Gold Mining sluice box gravel pump.

Your operation is very similar to mine. My gold is mostly fine and well traveled/flat flakes. The larger flakes are often folded over themselves. There is also a fraction that hasn't traveled at all. Fine but very rough with quartz still attached. 5 by 14' screen deck. 1" punch plate top deck and 1/2" bottom screen. I've been thinking this winter about trying some finer bottom screens for the same reasons you mentioned. My best guess we average around 70-80 loose yards an hour. And 30-40% of that is 1/2" minus going down the sluice runs. 26' long sluice box. 4' angle iron on top fairing to 8' expanded metal on the bottom. Our bottleneck is the sluice box. Could really use more water but the 6" pump is getting tired. Brought a newer bigger pump up last year but never got it set up to use. (Remote fuel source and roof overhead and containment underneath) Pumping 400' with 20 foot of lift. The deck itself seems to wash better the harder it's fed. More rock on rock rubbing action. You made my mind up trying finer bottom screen. Thinking 3/8". You ever have trouble pegging and plugging the finer screen? A couple old pieces laying around here are plugged solid so I've been hesitant to try it. Really hard to change up what works. Short season. 4.5 hrs from town... If you can't find it there your 3 weeks from anywhere... Figure the first step would be to try pumping gravel away from our current setup. If it doesn't work drag the thing out of the way. If it shows promise go all in the following year.

Sounds like you got out just in time. It's a disease. Once the gold bug bites your addicted for life! Lol Edit. Replying to Tugger2

Nige said: ALL spare parts for Godwin pumps are expensive..!! Click to expand... Indeed, have learned that...!

Iron Creek said: Your operation is very similar to mine. My gold is mostly fine and well traveled/flat flakes. The larger flakes are often folded over themselves. There is also a fraction that hasn't traveled at all. Fine but very rough with quartz still attached. 5 by 14' screen deck. 1" punch plate top deck and 1/2" bottom screen. I've been thinking this winter about trying some finer bottom screens for the same reasons you mentioned. My best guess we average around 70-80 loose yards an hour. And 30-40% of that is 1/2" minus going down the sluice runs. 26' long sluice box. 4' angle iron on top fairing to 8' expanded metal on the bottom. Our bottleneck is the sluice box. Could really use more water but the 6" pump is getting tired. Brought a newer bigger pump up last year but never got it set up to use. (Remote fuel source and roof overhead and containment underneath) Pumping 400' with 20 foot of lift. The deck itself seems to wash better the harder it's fed. More rock on rock rubbing action. You made my mind up trying finer bottom screen. Thinking 3/8". You ever have trouble pegging and plugging the finer screen? A couple old pieces laying around here are plugged solid so I've been hesitant to try it. Really hard to change up what works. Short season. 4.5 hrs from town... If you can't find it there your 3 weeks from anywhere... Figure the first step would be to try pumping gravel away from our current setup. If it doesn't work drag the thing out of the way. If it shows promise go all in the following year. Click to expand... Thanks for that info, very interesting.... Our 1/4" lower screen has had no problems with plugging and stays remarkably clear. The gravels are very rounded fluvial wash so that helps. The last property we were on had a lot of highly angular/fractured diorite/tuffs, these 'triangular' type fragments could indeed clog the lower screen (1/2") We are hoping the 1/8" screen will work out, I do have some concerns about clogging as this is a pretty aggressive move.... Last year I could only feed at 18yards/hour due to the sand load on the sluice runs as well as being limited on feed by our 5 ton feed machine (Deere 50D). Just pickup up an older Hitachi EX100-1 to allow a faster feed rate. This will also help with coarse tailings during each 'Batch'. I work mainly by myself so usually do 2 batches/day. Hoping to double feed rate to 36yards/hour. My experience in our ground has proven the finer you can screen (dependent on expected gold particle size) the better the recovery and overall gold totals. I am thinking of building some hydraulic riffles this winter to test out (we have a large amount of magnetite/hematite)

You have probably read this, but I will put it up in case it is helpful to anyone else....

My original sluice box had a set of hydraulic riffles. I had lots of trouble with the holes plugging with organic matter so I took them out. Been thinking about building another set to try again. The Macon equipment website explains a little bit about the self cleaning filter they build. Basically it's a screen parallel to the water flow. Hose nipples on one side with the majority of the water flowing parallel on the other keeping the screen washed clean. My experience filtering the water is a must. I tried progressively finer screen on the suction hose in the creek but couldn't get fine enough to keep the riffles working without plugging the suction screen in a couple hours of running. Really hard on the pump. Had an accident and Broke a bunch of toes last week so I've been laid up. Wife subscribed the gold rush and Freddy Dodge shows to keep me from going crazy. Never sat down and really watched others wash rocks before. In between yelling bull **** at the TV I got all kinds of ideas now. Lol

Definitely a huge problem with trying to keep out the organics...main reason I have never really went with the hydraulic riffles. Your experience makes me think I may just forget that idea for now..... Sorry to hear about your accident...but yes one can definitely get some useful bits of info from these 'shows' Your plant looks really well thought out!

When I try hydraulic riffles again I think I will build a filter like Macon does. But build it in a 3 way box. Water passes straight through to the plant. Screen with hose couplers to the riffles on one wall. A large gate valve directly across that would act as a bypass valve for start-ups and shut-downs. Splice it into the main water line 5 feet from the plant. With camlock fittings all the way around a guy could easily wash it out and bang it around if needed. If the gate valve is big enough a guy could reach in for "surgery" on the screen if needed.

Thanks for all the interest/ideas. From my research concrete pumps won't handle the volume. Manure type pumps won't handle the abrasives. Volute type takes too much water and won't handle the elevation rise. I have a Eddy pump (industrial dredge type) going over the criteria. Pricing is probably the killer for a untested system out in the bush.

My suggestion would be to elevate the crap out of your washplant to give you more holding capacity for fines. A big elevated pad would be something you could do with the equipment you have. Otherwise you would need a sandscrew and a conveyor which adds complexity. I also placer mine in BC and waste rock (mines inspector told me not to call them tailings lol) management is critical. lol- I just went back and re read your first post and you said the same thing........ Let us know what you end up doing!

While having no knowledge at all of placer mining, I always thought some type of hydraulic, self dumping water and rock fed centrifuges dumping into Tweco screeners would be of help. Not very hard to build, just not sure they would do anything We used these in copper recycling plants and they worked well and required minimal maintenance.

Years ago when gold broke the $500 an ounce barrier a mate and I looked a getting a small dredge that could be back packed into areas for prospecting. 2 items were the pump and sluise box, both floated. To suck up the gravel it used a venturi and could pick up stones as big as 4" and put up to 12tons and hour over the table but 4ton an hour was best, all of this with a 5hp motor. Would a scaled up version of this work? No gravel wrecking the pump would have to be a plus. Having the pump on the water in a pontoon will make it more efficient, maybe a jet drive pump could work if the tail pipe was modified to fit a hose.