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Questions about water in the sluice box

Posted by Maurice Austin AKA2centsgoldless on January 23, 2013 at 4:08pm in Newbie section

I have a couple questions about the do’s and don’ts of running a sluice.

 

First question is, Lets say you have your sluice set up and running water either creek or recirculation. Does it hurt if you go take a break and grab a bite to eat and let the water run while you are gone? Or does this have a chance of cleaning out the gold without material running through it. Yes, no, maybe?

 

Question #2. Does it hurt a sluice to shut down your water source for a while and then just fire it back up flowing water? My thoughts are the surge of water might clean out the gold. Yes, no, maybe?  I see this on the TV shows where they will run several days before a cleanout and I cannot imagine that they are running 24x7

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Replies

  • Steel Pan January 25, 2013 at 5:05pm

    I let my sluice run during lunch as it helps to wash out some of the lighter material.

    Makes clean out quicker too with better classification.

     

    I don't ever leave material in the sluice after cutting off the flow.

    As mentioned before, it tends to shake things up, so to speak, and

    can cause Gold to wash out. This is really a big prob if you let the material dry,

    you get a lot of material floating out, Gold will float out too.

    You want to maintain a constant and consistant flow.

     

    Enjoy the TV shows, but I wouldn't follow any of their operations.

    This forum is goin' to give you a lot more dependable info.

    I watch them just to have a good laugh.  25r30wi.gif

    It's a wonder they find anything and prob lose a lot.

     

    • jeff squibb > Steel Pan February 13, 2013 at 9:47pm

      You worked to hard to get it to this point why take the chance when it only takes three minuts to clean out for a new start, unless you just like digging and washing gold.2960230988?profile=original

  • Howard Hadsall January 25, 2013 at 11:54am

    Maurice when running my 10" jobe srteam sluice in a stream I clean it out just once unless Jane is there and wanting to pan somthing  with a big sluice you would be hard pressed to load it up in six hours unless I had a lot of material preclassified so it pretty much clears out while I am digging and classifiing the next bucket to run as long as the flows not disturbed the low pressure areas stay low, the specific wieght of gold stays constant, and the gold dosn't care how long it sits there !  Ya got to trust your equipment ! so take that break !   However When running it as a recircuilator not a bad plan to do a quick clean out after a shut down if you watch right behind each riffle the heavys built up there colapse and could easliy have some float gold just wash on through on the initial surge if you restart your flow.  a long sluice might recapture it before running out the end a short one nope !

     

  • Flour (Indy Jones) Mike January 24, 2013 at 2:13pm

      I never start a flow of water on a box with cons in it. Will let things clean for a while if there is a lot of heavy blonde material for a bite to eat etc. If I stop flow the sluice bed gets all the cons rinsed into a 5 gal bucket. Always a fresh start on an empty rinsed box every time the water starts and you will avoid losing fine/flour gold. The thicker grainier stuff just lays there. Theres some terms for that but we have kids on here so I wont repeat them.

  • Maurice Austin AKA2centsgoldless January 24, 2013 at 10:55am
    Thank you very much for the replies. I was wondering how the gold TV shows do it. Several times this year the shows made comments and showed the miners (term used loosely) shutting the systems down and just starting them back up. Sure didnt seem like a good idea to me
    • Tim G (Creator) > Maurice Austin AKA2centsgoldless January 24, 2013 at 11:45am

      I noticed that also maurice and I also wonder why they all say time to make some gold I have noticed that on all the gold shows ...it just dont sound right

      • Homer Simpson > Tim G (Creator) February 27, 2013 at 11:15pm

        hahaha i agree, matter of fact i hate when they say that!! You can "make" money but you cant make gold dammit!!

         

  • Douglas Sayre January 24, 2013 at 8:35am

    I agree with the other comments. Run as long as you want provided the riffles aren't clogging. Clean it up after a shut down.

  • Eric Scheibel January 23, 2013 at 7:53pm

    Maurice, as for the first question. I have left mine running in the river for extended periods of time without feeding anything through it, If the sluice is a good sluice it will not affect anything. If you choose to pull it from the water most definitely clean your cons out of it before placing it back in. As for the second question. Personally I would not restart the water until I have cleaned the sluice, that way there is no chance of loosing anything. Just my two cents. Good luck to ya. 

  • mtau January 23, 2013 at 4:40pm

    Question #1 : It depends on what you have in the sluice for recovery. If you are using riffles, you don't want to shut off the water, because when you do, the vortex behind the riffles collapses, which allows the material to spread out, and when you start back up, you will loose about 1/4 of the material that's in the sluice. Raised expanded doesn't seem to be effected near as much. Question #2:  If you shut down your operation; first off you don't want the material in the sluice to dry out, because when you start back up, you'll likely loose gold to floating from surface tension, and when you do start back up, start the water slow, then gradually increase to production flow.

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