Home Build Sluice

Well its time to step it up a notch..

Bought some aluminium sheet 1300 x 440 and some other of cuts for a about $20.00 had the sheet cut into two pieces and folded.. one length is at 550 the other is at 750, the 550 has a 235 tray, the 750 has a 240 tray.. one will fold into the other for future highbanker or as a small sluice..

Found a few bits and pieces laying around the garage and took the grinder to them and come up with the following..



From left to right there is about 200 of slicker plate, then 100 of 3mm mesh as a riser plate then about 200 of walkway then about 300 of low profile expanded mesh (3 - 4 mm in height about 10mm hole.

My Dilema, do i replace the riser plate with some smooth sheet?
Do i get rid of the 3mm mesh under the walkway?

Do I get rid of the walkway and use the low profile mesh?

I have "Bunnings Blue Miners Moss" under the mesh area.

I will be using some 20x 20 angle to hold the bits in place..

Any pointers?
Detail pics





I hope to have this operational tomorrow..


Regards, Tone

Just sent you a PM Tone, The smaller expanded needs to be about twice the size to get the miners moss to work efficiently without clogging...Talk to you via the PM mate. Box is looking great. Cheers Wal.

Are you adding a flare to the back end mate ???....cheers Wal,

Hi Tone,

Looking good mate. I'd probably get rid of the 3mm stuff under the walk way you want to give the gold a good chance to get stuck in the matting.
I attached a couple of pics of one I built last year, I use rubber out door matting cut into sections to make riffles, flat aluminum bar and some bolts.
Hope you catch some yellow mate

Cheers

Col

Cool looking sluice Col, is that purlin? way to recycle.. I was thinking about the 3mm mesh, that is going.. it will clog up I think.. I will do a bit of experimentation, have a few differing opinions so I will try out all theories. Not sure how much water flow will be where I am going.. Might even be dry Will update upon my return. Thanks for the feedback Wal and Col

Edit. Update

I have completed the sluice, I have made a frame for the top out of some angle and some strapping I found. I have cut some small blocks of wood to jam into the sides to hold down the mesh screens, best I could come up with that did not involve drilling the body, there is a little gap in the middle of the mesh, I will have to sort that out another time.

Enjoy.

Frame and handle..



Detail of blocks jambed in to hold mesh down..



Now to get it in the river and see what happens!!

Ok went out to a new place today, lots of rocks, rocks rocks and more rocks, what size, well from car sized boulders to grapefruit sized. all interspersed and mixed up, no fun digging in thats for sure.

Unfortunately there was not enough flow between the placid rock pools to get the sluice working properly, I think there was maybe half an inch of water running through it. Despite measures to dam and concentrate the flow...

Looks like this will be tested in a local stream that I know contains gold bearing gravels!

G'day Tone,

Box is looking like it will have no problems trapping the gold. Sorry to hear that there wasn't enough flow to get it working for you.

If you like, you can put a small hopper box at the top end made out of a normal 20 litre plastic drum.

Cut the top out and a slot at the bottom full width of the drum and about 20 mm high. Set this up on the bank somewhere close to where your digging. Sieve your material with a 1/4 inch sieve and feed it half bucket at a time into the hopper. Pour a full 20 litre bucket of water into the hopper after each half bucket of material.

We do this with our modified sluice "pictured below" in areas where there is little water. Hope this helps mate when you're working around non flowing streams.....Cheers, Wal

Your an ideas man Wal! I know what will be next out of my garage! Now to find quater inch sieve screen!

Give it a go Tone. My sampling box is no bigger than the one you have, and with the plastic hopper only weighs one kilo. I strap this to my back and wander the hills with it, looking for new hi-banking locations in semi dry creeks where nobody gets to. Can process more than most would think possible. Cheers mate.

Easy to get on a trail bike with that one too Wal, would be perfect.

Don't tell everybody though Heatho....should be keeping some things under the belt...lol Cheers Wal.

Its all out now???

Nice little project there Tone..are you suffering like me in that anywhere I go now, any bit of junk I see laying
Around I'm thinking of how I could use it to find gold.lol

Cheers rude

Never a truer word has been spoken... I have all kinds of stuff sitting in my garage waiting to be turned into something, much to Niss's disdain !

time to go and pan out some gold from my collection of buckets of dirt!!