Watch this before you make a sluice box.
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- čas přidán 26. 04. 2024
- Watch this to see what mistakes I made so you don’t have to. I am an absolute beginner so I’m not teaching, I’m just showing what I did and hopefully the comment section will be a wealth of advice.
But this video is just a side quest. I’m a bronze smith and I will continue to make bronze smithing content. Not prospecting content. - Zábava
This is a cool side project, you could put some expanded metal grate over the mat that should help catch the gold.
The rubber mats like Gold Hog and Dream Mat are great at capturing gold, but your matting options are limited because the bucket water source that you're using limits you to low flow mats like UR and Motherlode that are somewhat similar to the v matting in your sluice now (they still work better, but might not be cost effective for the extra percentage recovery unless you plan on prospecting fairly frequently). Since the material you're running is more or less beach sand, and since you're searching in an area where almost all the gold is very fine, and since your sluice riffles are short, to increase your recovery rate you'll have to monitor your feed rate by looking at the riffles as you put material in. A few factors play into feed rate, and the low flow in your system is limiting how much you can feed at a time. If you can see the ridges of rubber all the way across while material is working in the grooves, your feed rate is good. Any time you see a line of black sand running down the sluice and covering the riffles completely, that section is overloaded, which makes fine gold ride out of the system much easier. Classifying takes time and effort, but will also improve your recovery rate. A cheap classifier for fine material like you're running is a kitchen strainer, but the bucket classifiers are a good bit more convenient. If you want to get lots of black sand, a backed miners moss with expanded metal and some angle to hold it down would probably be your cheapest and most effective option. The old school miner's moss and Hungarian riffles are notorious for clogging up with black sand, that's what makes the rubber mats so attractive. Some people also suspend strong magnets above the sluice in a piece of pvc with slots to fit across the edges of the sluice to pull out magnetic material as is passes through the system.
Always full for surprises and new ideas!!!
very excited to see this process as it unfolds!
"Even if the gold collection doesn't pan out..."
Nice play on words there. Vogus is also another practical channel worth watching.
I think you did a fine job on the sluice. Typical set up is 1in of drop for every foot of sluice. 3 foot sluice should have 3in of drop. Also depends on water flow. So many variables lol. Like everything, put in the time and you will have it figured out very quickly.
Even a miniscule amount of gold could be used to plate or otherwise decorate one of your cast sculptures!
Interesting! I hadn’t thought about that!
You should really add two things to increase the effectiveness of your sluice: riffles and expanded metal between them. Both act to add 'eddies' where the water flow slows temporarily, thus allowing the gold to drop out and become caught in the crevices.. Also, inreasing the angle of the sluice can help eliminate the waste material better. Of course, the biggest variable is the souurce material; dig around behind [that is, downstream of] big rocks in a swiftly-flowing river for your best chance of getting pay dirt..
We use copper to test our wash plant. Cat 5 or cat 6 snips would work for the smaller gold. Cut 10 pieces, put them in the material and keep playing with the sluices and panning technique until you consistently recover 10 out of 10 pieces. If you can keep copper in there similar in size to the gold in your area, you'll keep nearly all the gold that washes over your sluice run.
Make sure to bring a paint brush and wipe the bubbles out of your matting before feeding material.
I look forward to seeing what you make with a smelter.
Thank you for that advice!
I didn’t notice a lot of bubbles in the mat when I started the water flow. A brush sounds like just the thing.
Very cool. Nice build, I had no idea there was gold up there.
nothing wrong with the way you were doing it and the blacksand will actually help capture the gold and hold it in the sluice box...ah so you have iron stone black sand not cassiterite...I would have laid bets on you collecting tin to make bronze...lol cool idea to make your own cast iron though, for me I would be on the wrought iron and building a charcoal smelting furnace but I have neither cassiterite or ironstone here which is unfortunate.
Great build for the sluice box and I like the bucket with a tap idea too.
Glad you found some gold ... fun stuff!
Bigstack"L" coming soon! This is pretty awesome. Can't wait.
I've watched a few prospectors channels and often thought it would be neat to try castings from their black sands. One just melted some of Dan Hurd(?)'s black sand, but not to cast. It was more than just iron. I bet some black sand from the right areas would have some platinum (the real hard to get out stuff) and other heavy metals that they throw out. I'll be waiting to see how it goes!
Oh I’ve watched Dan Hurd but I didn’t see them melt the black sand. I’ll have to look for that one.
@@lundgrenbronzestudios He did it on his own channel, mbmmllc.
This was so interesting. I can't wait to see what happens next!
Good Job! I made mine from an old road sign. It works great.
Ok, here's a few tips. Use some lead shot from a shotgun shell to test your sluice box. finer the better. count out a few, and mix them into a bucket of dirt. If you get them all back, you know it's working the way it should. Gold is almost twice as heavy as lead, not quite twice, but close, so if you can find that lead shot, you won't be losing any gold. That flour gold seems like it will wash away really easy, but it wont. Since gold is heavy, it sinks fast, and the smaller it is, the less surface area there is for the water to push it out. It will sink under your black sand. If you think you are losing gold, place a gold pan under the exit end of your box and pan it out after you finish. Really, it is surprisingly hard to lose gold if it's set up right, and your set up looks perfect. I like your idea about the bucket for water flow. You can use a piece of felt, old towel, car floor mat, thin carpet, instead of buying that matting too.
Your sluice is what they call a "Clean up sluice". If you want to go through a lot of dirt fast, add riffles to it and increase the water flow. Then you can shovel directly into the sluice and move a lot more material. A classifier helps to get rid of the bigger rocks. A little dish soap in your bucket will break the surface tension of the water and help the gold drop out too. It's a lot of fun, but it takes a long time to add up. GOOD LUCK!
I knew I’d get some great advice from posting this video. Thanks!
I love the Flour Gold Wizard! He’s an awesome guy and makes great Content! I think your sluice box was a good build! As for not finding much, that could be any number of variables, but the primary factor is the ground you have to work with! If it’s simply not there, you can never find anything. Otherwise flow rate, angle of pitch, how much material you scoop onto it could be overwhelming the Mat, etc etc… Plus with Flour Gold, it likes to float, so you need Jet Dry in your sluice water at clean up stage to keep the surface tension down or it just washes out into your tailings. Looking forward to seeing you experiment more with it and hopefully catch enough to start casting awesome new things! ❤🫂🤞🙏🤘🍀
I keep hearing about jet dry. I didn’t know people used it in a sluice.
@@lundgrenbronzestudios yes sir, it doesn't take very much, but it is the magic touch to breaking the surface tension and keeping as much gold as possible!
@@lundgrenbronzestudios It's better to use jet dry in recirculating systems, so detergent isn't being released into nature. A couple cheap bilge pumps and some storage totes or kiddie pool to hold the water are pretty much all you'd need on top of what you already have if you wanted to make a basic recirculating system.
if i left no comment or two comments, ill never know. youtube is messing up everything again.
This is the only comment I see.
Nice
Here in Holland you can dig up a truck full of mud, but you won't find a gram of gold😂
In that perspective you already have great success at collecting gold but the iron also gives a lot of fun,
I'm curious to see what beautiful things you will make from this
Gertjan
have fun !
Very nice!
So next casting will be in gold then.
Maybe!
I know why and I only just started watching...cassiterite ..
nope.....
Good guess though.
thankyou