FYI - Modified Wal-Banker minus the expanded mesh test

[elbowgrease]

Had the new wal-banker out New Years Eve for its maiden test run out on the creek. It got nick named Leuitenant Dan (as in from the movie Forest Gump) due to the fact that at the moment it has no legs.

Had to make a bunch more holes in the spray bars to get better coverage over the grizzly bars but after getting that sorted along with the additional flow it povided I was ready to give it a test run with some material.

The interesting part is without the expanded mesh, using only bread crate and the ulitmat I had perfect results. I captured two 54 litre tubs of tailings directly out the end of the bottom box and ran it through the MacKirk "Boss" and i'd be lucky to have caught 1/8th of a teaspoon of super-ultrafine blacksand (flour sized) and zero specs of gold, not even a single spec fly poo sized, absolutely zip!

After cleaning up the mats and processing the cons once I got home the tally was 1.98g of gold in about 2 hours or run time.

I'm now considering if I bother using expanded mesh at all given the results. Wal certainly stressed the importance of leaving a good 500mm for slick plate before the matting, at a guess I'd say I must have about 650 - 700mm (because of the missing mesh) and the box seemed to work fine as it was!

Just to finish up, a bloody big thanks to Wal and a huge thumbs up for his efforts in sharing the designs of his highbanker for us all! It works a treat and I'm a converted man!

 

[richo966]

I think the mesh is for gems you can run different set up to catch just gold

 

[Guest]

I have been running with just the crate for over a year, never bothered with the mesh and i catch everything The top mesh in the walbanker is for gold and the bottom one gems, Didnt even blow out any up at beechworth and it was super fine. Cheers Balx

 

[elbowgrease]

I thought the catwalk mesh at the bottom end was for the gemstones \ sapphires, the expanded mesh at the top is run without any carpet or mats under it and works as an agitator before the material hits the mats. Either way I've got to agree with Balx that it seems to work perfectly fine without the mesh at the top end.

 

[Guest]

The mesh would grab pickers better but I have the ribbed matting the whole way so they just sit on the mat above the crate.

 

[slowflow]

got be happy with that.
Any photos?

 

[Twapster]

Ive read some of Gary Weishaupt & Chris Jacobsons " How to build and operate sluice boxes, and their indication is no mat is often better than with mat so on that basis...mat the whole way is actually detrimental......they specify fine gold is almost sucked to the aluminium, if it hits mat near the top of the box it can be washed forward easier and possibly out of the box. They specify the classifying and good liquefaction is probably most important aspect and then a decent length of "nothing" before riffles or crate etc are used.

 

[Guest]

Ive read some of Gary Weishaupt & Chris Jacobsons " How to build and operate sluice boxes, and their indication is no mat is often better than with mat so on that basis...mat the whole way is actually detrimental......they specify fine gold is almost sucked to the aluminium, if it hits mat near the top of the box it can be washed forward easier and possibly out of the box. They specify the classifying and good liquefaction is probably most important aspect and then a decent length of "nothing" before riffles or crate etc are used.

I Have a top box as well so its well classified and liquefied before it hit the bottom mat. There is so many setups that are different especially with the 2 tiered boxes compared to the one tier. Easiest way to find out what works is down at the creek, Some opinions are totally opposite to others, like some say (wal) too taper your box to keep water speed up down the bottom of the sluice to clear it out others say flair it to slow the flow and let the gold drop, the great thing about highbankers are they are super easy to modify and you can try all the setups, but for me the bread crate is a must in your box with the carpet and if you want to run riffles, mesh, hog matting whatever, still have that bread crate in there if you wanna catch all that gold. Cheers Balx

 

[Twapster]

Too true mate, I get totally confused when reading about it! I'll be trying these theories myself soon with my own home built 2 tiered beast! I made the top box extra long for the exact reason you mention.....to get a good slurry before it even touches the bottom box. I'm 100% that the bread crate is great and is in my design....however after doing some reading I feel like someone might come out and say "pack it with marbles" to get the best results and there'd be someone out there that will concur. Even reading the same persons findings there seem to be different answers for different situations.

I guess if it works, it works. Its good to have these sort of discussions to teach newbies like me all the alternatives and to come up with a set of design options that don't lose too much gold. Now back to that bread crate....im sure colour does nothing but I'm after a blue one!

 

[Guest]

Too true mate, I get totally confused when reading about it! I'll be trying these theories myself soon with my own home built 2 tiered beast! I made the top box extra long for the exact reason you mention.....to get a good slurry before it even touches the bottom box. I'm 100% that the bread crate is great and is in my design....however after doing some reading I feel like someone might come out and say "pack it with marbles" to get the best results and there'd be someone out there that will concur. Even reading the same persons findings there seem to be different answers for different situations.

I guess if it works, it works. Its good to have these sort of discussions to teach newbies like me all the alternatives and to come up with a set of design options that don't lose too much gold. Now back to that bread crate....im sure colour does nothing but I'm after a blue one!

Yeah i went orange to match the legs, hahahaha, I also cut mine so the L's are slightly longer they clear better and I have no single squares in it at all. Think i am going to add a reverse riffle to the top with no matting for the first 20-30cm as it looks like it works well on the gold hog viper clips. Also going to bang on an extension with some of their matting and put the crate up the top. Damn Mods never end, Oh and a 2 pipes on the side for my shovel and yabby pump, saves me carrying them when its on the back pack. I also added two "hangers" on the bottom side for the alice pack saves using occy straps. Cheers balx.

 

[Twapster]

No room for drink holders?

 

[Guest]

No room for drink holders?

There is now.

 

[Twapster]

The only other design im interested in is "graduated riffles"...ie large at the top and smaller and closer together as they go along. Ive not read much about this but makes sense to me.....as the water flows down the sluice it slows down so to counteract this and get action on all riffles..the ones near the bottom need to be a little lower and possible spaced closer together. I wonder if anyone has done this?

Peter

 

[richo966]

did you see the hydraulic riffles in gold rush parker was only getting garnets then used them and got his gold I wonder if there is some thing like that for high bankers

 

[Twapster]

Wow I just had a vision....highbankers in the future are nothing but water jets creating the perfect riffle, then crossflowing water washing the gold into the water riffle and keeping it stuck there. In theory its possible or have I been smoking too much this evening?

 

[WalnLiz]

I'll have some of what you're having mate You might be on to something with that great vision......

Cheers wal