Gold Dredger dot Com Disscussion Forums

I just watched the new video and was impressed with the way it cleans itself. Was that a 54" sluice or 40"? The long slick plate looks like it will give the water flow a chance to liquefy the clays before reaching the screens. All the big gravels and rocks run straight through without disturbing the flow in the bottom chamber. Out east where it's all fines and small pickers, I would think you could get by with just two sizes of punch plate, small 2/3 length and medium 1/3 length. Maybe add small vee mat to the slick plate to slow the heavies from the lights and drop into the under current as soon as they get to the punch plate. Good job and hope it sells well.

Dickb

Dick,

he said the 60" is a pain to setup, he is opting to build the 30/18" TRII .. (48")

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... YnpgUM0mk#!


Here in NE, we only get real fine stuff, I plan on bringing one to CO next summer. I would like to use it on the Ark or up at Cache..
The thing I like about it, is no more standing over a damned bucket and screen, to get stuff down to 1/4 minus before running it through a sluice.
I believe the end catch he left with 3/8"as a nugget catch. We don't worry too much about nuggets.

I think in "gold country", I think Andy could add a mod, for large end catch.

I'd ask him to explain his reasoning.. he can be contacted on the site.

im just curious about what Andy would see at the end of his sluice with a fluid bed attached to it. over on wwww.treasurenet.com a guy from Indiana built a small add on fluid bed to his device, it was made out of a peice of 4 inch PVC pipe.that maybe a very good proving point on its recovery ability! and id recommend that Andy install a safty strap for the pins so people dont lose the pins in the stream!i installed safty straps on everything on my dredge that i may need to take off when on the water! it saves a lot of time looking for it if/when you drop it!

Hey guys, A little bird told me there was some chatting going on over here. I'll try to give my opinion on a few of the questions. DIck , I think your right about the screen sizes, I put a 3/8" screen in there to help ease the thought of letting a nugget pass over. Myself and many folks would only need the .117 and 1/4" screen. The 3/8" screen is to broaded my reach of potential customers. I changed the desing one last time by reducing the slick plate 6", this way I can use one 48" sheet of material to build, so it mainly was a cost issue. 6" isnt going to make to much differance, 24" still gives a good amout of time to separate.The sluice is 42" now. I tried some very low profile (1/16") V matting on the slick and I wanst impressed. It might work better with a deeper V (1/8") or "vortex" but I havent tried it yet.
Russ, its funny you said it should have a safety latch. Just last Saturday I lost a pin in the river after many attempts to feel for it under water I gave up because my hands were about to freeze off. Maybe I'll throw in an extra pin for every unit, every little aspect of the sluice adds up in time spent, each unit takes a few hours to build. Im getting faster and hope to purchase some tools that will make life easier.
I'm a big fan of fluid beds and jigs, but not in all applications. I'm staying away from fluid beds for in stream use because of Stokes Law. Now, Im not smart enough to figure out the equations of Stokes Law, but I do know if you have an upward force that has enough force to push a 1/2" rock straight up verticaly then you have enough force to push a little piece of gold too. Ive been playing around with fluid beds and have seen fine gold boil over with my own eyes, but it was probably because I had the pressure too high,
Take care

I hope to get an eyeball in the sluice this fall when I'm out there for the Gold show. Looks like a winner for the fine gold I see down in SC and NC. We have a lot of clay down there and it needs extra work to liquify it to free the flour gold.

Thanks for the reply. Stay warm.

Dickb

Dick are you going to the St.Joe Missouri gold show come Oct.??

Hi Russ:

Yes, if I can make it happen. Probably drive down with the camper.

Dickb

im trying to be there for 3 days to help setup/teardown the show, aswell as help run our clubs booth and maybe give Jerry Hobbs a breather. then, weather permitting, i was ofered a chance to have some fun over in Nebraska with Rex.

I hope to make it to the ST Joe show and meet some of you guys. I have a feeling this year is going to get very busy "working on the railroad" they want to put in 60 hrs in the winter, so I bet hours will increase as daylight allows.

Andy, be thankfull that your working! and take all of it you can while your still able to!theres a lot of people out there really needing work bad! i know! ive got 3 of our 8 grown kids have been out of work(gainfull employment) for a long time! as they say,"make hay while you have sunshine! at my age and physical condition, all i want to do is lay in it!:)