River / Stream Sluices - advice, information and questions

[G0lddigg@]

will depend massivly on the material mate, if its nice and clean river rocks just classify into a pan and dump your pan into the sluice or classify into a bucket then load a bucket or two. really depends on the sluice. ive got 4 sluices they are all different

 

[nucopia]

Thanks Gollddigg
Just trying to imagine what things I need. I.e bucket seives etc then the step by step process from taking the dirt out of the ground and on to the sluice.
Both Ophir and Nundle have pretty fine sandy soils, so maybe the best way to do it is just put the dirt through a sieve into a bucket and use a small spade to shovel the classafied material onto the sluice.
Im leaning towards getting a sluicey gold sluice for $90 from their website.
Our next trip to Ophir is probably in a couple of weeks time.

 

[jamie]

when i do use my river sluice i classify into a few buckets then sit nice, quite and relaxed feeding the sluice, sometimes even with a really cold beer in hand, i know it sounds like a lot of hard work but well worth it imo

 

[blisters]

Step by step this is how I do it. I use a 20l bucket with a deep sieve that fits snugly in to the top and fill with water. This would be my final classification size e.g 1/4 for the grubstake. I have a Garrett 1/2 inch on top and classify the bigs in to the deep sieve. Because the deep sieve pretty well seals against the bucket I only need to occasionally add a bit of water to it. As the deep sieve fills I run my hands through it to reduce the quantity then sieve the rest. 10l buckets are easier to carry around so I collect the dirt in a couple of those, classify and pour back into the 10l and scoop through the sluice. With a larger sluice you wouldn't need to classify down to 1/4.
Jon

 

[G0lddigg@]

i agree cant go wrong with a bucket and a few sieves, basically nucopia you fill your bucket with water throw in the green 1/2" sieve and rest a 1/4 on top of that if you know the gold is 99% fine. i keep my eye out for skips on hotels large properties where they are doing gyprock work as they ten to throw out 100+ buckets that are weighted to hold 15kgs 5 of those stand up inside my car no problem and 5 buckets is a good amount to run through any sluice.

if its really fine gold all you need is a piece of tube or square channel and some vribb matting laying dowm. it exchanges well and hold the fines

 

[nucopia]

Thanks guys I have about 8 pcs of 20 ltr buckets here at home , only problem is the seives I have are to big to fit in side the rim of the buckets so will have to play around and see how to get around it.
Maybe look for bigger buckets lol :lol:

 

[Ag Man]

I have an Angus MacKirk Explorer sluice.

Also have a small regular, riffles over expanded mesh over carpet sluice but prefer the MacKirk.

Very happy with it. Can move a lot more material with it.
Adapts fairly good to the water flow available.
Usually classify with a bucket sieve with 1/2" square mesh.
If water flow is slower I'll go to 1/4".

if I had to classify smaller than that, then it'll be quicker to pan.

 

[Goldtarget]

+1 for agmans comments. Hard to beat the Angus McKirk range for lightweight easy to use and great (especially 2nd gen) recovery. They done up as a pretty handy highbanker sluice box if you are short of flowing water, just need a little ingenuity to make it happen, once used a boss as a Highbanker bottom with bigbryza an old forum member here out in the creeks it was an awesome conversion, look through his threads to see a great example of what can be built.

 

[blisters]

Big bryza build here:

https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=5023

Jon

 

[limpalot]

I built this sluice with a drop floor; the riffle area is 20 mm lower than the sorting area. The material flows into the riffle area and gravity makes it drop down onto the mat, Bunnings miners moss, the riffles are added to the steel mesh at the same height as the sorting area. 90% of the colour is in the first 100mm of the riffle area. I split the mat in half to see how it is processing things. This works on low flow and up to 50 mm flows. I have narrowed the riffle area to get a better water flow in streams with little to no fall. I classify all material in the sieve, water just hits the bottom of the sieve or I have 1/2 a 4 lt container to scoop water over the sieve.The riffles are sealed with stikaflex so the material has to go up and over . Have a bigger sluice I made first that is now my Highbanker.
I have had a lot of enjoyment from making and testing these out, hope this helps.
Cheers LL

 

[nucopia]

Thanks for all the ideas guys really appreciate it !
Bit the bullet today and ordered a sluicey sluice from central west prospecting $90 +19 postage
Should arrive before our next trip to Ophir in a few weeks.

 

[Brumble-Gum]

Bazooka gold sluice for me, I can shovel all day without classifying. Big rocks over the top and out the back, gold drops into the trap. It catches fine flour gold and flakes that my Walbanker gets it just uses less water and is quiter. Doesn't break clay up though.
Expensive but worth every cent.

 

[Brumble-Gum]

Bazooka gold sluice for me, I can shovel all day without classifying. Big rocks over the top and out the back, gold drops into the trap. It catches fine flour gold and flakes that my Walbanker gets it just uses less water and is quiter. Doesn't break clay up though.
Expensive but worth every cent.

 

[DigginForGold]

Definately get a sluice mate. I only went panning once before I got my sluice haha So I think you're ready. Plenty of good advice already in this thread so I'll spare you any of that. I personally would recommend any of the smaller Angus McKirk range of sluices. They work amazingly well, are easy to set up and it doesn't get any easier to clean...perfect for someone new. I've got the AM Grubstake sluice and it doesn't need a heap of water to run as its a smaller sluice, but still much faster and much nicer than panning. Hope that helps. Good luck.

 

[Bigdog87]

Pain, did have 2 good informative youtube links for you but haven't made 10 posts yet so cant post the direct links yet. if you search "how to river sluice" the most informative are the "ask jeff Williams" and the "howtodrillawell". They should be the first 2 videos that come up. both have the same concept but both have different techniques. worth a watch.

 

[Parko]

Got a photo of the homemade box Eldorado? Looks like all the info needed has been said already

River sluices are a bit time consuming having to manual sieve. I'd probably end up putting a wooden shaker at the head with a handle for painless classifying straight into the sluice. A handle which would hinge the bigger rocks off to the side too.

That walbanker main screen they use ( elec wire shelving? ) would be great on a river sluuce as long as it didn't stop the vortex action of the riffles. You would be able to simply shovel rock straight onto the river sluice and rake the roaks off

Hopefully before long you get a pump so you can begin some h.banking or easier digging mate

https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/img/member-images/5682/1454063474_217.jpg
Here is the homemade sluice I knocked up, not much but couldn't afford to buy one. Seems to be catching gold though.If I think I can make something I will have a go at it. Going to get another bread crate and redo the configuration of cutouts. It has the Bunnings mat under the crate. Not really happy with the expanded mesh either its gal steel,sloped but has gaps under it at the feeder end.

Try making a flanged plate for the feeder end so that you material drops onto the riffles when you feed it. Pack some matting under the plate to bring it up to height, flange hangs over the lip of the sluice and water pressure holds it in place. Should improve your capture rate.

 

[Eldorado]

Not quite sure what you mean by a flanged plate Parko.I appreciate the feedback though.

 

[G0lddigg@]

flanged, punch plate, perforated assume he means something to classify early on ??

 

[nucopia]

Gday guys
Bought my self a sluicy river sluice from CWP Mudgee a few weeks back and took it out to Nundle last weeknd for a test run.

Had good water flow in the creek , but I had no idea how to set it up correctly. So the results were a mixed bag. My wife was was panning from the same hole and getting colour in each of her pans, so I know there was gold in the dirt I ran theough the sluice. i just was not catching much of it.
Can any one give me some tips on what I need to do to get it working/set up properly.
Heading out to Nundle again this weeknd and I want to see if I can improve the results from the last trip.
Cheers

 

[G0lddigg@]

hey mate 7-9 degrees of fall is a good starting point, use a phone app with a clinometer if you need to after a while you can eye ball it. there's a few things i could say about expanded metal under riffles but thats open conjecture. alot of people are very happy with what they catch. be honest running straight expanded will get you more gold and be more user friendly and will keep the big rocks moving with less water needed ot move them so there's that.

basically you want to start with angle then adjust water volume by adding in rocks to create a wing dam. if you cant get enough flow you need more drop/angle.

here's a pretty shaky video that explains and shows how i set-up a sluice and then had to make adjustments due to too much water not enough drop and downward pressure. hope it helps.

one more tip, i use a rule of thumb of i want a bit of quartz to take at least 10-30 seconds to travel out of the sluice a bigger bit that is.
[video=480,360]https://youtu.be/p_P0jXR3tp8[/video]