River sluice - Do you classify material or just shovel it in ?

[Golden Tiger]

Hey all
I'm looking for the advice on using my new river sluice.

Do you shovel the material in removing larger rocks by hand or do you classify it?

And if classifying it what size do you classify it to?

Cheers GT

 

[XIV]

That all depends on the size and water flow.
Most of the time rocks less than 50mm will flow down.
Bigger will block it up.
Less water flow the smaller you need to classify it down.
Most of the time you shouldn't need to classify it down any more than 1" (25mm)

Hint* if it flows easy. It's not to big.

 

[Nugget]

I classify down to 1/2" for the Angus MacKirk Grub Steak and EZ-Sluice, these are both small Sluice's though so anything over 1/2-1" is too big. As mentioned above it depends on the size of the Sluice and water flow.

 

[slowflow]

Down to 1/2" it is the largest sieve I have. lots of work.
The highbanker, just shovel which is good for us lazy people.

 

[Golden Tiger]

I'm waiting to hear back from Wal about purchasing a highbanker off him. I'm getting tired of the classifying and panning, plus the days takings are minimal. Constantly, I read on this forum people are taking 1+ grams of gold in a day trip, I've been panning for 2 and a half years and have just hit 4 grams. 8.( Maybe im doing something wrong but I dont think so.

 

[XIV]

what areas are you going to mate (just general)don't want exactly where
i use a yabbie pump straight into my sluice with no problems
ran it the same way over the weekend with someone elses Angus with only the odd rock staying put, so i just toss them out
it ran fine that way
young Dean was happy to see gold in his sluice after a clean out

as for 1gm a day it really depends where you are and where you dig
*same creek- i have picked a spot that i think looks really good to find .1gm for 6-8 hrs of digging
other spots i can get over 1gm for the same amount of dirt, sometimes its where you dig that is wrong
(even if you think you know where it SHOULD be)

 

[Golden Tiger]

Traditionally I will go to Warrandyte and I know it has been hammered over the years but its 15 min from my work to its the most convenient place for me. Other places I go are normally day trips such as Beechworth, Eldorado, Creswick, Ballarat and Castlemaine.

 

[shannon]

i use a high banker just cause its easier. classifies for you

 

[XIV]

Pm me and I'll show you a spot near warrandyte
I only live 10 min away from there.

 

[navieko]

Generally I classify down to 1/2" but there are cases where I just wanna quickly test a larger amount of material without too much effort and time wasted (couldn't be bothered classifying & panning it all), so I just fill up a bucket with unclassified material and then feed it into the little sluice with my hands, washing off and discarding the bigger rocks as I go. every now and then a bigger rock slips through, just quickly throw it out and continue. With enough water flow and the right angle, I can get through the bucket in about 2 minutes... and then pan the cons. You might have lost a small percentage of small yellows doing it this way, but the good majority of it will still remain - keeping in mind that this is just what I do for testing a larger amount of material quickly and without much effort.

If the test proves worth it, then you should definitely take the time and effort to classify and do it properly. For use with a river sluice I'd recommend making yourself a bucket seive if you haven't already - makes life a lot easier! Ag Man wrote a nice little how-to for making one in the DIY Projects section. Here's the link. https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=541

 

[Ag Man]

I generally use a bucket sieve to classify. It's quick & you can process much more volume than a regular sieve.
Mine is about 1/2" mesh & -I'm happy enough with it.

 

[Golden Tiger]

I generally use a bucket sieve to classify. It's quick & you can process much more volume than a regular sieve.
Mine is about 1/2" mesh & -I'm happy enough with it.

Hey AGman

I just finished reading your post on making your own bucket sieve. Navieko just posted a link to it. I think I'm going to make one tomorrow.
Thanks for sharing.

 

[G0lddigg@]

it really depends on your sluice, waterflow, how often you want to clean-out and what type of gold you have in the area.
Personally I use a bucket sieve when I'm sluicing, I take my little backpack sluice stand it up in the buckets I find it all fits together nicely. I used to use the Garrett 1/2 " classifier which thins at the base so it will sit inside just about any bucket problem with that is its plastic and floats needless to say i lost it one evening.

If just want to classify more material faster then the bunnings dirt sifter and the Garrett super sluice might be the go, you can classify plenty of material with this setup, you will break these screens time and time again but for $5 who cares. I will say this thought, if your in a iron rich area that get those little flat bits of gold stuck in the iron you cant pass up the metal sieves they break up material better than another.

 

[Philski]

I used to prefer to shove straight in and use the large rocks to help trap gold. But, frankly its destructive.
a 1/2 inch is smaller than the nuggets, so is one inch. So cant afford to classify too small.
I now use a grizzle 3 inch x 2inch screen to remove large rocks to roll straight back into the last patch i have worked out, and hand sort out smaller 50mm rocks in the sluice and backfill the last paddock then top with the next paddocks (6 feet x 6 feet or so of topsoil. i also use a tailings dam (below the first drop off, i i have one available) to trap the pebbles and a good deal of the silts from entering the stream.

hope that helps

Kindest Regards
Phillip

 

[Marked]

...1/2 inch is smaller than the nuggets, so is one inch. ... i also use a tailings dam ...

Sounds like you are talking a whole different scale to the OP...

 

[elbowgrease]

As with a couple of the posts above me, classifying depends on ideal flow \ angle \ depth.

I run a Mackirk "Boss" and I find that if I've got it setup in ideal conditions I can sluice without any classifying at all, other than picking out the obvious "too large" fist size or bigger stuff. But generally where I'm digging there isn't much that sized anyway. 1", 2" even bigger I just shovel through and it doesn't give me grief so long as it doesn't get stuck. I've found so long as the material is moving as it passes the riffles I don't get any blowout.

I've found I get the best results when I'm running my sluice with nearly max depth of water so about 3" inches going through it, the flip side is you I can't just have a raging torrent going through it to achieve that depth, it needs to be smooth even flowing water.

If I can't get the right depth through the sluice, or similarly the right water speed \ angle, I will usually classify down to 1/4" (only because I've never got around to getting myself a 1/2") as the sluice won't handle the bigger stuff and doesn't clear as well with less water through it.

Cheers
Adam

 

[Billy]

G'Day all, I made this one out of a aircon duct, a bit of aviary type mesh and a few bolts/nuts and washers. Oh and a cupla beers
Found it fits nicely onto a rectangle tub I have and is easy to shovel out of once the tub is full. Works for me.

Cheers Billy.

 

[TenOunce Tone]

Great Build there Billy

 

[joe]

Nice build Billy
Here is something I've knocked up together

 

[backcreek]

I have been classifying creviced material with a 1/2" home made bucket classifier before I run it through my "Stealthbanker" mainly because I'm running off batteries and a submersible pump and need to put a whole lot through in a short amount of time to preserve the battery life.
Here it is running in my spa.

[video=480,360]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOljxwA2BRs[/video]

All this takes a bunch of time especially the classifying so to speed up the process I have been doing some research, remember "Youtube is your friend" and came up with this.

[video=480,360]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7yJ6k_6pJs[/video]

I'm building one at the moment with a couple of mods to make it more stable and to allow it to be used wet or dry.
Ill post the results when finished in a few weeks.

Cheers
Mick