Wayne,

I would run a test at home with black sand and the cube. My understanding is that Mike Pung and Red created the Cube for prospecting the black sands along Lake Superior, so, it should be tailor made to that use!

I have had zero issues with running a 3 or 4 stack in heavily mineral dirt/sand in GA.

Brad,

Thanks.  This stuff is all extremely small, some of the smallest black sand I have dealt with in quantity.  My post was wrong about my cube.  It is a 4 stack, which I understand will catch pretty much everything.  I haven't tried to find out whether the lowest mat is catching anything or not, but would be fun to see if it is or not.

 

When I run 4 stack, I have never found any values in the bottom stack. Very rarely have I found anything past the first carpeted stack.

I run it hard with a bigger 1/4" punch plate Crisson Gold Mine made gold banker classifier and sometimes do not even remove the potato size rocks from local streams and have not seen any loss of values, ever, in my tailings.

I have run two pumps, 1 for the highbanker attachment at about 1300 gpm and another pump on the cube itself, valved back to ~1000 gpm, based upon the 3' head calculation. I have found the Johnson pumps to be the best and most durable for the money. They really move the water and Amazon has free expedited shipping if you join Prime...which pays for itself in 5 shipped items.

I lived on the kenai peninsula in Alaska for about 12 years and used to take my 4 wheeler to the beach and get buckets of black sands, ultra fine. we tried a gold cube and determined that's a nice hobby toy but useless for any type of volume. I built 2 beach boxes similar to the keene model 24"x72" one dumping into the next on a recirculating pump. I lined them with rigded black mat, use jet dry for sure.. after running one bucket of sands the mat would become clogged and the gold would start washing thru so i would clean it into a bucket then run them thru a commercial gold wheel.. I then had to finally pan out that.. the gold was flecks to almost invisible. I am in the process of building a portable beach box and another for running concentrates at camp or home here in Oregon.. time is of the essence when working on the beach and you need to be able to throw shovel fulls of sand not spoonfulls if you ever want to find any quantity. I would set your gold cube up as a super fine recovery for home and get a beach box or highbanker power sluice for in the field. you either have to set it up as a recirculating or gravity fed. a place I have been working has a constant stream and I run a 100' colapsable hose up the hill with a 5 gallon bucket and fitting as the intake. I have a valve at the banker to control the pressure. last time I was out got checked by the trooper and he was impressed with my setup. his only concern was me leaving any holes or displacing too much materials.. so anyway I saw your post about driving onto the beach and here is what I noticed.. a person can launch a boat in illwaco and make the very short trip over to grass island. the usgs reports I have read state that its loaded with fine placer gold from years or storms and the mighty Columbia river.. still trying to read up as to whats legal out there.....

Just got back from Long Beach.....brought a 5 gal bucket back with me. From Seaview to Beard's there is about 50 feet of black sand, and at Beard's is about 6-8 inches deep. Panned out a sample of a handful. Can see a few specs. Going to have to set up the Miller Table to work this stuff a spoon at a time.

Planningon taking zip-locks of some to the meeting to make enemies with.....it will test their ability to work fine cons. Even the black sand is almost powder. Didn't hit it yet with a magnet to see how much is iron sand or basalt.