Don McElyea Basic Member Posts:131 
| 31 May 2015 12:55 PM |
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My son put this together in the shop where he works. Could be the making of a good sluice box. Need to make a spray bar, put in some carpet, expanded metal and some riffles. A pump and some hose. Also need to make some kind of stand. It can be picked up with one hand and carried as it is. The top part can be taken off. It has expanded metal in it for classifying. Any input on putting the rest together would be helpful. Thanks
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Tim Leibel Buzzard Posts:608
| 31 May 2015 01:07 PM |
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Looks like a heck of a start to me. What part of the country are you going to use it in? I know in the Southeast where I prospect we like to use mats instead of carpeting in our sluices to catch the fine gold we have here.
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Don McElyeaBasic Member Posts:131
| 31 May 2015 03:23 PM |
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I am from Oklahoma but will be running it on dirt from New Mexico and Arizona. Definitely will need some mats in it for the fine gold catching. Please feel free to point me in the right direction. I got several buckets of dirt from the Orogrande NM and the Ancho NM area. Thanks
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Don McElyeaBasic Member Posts:131
| 01 Jun 2015 07:04 AM |
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I see a 1200 gph pump with 1 inch outlet at RDH Prospecting and wonder if this will be sufficient to run the sluice box? The price is around 30 bucks. Thanks
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Don McElyeaBasic Member Posts:131
| 04 Jun 2015 09:17 AM |
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Ordered some items and received the ribbed matting and waiting on the pump. Hopefully the pump and moss will be in today so I can plumb this thing on the weekend. I have several buckets of dirt to run through it for testing. I don't know if the expanded metal I have will be enough of a ripple effect or not. We may have to build a riffle insert for this. Will post up some pics after I get it all together. Gold Fever Prospecting was my place for shopping for parts. The ribbed hose still has to be found and the outlet on the 1250 gph pump is 1 1/4. I am anxious to see and get this in operation.
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William HallBuzzard Posts:660
| 04 Jun 2015 05:17 PM |
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Depends on the size of gold you expect to see and the size of classified material you running regarding riffles.
Don't be afraid to add valves to adjust water flow, and add a hose bib to put a washout hose on, good while running and during cleanups.
Yes to the stand, unless your using as a dredge/high banker combo box.
Have fun in the field.
Bill
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Joseph LoydBuzzard Posts:553
| 04 Jun 2015 08:12 PM |
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I do not know the size of the sluice box .If it is as wide as it looks you will need more than one 1200 pump as I run two on mine and it is 10'' by 37'' .One pump will not feed it enough water.
As for as a stand I would build some brackets that bolt on to the sides and put legs on it .
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Robert DeMoss Greenhorn Posts:20
| 06 Jun 2015 09:06 AM |
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i have a 10 inch wide 20 some inch long mini high banker run off a 750 gph pump. it has ribbed matting with sheet metal accompanied by 1/8 holes. forgot the term for the metal lol. probably a brain fart. anyways i wonder if i could substitute the ribbed matting for some hog matting then put the sheet metal over that. what do you think?
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Don McElyeaBasic Member Posts:131
| 06 Jun 2015 09:20 AM |
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This one is 12 inches wide and probably 48 long. Going to put in ribbed mat, miner's moss and expanded metal. The expanded metal I have is pretty small but will try some other sizes during the testing. Expanded metal has a smooth edge and a sharp edge. I believe that the sharp edged goes downstream from what I have read.
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Robert DeMossGreenhorn Posts:20
| 06 Jun 2015 12:32 PM |
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mine is expanded metal but without that riffle effect. its more for trapping the flakes in the matting. but my question is should i try hog matting with or without the expanded metal. the pump has a low flow, so if i were to use the hog matting, it would have to be with some sort of riffle effect. i don't know, maybe i am just talking blah blah blah lol. the unit is great at capturing the fine gold. i have had my best days with it.
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Robert DeMossGreenhorn Posts:20
| 06 Jun 2015 12:33 PM |
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maybe i will take a picture and show it to you.
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Joseph LoydBuzzard Posts:553
| 06 Jun 2015 06:28 PM |
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Robert you could use down draft matting from gold hog .It works best with low flow water .The flow is what determans what mats you use .
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Joseph LoydBuzzard Posts:553
| 06 Jun 2015 06:33 PM |
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Don I would go with some differnt pumps as the one you are talking about will not give you enough water flow.Like I said I run a 10'' by 37'' box and I run two 1200 pumps and I an at the low end .And as far as the expanded I would go with 1/2'' raised .
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Don McElyeaBasic Member Posts:131
| 07 Jun 2015 08:11 AM |
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Here is a pic of the spray bar I assembled this morning. While at Home Depot I found some 1 1/4 flexible hose at around 3.50 a foot. Had the guy cut me a 10 foot piece. Afterwords I spotted a package with quite a bit of the same size hose and a couple of fittings for a whole lot cheaper so keep your eyes open when shopping. Naturally when nobody was looking I put the more expensive piece back. No glue has been applied at this time. I plan on gluing everything but the spray tubes so I can adjust when operation is running. Don't know how the pump will work with the 1 1/4 sch 40 pipe yet but we will see.
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Robert DeMossGreenhorn Posts:20
| 07 Jun 2015 10:49 AM |
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thanks joseph, i will look into that. i do have 53" sluice that i want to modify. I gave it to my friend. I was getting tired of it. It has a convex warp at the end but still works. But I want to take out the riffles and put in gold hog matting as well. I think the razorback matting would be great. I dont know if the bow at the end of the sluice will affect that matting.
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Joseph LoydBuzzard Posts:553
| 07 Jun 2015 07:03 PM |
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If at all posible do not glue all your fittings .None of mine are clued .If for some reason you get leaves and stuff in your tubes and plugg them up you will be building another set .You can glue the vale and the fittings coming out of the tee but nothing else.The two elbos and the spray bars,and the caps need to be able to be remove for plug ups.Yes you will pull trash out of the riverthat will plug it.And on your check valve try to use 1/8 in screen as it helps.Hope this all helps.been there done that.
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Don McElyeaBasic Member Posts:131
| 08 Jun 2015 05:49 AM |
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Thank you Joseph. Not gluing is a great idea. There shouldn't be that much pressure and the caps and other joints are very tight. Hopefully I will get my pump in the mail today.
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Don McElyeaBasic Member Posts:131
| 09 Jun 2015 06:22 AM |
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Ran into a little snag. The outlet on the pump is 1 1/8. The hose is 1 1/4 (maybe too big for the sluice and pump). I will need to adapt the hose to the pump somehow. PVC fittings that I saw didn't have any 1 1/8 sizes. Maybe a small piece of hose for the small end with a fitting on it to attach to the pump hose. Will have to check out our local hardware stores. I didn't think it would have been that big a deal to match the pump to a hose.
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Don McElyeaBasic Member Posts:131
| 09 Jun 2015 08:32 AM |
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I think I have a solution to the fitting. I will wrap gorilla tape around the extrusion on the pump until it fits in the hose snugly and then put a clamp on it.
Should work just fine. A little Redneck ingenuity.  |
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Nicholas LionbergerGreenhorn Posts:13
| 10 Jun 2015 04:09 PM |
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I tried doing exactly what you are doing and ran into a few snags. I have 12" by 72" sluice that I tried to rig up with bilge pumps, rigged up 2 1250 gph pumps and couldnt get enough flow to clear expanded metal. I use one to run a 6" wide sluice. If you got the same cheap black tubing with fittings from home depot that I got Im sad to say it has a ribbed interior which really robs your pumps power through friction. I understand it is a chunk of change but I highly recommend a gas powered pump for the size of box you are working with there.
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