RECIRCULATING VORTEX MAT SLUICE
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- Опубликовано: 13 сен 2024
- This was a just a for fun project I decided to try after watching some of the 2x4 competition movies. It is a larger version of my mini sluice that uses the Martin Gold Stop mat or Vortex Mat. This is my portable set up that I take out in the field for testing and when I go camping. This set up will allow me to run this sluice, my mini sluice and miller table in recirculation mode or the stand can can be set up on the bank of a stream or in the stream with the pump pumping water out of the stream. I can also just set this up on the tailgate of my truck to run material as I'm traveling in the back country.
It only uses 3 gallons of water to run and so works well when I go out into the desert and work the dry stream beds. I don't have any streams near me that I can set up a sluice in and most of the material I get is just a bucket or two at a time so this set up works well for me. The stand, 2 sluices and miller table will all break down and store in a 10 Gallon tote.
The pump I'm using is a 500 GPH but would run about right with a 750 - 800 GPH pump.
Always enjoy your builds and videos. Thank you for taking the time.
+Sean Flope Hi Sean, Thanks for watching. All of these projects have really worked out well for me and I hope that other folks will have as good a luck with them. Prospecting equipment is expensive and these are some low cost solutions that work just as well as their high priced counterparts. I test them for about a year before I put the video up to make sure they work well.
good morning,that shore start my day very well,,watching such a beautiful pro.wood working project,,that my next project..thank you
Thank you Lou. These are very good sluices, they are easy to build and really do a good job of catching the very fine gold as well as the larger gold.. I think you will like it.
You should win the contest with this one. All out of a 2x4, amazing. You made it look too easy.
+Prospector Ruby Hi Ruby. Thanks for watching. I totally agree with you on the contest. Lol.
This project has almost paid for itself over the summer so it didn't work out too badly.
Another great design.
Thank you Stephen. That and several others like it have been very good sluices for me and have caught a lot of gold. The Vortex mat is great on catching the very fine gold but you have to be sure to dial the water flow way back to keep from blowing it out.
Hi...
I just found your channel and subscribed.
I live in Northern Indiana and all of our gold
here is what we call “Fly Poop” size so something
that will catch and separate the very fine Gold is needed.
This looks like it just might do the job...!
Unfortunately, as a disabled Veteran I can’t afford the price
of a Gold Cube.
Thanks for sharing this information with us...!
Have a great day and Be Blessed.
Troy Stutsman
Hi Troy. Sorry RUclips is not notifying me on comments. These sluices are what I use for catching the very fine Gold here and they do a great job. If you screen your material and keep the water flow low, they easily catch -100 gold. I'm using a 300 GPH pump with a valve on an 8" sluice right now for my -20 and smaller.
Pretty creative design there. You seem pretty good at wood working.
CDC Gold Prospecting
Thanks CDC and thanks for watching. I like to putter around with it. Not much to this. It's a couple of 1x6's glued together for the bottom, a piece of 2x4 for the water bar and a couple of 1/2" x 4 for the side rails. It's something most folks can put together fairly easily.
@@utahavalanch looks good, Seems easier if you had the equipment and tools. All I have is hand tools. lol...
CDC Gold Prospecting
It helps to have some power tools to work with. However, all of my projects are designed so that they can be built with a few hand tools like a hand saw, miter box, drill and a couple of bits. A few clamps will help as well. All the wood you can buy at a Home Depot or Lowe's store in the lumber, hobby board and moulding sections. I cover a bit of that in one of my drop Riffle sluice videos.
@@utahavalanch That's cool. You did a good job at showing how to make it.
YeeeeeeeeeeHaaaaaaaaa
Welcome to my channel and thanks for watching.
Another great project well taped and explained. Too bad you can't put it directly in the stream and really go into production but there's a lot to be said for an easy chair in the shade!! Well done and thanks for posting.
+John Washam Thanks John. Well I would have made one that would go into the stream if we had any around here but that's what you get for living in the desert I guess. :-) At this stage in life there certainly is a lot to be said about armchair prospecting in the shade. Now to make me a table for the drinks and sandwiches. :-)
Very nice build ! I am wondering what your opinion of the mat is after using it for 9 months. By the way, I was a career carpenter and a hobby gold miner and your sluice project really is first class !
Thanks for showing it
Thank you and thanks for watching. Even though I have about 20 different sluices and even a very nice Gold Hog stream sluice this and my mini vortex sluice are still my favorite and most used sluices. They will catch the fine flour gold we have here better than anything else I have tried. I have since built a highbanker attachment for my mini vortex which is nice because I can just shovel into it and it will screen and deliver the material to the mat at the size and rate it needs for maximum gold recovery. I am also in the process of building one for this one as well. The only other sluice that I have found that will do as well as these is the Goldwell Vortex sluice. I made a wood version and so far like these it is catching 100% of the gold. Even the very tiny micron gold.
Looks good man
+MrLodak Thanks J. It started out just to be a just for fun project but I'm using it about 3 days a week now.
Tuba Fore...
Yippers, you can make all kinds of things out of them from toothpicks to skyscrapers. I make most of my projects out of them. They are very versatile.
You win
Cody Lencucha
Thank you for watching.
+utahavalanch, I am currently in the process of making a version of your mini sluice/miller table combo i commented on the other day. I am very inexperienced with all of this haha but i like your videos so I figured I would ask you. Can you explain the pump set up in a little more detail. I see you recommend a 500 GPH pump but am i just running a hose from it to a control valve then to the back of the water bar? Also, do you recommend any certain brand of pump? I have seen "fountain" pumps at Lowe's and HomeDepot...are these the right kind of pump?
Thanks!
Zack
+Zack McPherson Hi again Zack, Typically the pumps used for these are Bilge Pumps designed for boats so they can be taken out into the field. They run off from 12 volt motorcycle batteries or battery packs instead of House Current. If you just want to run your sluice at home you can use a 500 GPH fountain pump but they are quite expensive. You can buy a 500 GPH Bilge pump from Walmart, Ebay or Amazon for aound $15.00 - $30.00. I usually just by what is the cheapest. Harbor Freight and Walmart sell car jump starter battery packs or you can buy a motorcycle battery from Walmart for when you go to the river.
For around home you can buy a battery trickle charger to run from your house current or you can use your jump starter battery pack. The battery packs have built in chargers so you don't need to buy one to charge the battery. With the Motorcycle batteries you will have to buy a battery charger to recharge them.
They make 3/4" flexible Bilge pump hose that you can buy on Amazon for about $10.00 for about 6 - 9 feet to go from the pump to the water bar on the sluice. At Lowe's and Home Depot they sell garden hose adapters that slide onto the end of the PVC If you want a screw on adapter to use garden hose or garden hose fittings. You don't need to glue any of the PVC. Just press fit and they will hold.You can buy 3/4" garden hose fitting on Amazon that will fit on the flexible Bilge Pump hose. You can buy 5/8" garden hose fittings from Home Depot as well but they reduce the water flow quite a bit.
I hope this helps some. If I can be of further help let me know.
+utahavalanch That helps alot, thanks! one more question, if I decide to make my sluice bigger, say 10x36 give or take a small amount, will I need more than a 500GPH pump?
+Zack McPherson Hi Zack. Yes you will need a little larger pump to go to 10" or 12". Probably about a 750 GPH for a 10" sluice and an 800 GPH for a 12" sluice. You can change the water flow by raising or lowering the back of the sluice an inch or two to change the angle or put a valve on the pump hose. Some folks recommend a 2200 GPH pump for a 10" sluice but they are also blowing the fine gold back into the river.
If the sluice angle and water flow are correct a Vortex/Goldstop mat will catch all the gold in the first 3 - 4 inches and so a 24" mat is more than enough. If you want a longer sluice I would suggest putting about an 8 - 10" slick plate on it and a 24" mat. If you look at the sluice in the video you will notice that the water bar plate can be removed with 4 screws. If you do the same then you will be able to use it as an in stream sluice and a recirculating sluice which would make it more versatile. With the sluice in the video, I left the slick plate off to make it shorter and more compact for backpacking. When I dump material with gold in it onto the mat the gold will stay where it's dropped on the mat. You may want to put a slick plate on yours to help separate the various materials better. Also screening your material to -16 to -20 mesh will help with the fine gold. Hope this helps.
Nice job where do you source the matting from?
Andrew Ojala Hi Andrew, thanks for watching. You can buy the matting on EBay. Do a search for fine gold sluice box matting.
Thanks for the info and you have a great day
Have you ever tried to make a 3 level one?
I started to. I made a 6" X 18" 2 level version without a slickplate for testing and after 3 months of running material I found that all the gold is caught in the first 3 - 4 inches and the second level wasn't necessary. So I turned the top level into a hopper and made a mini highbanker with an 8 mesh screen. It is my favorite sluice to take out testing as I can run it with the stand and small tote shown in the video here on the back tailgate of my truck or on a picnic table in camp and it only uses 3 gallons of water. I can just shovel unclassified material straight into it and it will screen the material to the necessary - 8 mesh that the Vortex mat needs and dump the rocks. It will take a 5 gallon bucket of raw dirt and give me just 1 1/2 oz of cons that I can quickly pan out in the tote to see if there was any gold or not. I can also set it up on the stand in this video in a stream or on the bank and drop the pump in the stream to supply the water and just shovel away. I'm currently making a larger one that will use the same mat as this one and I can swap the mat between the two.
+utahavalanch cool.. I just recently turned my gold hog sluice box into a highbanker.. that sluice box is well worth the money...
It is indeed. I have one as well. But with a 3 hour drive to where I can use it, I usually use my smaller ones with material I find closer to home.
+utahavalanch I was one of the one's that they sold to early at $225 on the gold radio show called prospectorspace.. I have number 6
Very nice. That is a great deal. I was lucky enough to get the very first one with a letter of certification. It's a great sluice and I wish I had someplace closer so I could use it more. I'm going to set it up as a recirculation sluice next summer so I can run larger batches of material at a time here at home.
What is the size of the sluice?
+frostell86 Hi Frostell. Thanks for stopping by. The inside measurements are 9" x 21". The outside measurements are 10" x 23". I wanted to make it 10" wide on the inside but I thought that would be too wide for the catch basin. As it turns out it would have barely fit. Vortex mats catch all the gold in the top 3 or 4 inches so they don't need to be very long. I made this one, my mini sluice, and my new Miller Tables so that they would all fit on this stand so I can just swap them out as I need them. I am currently making a stream body that I can drop this mat into and run the sluice in a stream.
Hi I think this is amazing. Would you be interested in selling me one of these? If so how much ? I am not handy at building at all.
Hi Gary, I appologize for not seeing this sooner. We had a family emergency and I'm just getting back. These are really some great sluices, especially when it comes to catching very small gold.
Although I have sold a few of these to local prospectors, I'm afraid that I am not set up with a means to sell over the internet. I mainly put these videos up to give people ideas on how they can build their own. These are very basic with just a bottom, 2 sides and an end plate. You can buy a mat on Ebay and cut it to fit.
Pretty much all you need is a hand saw and power drill and you can put one of these together in an afternoon. I have built a very simple bare bones unit that most anyone can put together and It works very well. They don't need to be fancy.
you made any money doing this?
I do make a little bit but like most hobbys it's mostly for the fun of it. I like to do a little prospecting when I go camping and usually bring some dirt back to run at home when I get bored.
If you get into a good gold area you can make pretty good money. With the price of gold going up a little bit may turn into a nice amount of cash.