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This one was a major disappointment. Although all parts were there and it was well packed, I apparently got a defective one. A reviewer being the wrong person to off that one to.

These being a cross between a small Miller table and a micro sluice the water flow must be constant even and light to perform the function across the entire working surface. With the one i received the built in lip was missing that spreads the water evenly from the spray bar and it just has two strong channels of water converging in the center. It also has a gap in that place of about 3/8". I went back and looked at the still pictures and watched the vid again and its clearly a defective unit. In addition it leaks out the back which I will cure with hot glue but it just should have been sealed in manufacturing. If you look at the highbanker the head cover is not for the clean up sluice. It is the one used on the highbanker and you can see the gap is the same as the one i received.

Second issue though minor was the template was cut crooked at the top edge so even taped securely the holes went in the wrong spot on one side.  This made it very difficult or impossible to get the table level on the bucket without elongating holes and fumbling with resetting the bolts to get level. I have to say I absolutely hate the bolts. The water stream hits them and pulls away from the sidewalls of the sluice body.

Corrections to be made:

1. I will drill and rivet a small piece of angle aluminum, to restrict the flow down to flat output. After trying both the 500 and 600GPH pumps I can see that the spray bar did not have enough holes. Even with the valve fully open there is only enough flow to move material.  It has zero adjustment, as if you turn the valve down, material flow falters and the water moves to the center of the table. I will put 3 more holes into the spray bar through the fitting hole to get some flow in the center of the table.

2. The proper angle of .5 inch can not be achieved by using the Bolts in the bucket. Im going to replace the bolts by drilling a small hole in the upper tip of each outflow edge and use a proper angle meter to make stainless  pins that stay in the bucket lip and only need to be pushed into the holes. This will fix the water pulling away from the sides issue.

http://www.prospectorschoice.com/Clean-Up-Sluice.html

Keep in mind this was a hundred dollar price point.  A little below the middle of the road for a device to work fine gold or flour.

Conclusions: Big disappointment.  I was ready for plug and play with a minor amount of prep. Now im going to be wasting hours to get the device into the proper configuration to even work as advertized. I won't send it back for a new one. Im not playing that mail me another one game. I wont be purchasing anything else from the company at all.

Now for the test. Keep in mind this is a manufacturing blunder of epic proportions, I gave it a fair test, just like I promised with the already cleaned native sand from the last review. In operation I could see the the particle sorting on the custom mat was not going as well as the vid but even with everything wrong, it still found and trapped fine gold from the previously ran native sands. This made me feel the unit was worth repair. Attached below is a picture of the gold it pulled from the already ran native sands that went through the bucket sluice concentrator. I would imagine this came through on the times i purposely overloaded the CaBucketsluice during that test.

Test two. Still running like garbage, I put 5 pounds of home depot paver sand through. I know this sand should give 5-8 tiny sub 50 mesh particles and about the same of -100 mesh particles.  Running poorly it pulled 4 of the -100 mesh particles. The paver sand is very uniform as far as the low consistent yield

Its a good design and concept. I feel like a working unit could be a superior device. The design and water pressure drop concept is clearly one of the best processes out there today.

Will I recommend it? No based on my poor experience. If you want to risk it and your handy and can fix things...your on your own.

I was in the process of trading out old equipment for better functioning equipment.  The three items I was looking for have been ordered from another firm and I will review those as they arrive and get used.

gold test.jpg