- Joined
- Apr 21, 2015
- Messages
- 72
- Reaction score
- 43
Howdy all,
New member with little to no experience with pumps, sluices or gold and prospecting for that matter. Better late than never though, ey?
Ive only recently practiced panning over a couple of days and was lucky enough ( after reading about prospecting old river beds ) to have located a nice big old gravel bar containing - flour, fine, flakes and coarse gold. ( Forgive my ignorance if any of my terminology is off. )
So, ive decided to give it a go and see how it all pans out. I've explored all around the internet and these ideas that I've come across will be the basis for a setup.
Many thanks to ProspectingAustralia for its vast array of knowledge and information
I'm hoping to post this and get some feedback to get myself started, and then learn from my own experiences as I go and hopefully sharing them amongst the members. So some info, hints, tips, tricks, advice; input, would be greatly appreciated.
Ill be sluicing in an old dry river bed on private property. There is a lot of tiny river stones, sand and black sands, with little to no clay.
I was considering this as a setup.
Don't really have the money to throw around at the moment but are keen to get started. About $700-800 will be the budget and from what I understand its not money that you need to get the gold, its skill.
I'll be needing to recirculate water for where I am looking to sluice.
The water will have to be transfered from the small patches of water nearby into a large plastic tub and is fairly murky looking.
Here is the blueprint.
The Recirculating water:
- Input hose sitting in a submerged bucket
- The input hose will be covered in shade cloth or fly screen, followed by an old stocking over the hose input to prevent debris entering the pump. Is this safety measure a little bit of overkill?
The Pump:
Rato
1.5 input 1.5 output - 40mm
2 litre fuel tank
12.5kg
233 LPM
16 Metre maximum head
6 Metre suction head
3 HP 98cc SV engine
Pump Modifications:
- Change spark plug
- Change oil
- Add some kind of muffler?
The Hoses:
x2 - 5m layflat - 1 inch
x1 - 10m layflat - 1 inch
x1 - 5m PVC suction hose 1 inch (to join to the hopper preventing kinks)
x1 - 6 camlock connections
The Highbanker:
GS18 from Sluicy Equipment
Hopper - 130x600x240mm
Tray - 1200x250x80mm
1" water input nipple
3/4" spray bars
Highbanker Modifications:
- Make the Hopper angle adjustable
- Spray bars converted from holes into slots to cover more area and for more water volume
- Join the spray bars creating a full loop so the water hits the material 'head on' as it is sliding downwards towards the bars. Or even just have the 'head on' bar itself
- Remove the ribbed walkway carpet that comes with it
- Remove the built in Straight riffles, Angled riffles or Hungarian riffles ( which ever they are )
- Add Coarse but loose Woven Rubber matting - instead of miners moss
- Add bread crate in the center or the second half section? ( WalnLiz have sold me on this idea, just not sure how exactly to do it )
- Add Aluminum Sloped Expanded Catwalk Mesh (100x40x15) at the beggining and possibly end sections
To be honest the idea of the first run has my mind wondering. I've never used a sluice box and sure as hell have never set one up. Angles, velocity, volumes, pressure etc. I'm not sure if it'll be self explanatory or if it'll be a bust. I'd hate to lose a decent amount of quality gold due to inexperience, but it may be the only way to learn.
Some questions:
- What else should be modified for an optimum balanced performance of efficiency
- Any suggestions to modify to the spray bars on the hopper?
- Benefits of adding a ball valve?
- Keep any of the original riffles in certain areas or discarding all of them or even installing new ones?
- Will connecting a PVC suction hose to a layflat affect the water pressure?
- Two step ramp riffles worth looking into installing anywhere along the sluice?
- Would the size of my 'expanded catwalk' be dictated by how much pressure the pump is running into the sluice?
- Is there a way to muffle the water pump to reduce the sound level?
- How would you prevent air bubbles entering the pump?
- Priming the water pump?
- Is reducing the hose size to 1 inch to get increased water pressure the way to go?
- How to determine a Loose Coarse Woven Rubber Mat? How to tell if a Coarse Woven Rubber mat is too tight to efficiently release gold? There are many makes of the woven rubber mats.
- Would it be an idea to obtain little lead pellets to test the sluice before sluicing, or is this just a time waster as gold is gold and lead is lead?
I guess why I'm putting this together is to hear whether it is a 'nice' option for the money I'm willing to currently spend, or whether I should be considering spending my hard earnt on another setup combination for around the same price.
I'm thinking the first half sloped expanded catwalk. And the second half of the bread crate idea that WalnLiz use. I like different.
I said to the Mrs that I'm going to give this a try and her eyes lit up at the idea of a handful of gold. I think she thinks of it as a money maker ...let's get rich, kinda thing. I'm a realist and I look at it as whether I pull an ounce or a speck, its about getting outside with friends and the kids, giving something new a go and so either way it's a success. \o/
A quick thanks in advance to all advice, corrections, opinions and suggestions...
Cheers,
Chris
New member with little to no experience with pumps, sluices or gold and prospecting for that matter. Better late than never though, ey?
Ive only recently practiced panning over a couple of days and was lucky enough ( after reading about prospecting old river beds ) to have located a nice big old gravel bar containing - flour, fine, flakes and coarse gold. ( Forgive my ignorance if any of my terminology is off. )
So, ive decided to give it a go and see how it all pans out. I've explored all around the internet and these ideas that I've come across will be the basis for a setup.
Many thanks to ProspectingAustralia for its vast array of knowledge and information
I'm hoping to post this and get some feedback to get myself started, and then learn from my own experiences as I go and hopefully sharing them amongst the members. So some info, hints, tips, tricks, advice; input, would be greatly appreciated.
Ill be sluicing in an old dry river bed on private property. There is a lot of tiny river stones, sand and black sands, with little to no clay.
I was considering this as a setup.
Don't really have the money to throw around at the moment but are keen to get started. About $700-800 will be the budget and from what I understand its not money that you need to get the gold, its skill.
I'll be needing to recirculate water for where I am looking to sluice.
The water will have to be transfered from the small patches of water nearby into a large plastic tub and is fairly murky looking.
Here is the blueprint.
The Recirculating water:
- Input hose sitting in a submerged bucket
- The input hose will be covered in shade cloth or fly screen, followed by an old stocking over the hose input to prevent debris entering the pump. Is this safety measure a little bit of overkill?
The Pump:
Rato
1.5 input 1.5 output - 40mm
2 litre fuel tank
12.5kg
233 LPM
16 Metre maximum head
6 Metre suction head
3 HP 98cc SV engine
Pump Modifications:
- Change spark plug
- Change oil
- Add some kind of muffler?
The Hoses:
x2 - 5m layflat - 1 inch
x1 - 10m layflat - 1 inch
x1 - 5m PVC suction hose 1 inch (to join to the hopper preventing kinks)
x1 - 6 camlock connections
The Highbanker:
GS18 from Sluicy Equipment
Hopper - 130x600x240mm
Tray - 1200x250x80mm
1" water input nipple
3/4" spray bars
Highbanker Modifications:
- Make the Hopper angle adjustable
- Spray bars converted from holes into slots to cover more area and for more water volume
- Join the spray bars creating a full loop so the water hits the material 'head on' as it is sliding downwards towards the bars. Or even just have the 'head on' bar itself
- Remove the ribbed walkway carpet that comes with it
- Remove the built in Straight riffles, Angled riffles or Hungarian riffles ( which ever they are )
- Add Coarse but loose Woven Rubber matting - instead of miners moss
- Add bread crate in the center or the second half section? ( WalnLiz have sold me on this idea, just not sure how exactly to do it )
- Add Aluminum Sloped Expanded Catwalk Mesh (100x40x15) at the beggining and possibly end sections
To be honest the idea of the first run has my mind wondering. I've never used a sluice box and sure as hell have never set one up. Angles, velocity, volumes, pressure etc. I'm not sure if it'll be self explanatory or if it'll be a bust. I'd hate to lose a decent amount of quality gold due to inexperience, but it may be the only way to learn.
Some questions:
- What else should be modified for an optimum balanced performance of efficiency
- Any suggestions to modify to the spray bars on the hopper?
- Benefits of adding a ball valve?
- Keep any of the original riffles in certain areas or discarding all of them or even installing new ones?
- Will connecting a PVC suction hose to a layflat affect the water pressure?
- Two step ramp riffles worth looking into installing anywhere along the sluice?
- Would the size of my 'expanded catwalk' be dictated by how much pressure the pump is running into the sluice?
- Is there a way to muffle the water pump to reduce the sound level?
- How would you prevent air bubbles entering the pump?
- Priming the water pump?
- Is reducing the hose size to 1 inch to get increased water pressure the way to go?
- How to determine a Loose Coarse Woven Rubber Mat? How to tell if a Coarse Woven Rubber mat is too tight to efficiently release gold? There are many makes of the woven rubber mats.
- Would it be an idea to obtain little lead pellets to test the sluice before sluicing, or is this just a time waster as gold is gold and lead is lead?
I guess why I'm putting this together is to hear whether it is a 'nice' option for the money I'm willing to currently spend, or whether I should be considering spending my hard earnt on another setup combination for around the same price.
I'm thinking the first half sloped expanded catwalk. And the second half of the bread crate idea that WalnLiz use. I like different.
I said to the Mrs that I'm going to give this a try and her eyes lit up at the idea of a handful of gold. I think she thinks of it as a money maker ...let's get rich, kinda thing. I'm a realist and I look at it as whether I pull an ounce or a speck, its about getting outside with friends and the kids, giving something new a go and so either way it's a success. \o/
A quick thanks in advance to all advice, corrections, opinions and suggestions...
Cheers,
Chris