Well it came in the mail this afternoon and I had a bucket of native black sand. (not concentrates) Just about a gallon of black river beach sand. I had seen a fleck of color on top so I scooped it while down panning to take home in case I was bored sometime...or you know when your hard up for a fix during an ice storm or what have you.
Basically your getting a drop riffle sluice that can be powered with a garden hose or bilge pump set up. I spent $11 on a spare pump just for this item and $9 on an on/off valve and some hose.
Started off screening the sand through 1/8" and then again through the 20 mesh. This gave about a pint of course sand i panned and found nothing in. It went in first. Not expecting anything. the course needed more water to move but went on through. It left what looked like rusty quarts but with a loop I could see it was all tiny round garnets and black sand. I tipped the cleaned material into the pan. (i already panned it but it looked interesting) And low and behold a color larger than 20 mesh and a couple that were smaller. I completely missed them the first panning. Ok well I was excited to try the minus 20 so I got started. This thing is small and can take a really big tablespoon heaped about every 15-20 seconds is all so the rest of the gallon took a while. The end concentrate in the pan yielded about 40 colors.....but with the 10x loop I could see numerous pieces that were so small they were barely visible at 10x. This is clearly something I had never been able to do. I also realized I have been throwing a lot of really fine gold away. At the bottom of the page below there is a picture with a dime of the exact same fine gold I got out of the random bucket of sand.
Pros: small, lightweight at 7oz and 1# 6oz with pump: less battery. It does what it says pulling -100 gold from concentrates. And its cheap at $29
Cons: You need to haul a battery if you take it to the river. At home your better with a plug in pond pump. It also need a trip to the hardware store to collect all the missing things like the valve and hose etc.
http://www.casluicebox.com/CONCENTRATOR.html
Can I recommend it? Well it did find a lot of fine gold I would have missed in the pan. However, I am saving the sand to run through my next concentrator that is also in the mail. That will be the real test as the one coming is a miller style and I know it will pull anything and everything so we will see if anything else comes out of the sand then.
I will say if your short on cash, or if your not handy to build one, its not a bad unit and it will find gold you missed or were going to throw out. For the price its a great entry level tool to add to the arsenal. It will get gold you would have lost.
I will review the next unit when it shows up. Free shipping but I think its going to China and back a couple times along the way so figure another week for that review. It will be this:
http://www.prospectorschoice.com/Clean-Up-Sluice.html
I'm getting the 19A2 This model will take material from a 1/8" screen and strip everything away but the gold and you just snuffer it up clean. It also comes as a complete plug and play package only needing a battery.
Mike
Replies
I like your honesty
Im going to add just so its clear. I dont get any of these things as testers. I select and buy them with my own money and have zero obligation to any manufacturer to make the items look good. They have to stand up on their own. If I do get any test items I will say so at the beginning and they wont get any special treatment. Just a real world review.
great job with this review thank you for sharing with us Tim
Thanks Tim. As with everything you get what you pay for. It is in fact a drop riffle sluice and we know there is no 100% recovery with a sluice so I would be certain overloading the riffles a couple times flushed some dust through. Adjusting flow with a plastic hose ball valve isn't the finest way to go either but its plastic and adding a good metal one would probably be a good way to break the connector off over time. It did leave some very heavy challenging material behind with the gold so its not a super high quality solution. I see it as an entry level offering that has enough merit to pick up for the kids without breaking the bank or for folks just getting started on a short shoestring. Its not going to do the same job a $100 or $200 or more device will, but if you have a son or daughter with the bug it would make a good birthday or Christmas gift they will really enjoy. And it pretty much works. But further testing on the same sands will tell how well.