What angle should my sluice box be?
between 5 – 7 degrees
When setting up a sluice the proper angle must be observed. It’s usually between 5 – 7 degrees of slope and should allow most round rocks and pebbles to pass through easily. You don’t want the material zipping through but rather kind of tumbling through slowly.
What can you use instead of miners Moss?
Natural Fibers While burlap serves as perhaps the most affordable and time-tested miner’s moss alternative, coir – a natural and biodegradable weave made of coconut fibers – presents a modern, eco-friendly alternative. Check your local garden store for coir mats, often used in hyrdoponic gardening.
How do you size a sluice box?
To run fines on as little as 18 gpm, you should start off with a sluice box no narrower than 8” and no wider than 10”. As for length, maybe something in the 6′ to 8′ range. However, you won’t be able to effectively process a ton per hour of 150 mesh material and maintain a high rate of recovery.
How much water is in a sluice box?
Each sluice and setup is a bit different. the general rule of thumb is 1 inch per foot and a deep V water flow at the head of the box.
Is Miners Moss any good?
Miners Moss is a good choice for stream sluices. It will help catch the gold and let the larger waster material run over the top and out of the box. It’s also great for collecting super fine gold.
What is Highbanking?
A highbanker is essentially a modern sluice box that is set up above streams or creeks and uses a water pump to pull the water up into the box so that a proper sluicing operation can take place.
Where is Dan Hurd from?
Kelowna
Hurd, a Kelowna native and teacher at Mount Boucherie Secondary School, runs a gold prospecting-centric YouTube channel that’s amassed more than 60,000 subscribers. He’s one of the leading voices in the online gold prospecting genre.
What makes a good gold sluice box design?
The riffles are the most critical part of any sluice box design, because they are what actually captures and retains the gold. For easy cleanup, you want the riffles to be easily removed, so that the heavy concentrates can be cleaned out of the box when you are done prospecting for the day.
What is a sluice box used for in mining?
A sluice box is one of the oldest simple machines used by gold prospectors. It is a “separator device” that breaks layers of river sediments until gold is separated from all other materials. The box is non-moving and simply uses gravity and the flow of water. As water moves through the sluice box, rocks, small, objects, sand,…
How big of a sluice do I need for placer gold?
If it is designed properly you should be capturing most placer gold within the first few riffles of the sluice box, and certainly no more than 3 feet long. A sluice that is approximately 3 feet long, 12” wide, and 6” tall is a good general size that will work for nearly all situations.
How big does a sluice box need to be?
If you are looking for a simple hand fed sluice box then it does not need to be particularly large. Old sluice boxes were often longer than 5 feet long with walls that exceeded 12 inches in height. It really isn’t necessary to make a sluice box this large.