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   Pic #10 you never know what kinda Gold you find unless you go out and dig

   Here's a few pics of the classifier in the San Gabriel Mtn's. east fork river. It works but needs a slight modification to lower the whole thing farther down into the water...

   This pic shows the bigger rocks that go into the forward strainer for rinsing the Gold off...

   This pic shows the smaller rocks getting rinsed for Gold in the orange strainer...

  Here's a look in the folding sluice box, the pictures don't show it but there's Gold in there...

   Here's the Labor Day weekend's Gold...

  The homemade classifier works but it's as much work as wet classifying with a bucket & classifier. But I'll try it again after I make a couple of modifications to lower it into the river a little more. More fun next week.

so I think its a great idea, if you can set it up to run faster or less maint.. and a few thoughts I had when reading your post and looking at the pics were...

make the basket so you can empty it without flipping the whole sluice. it looks attached to me but it just might be the pics.. But a quick basket flip (after a check for nuggets)

and you are cleaned out ready for another run of material..

second I think if you could set up a way to help wash the material in the basket with out a pump it would help you go smoother..

so if you did set it lower or added a ramp mid basket to force more water to wash the material.

drill some holes in the sides of your black catch basket so it doesn't block the flow of water going to the orange basket

I think the more flow you can get through the basket the faster  it will solidify  the material and go through the sluice better.

  

just a few thoughts but I think you are on to a good idea

  Hey Travis, I really thought about your ideas & your right. So for sure I will drill those holes to get more water flowing through both baskets. This is just a fun experiment with really cheap Ikea & Dollar Store stuff. Modifications (most of the time) make experimental stuff work right.

    I think Travis is also right about having to flip the whole basket. It's a heavy problem & it should have an easier way to dump the tailings. It's a toss up between wet classifying in a bucket & my idea because it's about the same amount of work. Wet classifying and rinsing bigger rocks is what it's all about. I once saw a guy rinsing big rocks for hours, these rocks were whatever he could fit & rinse in a 5 gal. bucket. He said he got Gold doing that, but it looks like a workout.

   I'd like to build an aluminum version with a hinged basket or just channel the tailings out the sides maybe? Will see.