8 ratio depends of course on the sample.Also , my trommel mesh is a diamond pattern at about 3/16ths and if there is a nugget that size or larger it gets spit out to be lost but where I go to Slaty Creek there are none remotely that size so its not an issue.
Because my larger tailings come out the front of the trommel , as does a significant amount of water , I need to catch these to conserve water.
I have a 1/4 classifier sitting over a large metal casserole dish when I finish my 8 litre sample I throw out what has accumulated in the classifer and pour out water in the dish back into my system.
The material in the dish I throw away or put in a basin depending how badly I need to conserve water.
Many times Slaty Creek has got pools of water or has water below the surface that flows up when you dig a hole meaning you don't need to be as miserly with the water situation.
Best I stop posting until I at least get some video up to allow readers to picture what my project does and a better feel of the size of the system and the speed of operation.

Love the design. Youve got me thinking about building one now. A question for you guys high banking from the creek isn't allowed but recirculating your water is ok.
Could you set-up next to a creek and fill your tubs with a pump then recirculate the water until finished or you need to replenish. Or is this outlawed as youll be disposing of your dirty water near the creek.(i say near, as i wouldnt dump it so it ran back in).
Cheers justin

Hi crustydog.
My son has just worked out how the goPro is set up so I can make a tape of the machine in action.
The battery was flat from him taping last Thursday.
Perhaps some time tomorrow I can make a video of how the unit pieces all fit together and of it running with me feeding it.

I am in Victoria and there is no issue with highBankers where I go to Slaty Creek.
I would think if you brought everything including water from your home and set up on the bank and simply shovelled material into your set up , and returned it back into the hole uncovered when you are ready to leave then surely that would comply with any statutes that panning would comply with.

Of course I have zero authority on legalities - I have been panning as a pirate for some time now because even the $20 per year fear was a burden for me.But the $24 for 10 years is just fine and dandy.

Here is my Youtube channel where I chucked up some really rough practise videos basically to get things started.
Once I get comfortable i shall delete them and put up some useful stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClJt4vhPHyleid9YvU0o7xQ?view_as=subscriber

Here's a clip of the machine running , being fed by my son at Slaty Creek last Thursday.
I didn't realize he even taped it.
Sorry to say there is little comical content , but for the wannabee engineers it should be somewhat entertaining

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgN7SiPR1So&t=4s

Looks good

I'm gonna start chucking up some tapes on You Tube and see if I can make a folder containing these tapes , each of which will be 5 minutes long.
There won't be no fancy nancy editting , just a Live Performance recorded and Uploaded.

Hopefully it will show enough how I made my recirculating sluice , and enough information for anyone else that can gather similar bits and pieces to make their own should they wish.

Ill be chucking up tapes as I feel up to it , so tune in regularly to the Channel if you are interested.

Here's the starter tape https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRsdhCjs6gQ&feature=youtu.be