MAKING A 10 INCH SILICONE MAT
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- Опубликовано: 13 сен 2024
- In my last video I made a mold for a 10 inch x 12 inch silicone mat. In this video I show how I fill the mold with silicone and make the final mat. I did this in real time so that you can see how much time I spend with the silicone and making the mat. Sorry if it's kind of boring but I have some folks that want to see how I make one and see what is involved in the process.
This mat turned out to be a real winner. I made the first 4 troughs 3/4" wide and the rest 5/8" and so it can handle the material being dumped on the deck much better. It adds a little more to the cons but catches gold much better so it's worth it.
I have been going through some old tailings that had been sitting around for several years and run over several of the more popular mats. So far I have been able to recover a nice amount of very fine gold the others lost. I really like the fact that the gold no matter how fine likes to stick to the silicone and I'm recovering down in the 200 mesh range. In very careful panning out of the tailings from this mat, I'm not finding a single piece of gold of any size. It's acting like the proverbial gold magnet. Love it. Big thanks to Alan Robertson for the idea.
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You always apologize for making long videos...Don't!
The wonderful way you show and explain the details of your projects eliminates any mistakes we newbies are going to make in replicating what you've done.
I appreciate the pacing and detail you put into each video and the gentlemanly way you speak.
You'd make a fine instructor and suspect you may have taught at some point in your life.
Anyway thanks for the tutorial, I'll be building mine soon. I went out to Hobblecreek Canyon Friday and tried panning for the first time, and although I struck out I thoroughly enjoyed the day of solitude in the mountains and the sweet music the stream provided.
Hi twotwentyswift thank you and thanks for watching. Sorry I didn't get your comment sooner as RUclips didn't notify me. Well, I try to keep my videos as short as possible as most viewers have a short attention span but on some of these I feel it's important to include as much info as possible to show new folks how to do it. Yup spent a couple of years in military as instructor.
Good luck on your build.
This Prospecting takes a little practice to get the hang of so don't give up. The secret is to pan lots of samples to find the gold and then set up your sluice. I see too many people just set up a sluice without sampling and then wonder why they didn't get much gold. Keep at it.
That is the same silicone that I have been using for my mats good stuff. I like your process it just goes to show there is more than one way to skin a cat two different ways to make to mats with the same results. My wife said he sure make some pretty sluices. Not boring to me can't wait to see it run.
Alan Robertson
Hey, thanks Alan and Thanks for the mats. Tell the wife thank you and I think she has good taste.😝
I really like these mats. I like the wider troughs on this new one as it handles the initial dirt dump a lot better. I get much less gold in the second Riffle and none beyond that. I like your new sluice and mats. Sorry about the loss on your old setup but I think you'll like this one much better. For a first run, it's looking fantastic. Thanks for coming up with the idea of these mats. They are great.
Hello
I watch your videos and they are by no means boring
I am currently building the miller table and your instructions are understandable to anyone who understands the craft
I hope you keep making more videos
I say thank you for that
greetings from cologne / germany
greeting Peter
Hi Peter thank you very much and thank you for watching. I hope you enjoy the Miller Table. I had the pleasure of visiting your beautiful city back in 1967. I really enjoyed it.
I hope you have a great year and that the table will work well for you.
The #1 silicone made me a perfect matt i even added a little green to it and it's beautiful. My miller sluice is looking good. Thank you.
Glad to hear it all worked out well for you. Hope you like the Miller Sluice. I have really liked mine. With the high cost of Silicon, I’m currently building a new hybrid version that doesn’t use as much. If snow ever melts, I’ll try it out.
Being a retired turbine mechanics, you just bolt them together and fire those bad boys up. 🤔 Building a frame for a silicone solutions matt, ⏱️ you glue then wait glue then wait, GEEZ LOUIES !!! But I'm loving every minute of it 👍 Thanks, your videos are excellent 👌
Thank you John and thanks for watching. Yippers, most of the time spent in building these is in waiting for things to dry.😖. I’m trying different glues but I haven’t found a waterproof fast dry glue. With the larger riffle molds I found it’s quicker to put a couple of screws in from the bottom.
I use gorilla duct tape along the sides make a perfect seal.
My sluice is 8 foot long
7 foot usable mats
1 foot for header
Runs great.
Long run for beach sands.
That would be a good set up for the very fine beach sands. Gold sticks to these silicone mats and that's why I like to use them.
Thanks for adding the exact quantity details ! Not just - a dash of this , a dab of that , and warm it up a little bit to see what works for you .
Enjoyed your videos, as usual !
Well, there is a lot of latitude but I found that 1/2 oz. to the 2 1/2 quarts worked well and is repeatable. I made lots of mats at 95 - 100 degrees during the summer and so I know how the silicone reacts at those temperatures. So I thought I'd include that info for those who are interested. The hot water over the mat to help set it faster is something I like to do when it gets cooler but I don't think anyone else has figured it out yet.
All joking aside Utah I love the way you work with the wood to make your projects I plan on making a silicone mat with router because a router has different types of bits that you can carb in the grooves with
Omg good idea, I've been pondering on what i can use and my boyfriend has a router, thanx! 👍
I'm learning how to wait 🤔 sometimes 🤣😂 but a 4 dollar hair dryer from Good Will speeds up paint drying time even when ceiling up cracks on your mold or your Miller table. 👍 Have a blessed day 🌄
Thank you. Yippers it will. I have a 100 year old furnace I set my painted decks by and that works like a blow dryer 😝
Silicone needs water and heat to cure so I put mine in the sink and run hot water over it. Or I will put the mold in the sink and cover it with hot water. If you squirt the silicon into water like Alan does and then knead it for a bit, the warmer the water is the faster it will start to set up. I heat my water to 80 degrees in the microwave and that gives you about 3 minutes to get it in the mold.
Hey Utah ....great job on the silicone matting....I think I've made just about every mat I've purchased for my sluice box's and my little creek sluices now made with silicone caulking. I buy my silicone down at $General for $3.50 a tube and usually get it several at a time. This is such a unique process and fun to do. Great entertainment for us old guys, eh? LOL......been following your channel for several years now and have learned a lot from ya....just wanted to say "thank you" for your efforts and instructions you've posted here....really appreciate it?? Keep on keeping on!! Bill
Thank you Wilfor and thanks for taking the time to watch. Yep, I used to buy my Silicone at the dollar stores as well but I cleaned them all out and it takes them quite awhile to restock.😄 l have made quite a number of these mats in different designs and I'll never go back to rubber. Besides I like playing with the squishy stuff. 😝 yippers, great fun for us old guys for sure.
Hi guys...i bought mine at the dollar General as well....my first try didn't turn out too good.......does the kind that you guys used smell like vinegar?
Shawn Mccracken
Hi Shawn and thanks for watching. Yes, the strong acetic acid smell is part of it. You may want to do it outdoors to keep on good terms with some of the other family members. 😄. The Silicon you want usually will say 100% Silicone on the package. I have found some at the dollar store that didn't say it but was clear and worked well. MD brand at Walmart works well for me. I've tried different brands and most have worked for me. Also you want to look for type 1 on the package as some companies make 2 different types and some folks say the type 2 doesn't work but others do. Guess you'll have to try it to see.
@@utahavalanch thanks for all of the info bud....i have a lot of repairs to make...lol
Shawn Mccracken
All part of the fun. Happy mat making.
Good job,I hope you find many gold nugets,hi from CALIFORNIA
Sergii Iaroshenko
Hi Sergii from Utah and thank you for taking the time to watch. Wish we had the gold that you have. 👍
loved your video very informative
Love the video very informative. I'm not sure how tall the riffles are but I can guess thank you very much
Hi Wes and thanks for watching. I used 1/2 inch square dowels for the frame and 3/8 inch square dowels for the riffles in the mold which will be the troughs in the mat. You have to think backwards when making the mold. I make my Deep Well deck 3/4" high and so I like the top of the mat to be just slightly under that. So you can use a 1/2" or 5/8" dowel for the frame and that will make the overall mat that height. Once you have the frame you can use any dowels smaller than that for the mold riffles. You can make them all the same height or you can mix them up into different height patterns.
Store bought square dowels come in a number of sizes. 1/4", 3/8", 1/2", 5/8" 3/4" and on up to about 2". to make wider troughs you can glue 2 or more dowels together. Home D also sells long stick BBQ matches which make a good 1/8" deep trough with a 1/4" frame if you want something like a standard Deep V Mat. I like mats with a thin base or backing and so I try to keep the distance between the top of the mold riffle to the top of the frame about 1/8 - 3/16" This makes a nice thin flexible mat.
If you have a table saw and can cut your own dowels to fit your needs.
The thing with the silicone mats is that you can design your own. I make a lot of small 3"x3" molds to try out a new idea. That way you don't invest a lot of time and money into building a mold and find out you don't like it when you take the silicone out. these things are great and I'll never go back to rubber molds again.
I don't think playing with the silicone that long or forgetting things that often helps but Albert the silicone company really likes your Silicone mat LOL
Yippers, buy silicone stock not gold😄
I molded the silicone with a roller, putting it on top of a polycarbonate sheet to prevent it from sticking, then I carefully peeled the sheet and there are some very curious and well finished rifles. The mold as it is not made with milled DM moisture.
ALBERT CABRERA
Sounds interesting. This certainly allows for trying a lot of different ideas. I've made several dozen different mats and they all work a little differently. I really like that the gold tends to stick to this material rather than rolling off like with the rubber mats. Thanks for watching.
Thats a really nice looking piece of equipment.... it won’t be long and ill be making my new mats as well!!!!
Thanks again!!✅✅✅🍺
Flour gold Wizards
Hey Wizard thanks for stopping by. I think you will love them. I sure do. I made a small 8" stream sluice and ran a 1/4" deep one like this one all the way to both ends so you dumped the dirt right on the mat instead of the Slick Plate and it caught everything. That method works well with stream sluices as they are running way too much water flow for fine gold and this way drops it right down into the pockets right off the bat where it sticks to the mat.
@@utahavalanch Utah: Guess I'm a little dense, but don't fully understand your response to Flour Gold. I too am trying to make a stream sluice mat that is 10" wide. But, I'm not sure by your comment above: do you mean all the riffles for the length of the sluice are 1/4" high and only the quarter inch ones are used, or are they interspersed with others? Also, what spacing is used? Give me all the details if you can, and please be well, take care of yourself
@@mikestefanick520
Hi Mike. Thank you and thanks for watching. Nope you’re fine. The mat we are talking about here is similar but a different mat than the one in the video. The mat here I made for a finishing sluice. The mold was made with 1/4” square dowels with 1/4” spacing between them to act like a commercial Deep V Mat.
The video mat is made with 1/2” square dowels with 1/2” spaces between them and a 5/8” frame around the dowels. I have a video on how to make it. After all the mats I’ve made, the mat in the video is my choice for a stream mat due to the fact that it has large troughs to catch large amounts of gold and black sand. I like to catch all I can in the field and bring those home to do the separation on better equipment. This mat would work well on my drop riffle stream sluices instead of the fixed hard riffles. I have several videos on this mat in action if you are interested.i hope this helps. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask.
@@utahavalanch Utah: Thanks, I will make that one next. I'm on iteration 3 trying to flip my brain to negative making a mat with 1/2 inch frame and 3/8th riffles. I think I finally got it by drawing it out, shading the silicone filled part, then turning my drawing upside down. That made enough sense so that I've made a new mold (my wood working skills are not any where close to yours, I've managed to move down from 1/8th is close enough, to 1/16th...but, still I need a new fence for my saw). I'll do the silicone tomorrow and let you know how it went. Thanks again for the stream sluice riffle sizes. Looking forward to seeing your next new presentation.
@@mikestefanick520
Yippers, it takes awhile to learn to think in reverse on these. I’m finally getting the hang of I after a year. 😝 it took me several tries at first to get the hang of making these. If you want to get an idea of what the finished product looks like, you can fill a 3” x 3” square at one of the corners and let it dry, then take it out and see if it’s what you want. If it is, then you can trim any rough edges and put it back in the mold and finish making the mat. The new silicone will stick to that piece nicely. It may take a few tries to get the hang of it so don’t give up if at first it doesn’t work out. Let me know how it all works out.
Just made one 29" x 9 1/2 ". Took 7 tubes.
Steve Wiles
Hi Steve. That sounds about right. This one took 3 tubes for 1 foot. I'd like to hear how the mats work for you. I like them much better than the rubber mats.
Some of those bad areas might hold the gold. Great job, haven't made mine yet.
Doublenotminer
Yippers, they probably would. This Silicone really hangs on to the gold. I really like the fact that I can shorten my sluice down so short and still catch all the gold. I'm just finishing up a short video showing a quick test run on this sluice. You may want to check it out when I get it up. It is typical of about 30 runs I've made with this sluice.
I bet silicon profits went up this year LOL>
Oh, yea, forget gold stocks, buy silicone for sure. 😄 Lots of folks making them right now. They sure beat the rubber mats and you can custom make them to what pattern and size you want.
Do you think maybe a trowel, like the kind used in sheetrock would work better? Just a thought I had. I like your design, at least I can make the forms myself and not buy them already made, save some money that way. I could also customize it to what I would want to make. Long video, but very informative, thanks for taking the time to making it.
William Gipson
Hi William. Yea sorry for long and boring but some people want to see exactly how long the Silicone is worked before it's placed in the mold. That time is very important.this drop Riffle design is one of the best designs around and you can't buy a mat like it. But you can easily make it yourself. Yes you can use a trowel but I don't have one and just used what was handy at the time.
Hello: I have just tuned in to your awesome videos and since I have probably missed a lot along the way, the first question that comes to mind is why don't you just use the silicone straight out the tube and onto the mold instead of using the water and soap process?
Hi Gordon and thank you for watching. The water is what makes the Silicone harden and the warmer it is, the faster it will set up. The soap in the water prevents the silicone from sticking to your hands and the mold. These mats are by far the best gold catchers you can get. Hope this helps.
@@utahavalanch Hi again: Thanks for your reply, that explains it!
@@gordonforster6898 you’re welcome. Have a great day.
silicone will stick to the mold w/out the water soap mixture also it wont release w/out the soap water mix
@@frederickbierweiler8020
That is correct. You need to brush or spray some soapy water on the mold before you apply the Silicone.
Tell us about the wooden tray(mold) measurement and specifications i.e the riffles in between distance??the Dept of the tray???and the width of riffles???we can maximize the chances of capturing gold only by using by designing the best mats.so therefore i want to know about your mold???
sarwar kamal
Hi Sarwar and thank you for watching. This is my favorite mat so far. It is for a 10 inch (25.4 cm) wide sluice. The base board is 15 inches (38.1) cm long by 12 inches (30.48) cm wide.
The frame around it is 5/8 inches (17) mm wide X 5/8 inches (17) mm high. You can use a 5/8 inch (17) mm square dowel for it.
The Riffles are 5/8 inches (17) mm wide X 3/8 inches (10) mm thick X 10-1/2 inches (26.67) cm long. This will make the backing on the mat 1/8 inches (4) mm thick which makes it nice and flexible when rolling it up to take out of the sluice. I made the mat wider than the sluice so I could cut it to the exact fit later on. If you use square dowels from a lumber store, you can buy 3/8 inch (10) mm square dowels and glue them together to make the width. They will be 3/4 inch (20) mm wide rather than the 5/8 inch wide and that will work fine.
I used 11 Riffles which made the mat about 12 inches (30.48) cm long. If you need a longer mat, you can make more of these and then glue them together with Silicone.
I hope this helps.
@@utahavalanch thanks sir for your reply,stay blessed
I'll be a leaving to the store. Bless you. I found that my dad has Quit looking for tailins. And never talked about it. So your advice helps me and the questions. Excellent day. Thank you I'll make a video later.
Bravo nonno
Thank you and thank you for watching.👍
I'm going to try a rolling pin on my next one and see how it works 🤔
I was going to try it as well but the boss said, “No Way In Hell” so I haven’t tried it.😝
As an addition to the large 2x4 , would a large flour biscuit rolling pin help to push the material down into the form and smooth it out ?
Yes, I think it would and probably better than my 2x4. but I haven't gotten around to getting one yet. You can take a guess at what would happen if the missus caught me using her rolling pin to roll Silicone. Wouldn't be pretty. :-D
Some of the folks have been using pieces of PVC pipe and that seems to work for them but the silicone sticks to mine. But I'm going to try it with the wax paper in between the two.
How is the long term durability and abrasion resistance of silicone as a sluice mat material? Can it withstand daily runs of 5 cy of gravels running across it?
Hi Sol and thanks for watching. I'd say these would last for years. The originator of these mats, Alan Robertson, puts more wear and tear on a set of mats in one day than I could in 3 years and after a season his looked like new. These are very tough and if they do get damaged, you can easily repair them. The big thing with these is that gold sticks to the Silicon rather than than sliding off like with rubber so these will catch far more gold. I've tried most of the rubber mats on the market and I'll never go back. I like that now I have my favorite drop Riffle mats that no one else would make. Plus I can make them to my specifications.
And I was one of his biggest doubters when he introduced them. I've gone from a Gold Hog 4 foot sluice with 2 mats to a 21" home brew version because it catches much more of the fine gold we have here than the Hog ever did. If you haven't yet, you ought to check out Alan's channel. He keeps up with this quite well. You can find him here.
m.ruclips.net/channel/UCq2tap0uNZmPLhs0JqrQOlw
Give them a try. I think you'll like them.
love the dyi
frederick bierweiler
Thank you Frederick and thanks for watching.
Great video
Robinson prospecting
Thank you and thanks for watching. I very much want to make a mat like the one you made from the shutter. That is a very similar pattern to the Le Trap sluices that work so well. Need to wait till I can do it outside as that one will take a bit of Silicone. 😄
utahavalanch look for old double wide shutters it’s perfect because that’s all you need it has less than 1/8” all ready haven’t seen any one make my shutter sluice yet
@@justsluiceit
They want a few bucks a Homey Depot for one so I think I'll shop around the wood salvage yards and see if I can come up with one. That design is nice as it lets the larger rocks just roll on down and out the sluice. I'm also surprised someone else hasn't picked up on this yet.
А если во время заливки, использовать вибростол??
Hi and thank you for watching. No. The silicone comes in a tube and it has a special gun like mechanism that pushes the silicone out of the end of the tube and into the soapy water.
@@utahavalanch Имеется ввиду, когда силикон находится на форме. Включить вибрацию, для равномерного распределения по форме.
@@user-ro5pm5sg4z
No vibration. Just press down on it with a board to press the Silicone into the grooves with pressure. The Silicone is too thick to settle with vibration.
Have you ever tried sprayed Pam in your mold. 🤔
Hi Johnny, sorry, youtube didn’t notify me on this message. No I haven’t used pam but it should work fine. I use Vaseline on my pvc when I have to run silicone around it for the spraybar hole in the header if I make it too large and that keeps the silicone from sticking.
I happened to see a bucket of liquid silicone. How do you think that would work for a mat?
Leann Kennedy
Hi Leann and thanks for watching. I haven't had any experience with it but I can see no reason it wouldn't work. Being liquid, it would be easier to use as you could just pour it in and it would self level.
Hullo there i am enquiring do you use a releasing agent on the mould i have enquired and been told vasalene was okay .will try and let you no how i got on.tried one just with furniture varnish but grabed in a few places
Alan McColl
Hi Alan and thanks for watching. Yes, the release agent is the soapy water. I brush it all over inside and outside of the mold with a brush. I add 1/2 oz of Dawn dish soap to 2 quarts of water to make it. The dish soap keeps it from sticking to the mold. Hope this helps.
love it !
c shackleford
Me too. Thanks for watching. Just ran a quick test before the storm and this mat did not disappoint in any way.
utahavalanch I believe it, and I really enjoy watching the video’s! Lots of good instructional and educational information. I have to say, that not only do I love the gold and sluice information, love the wood working skills. Just a pleasure to watch the video’s , I appreciate them,.
I know the dowels are square for the drop riffle, but I was trying to imagine, what the effect would be using round dowels, wondering if the effects would be better, worse, or the same. When I make the mats I will do the square ones 1st
c shackleford
The square dowels create the square troughs and the water hits that vertical wall and then part of it turns down to create the Vortex and the rest goes on down to the next trough. The round dowels would create a round bottom and as the water hugs this Silicone so closely and having watched the Underflow sluices with the round bottoms work, I would think that it would wash the dirt out of the trough. However the big question is....will the gold stay and the dirt leave like in the Underflows? Due to the stickability of the gold to the Silicone, it just may. It would be interesting to see. You may want to give it a try. I have a few other projects I'm currently working on before I can try it.
utahavalanch I was wondering the same, but when I get to the mat part of the project I will start with the proven square dowel method first,. Then maybe try the round dowels. Thanks for the reply
Great video! How long will one of these mats hold up?
jim beer
Hi Jim and thanks for watching. I expect a long time. If you watch Alan Robertsons channel he has put several years of hard mileage on his and they don't show a bit of wear. They are really tough and being flexible they don't get much damage from running dirt and rocks. If somehow you can find a way to damage them, they are really easy to repair. I messed up on one and cut it 1/4" too narrow to fit the sluice and so I put it back in the mold and added a half inch more to it and then cut it to the right size. Very easy to work with.
Bangsa Romawi (Ar-Rūm):43 - Oleh karena itu, hadapkanlah wajahmu kepada agama yang lurus (Islam) sebelum datang dari Allah suatu hari yang tidak dapat ditolak (kedatangannya): pada hari itu mereka terpisah-pisah.Bangsa Romawi (Ar-Rūm):44 - Barangsiapa yang kafir maka dia sendirilah yang menanggung (akibat) kekafirannya itu; dan barangsiapa yang beramal saleh maka untuk diri mereka sendirilah mereka menyiapkan (tempat yang menyenangkan),
i see u havent made any new video, are u dolng ok
Hi Stanley, yep, I was just getting off the oxygen machine and I got back to working on the sluice and we went out to dinner and I picked up another bad round of Covid. So I have been down and hoping I can stay out of the hospital this time. The sluice was out in the weather all winter and suffered some damage from storms so Instead of patching cracks, I decided to rebuild the hopper. So I have the parts cut out, shaped and ready to start assembling and waterproof as soon as I can get over this. As soon as I can get some more wood, I’ll rebuild the lower section so the main gold catching section will be larger. Then I hope I will get a chance to try it out. The old one last fall cleaned every piece of visible gold out of all the dirt I ran through it. This rebuild version should make it much harder for any gold to escape.
Rad
Hi Barry and thanks for watching.
Hi Utah....would you be willing to make a mat for me?....i'll pay you for materials, labor, and pay for shipping also....you would have to make a mold, 24'' wide by 13" long
I don't want to waste that much silicone again
Hi Shawn. Sorry so late getting back to you. Been down for several weeks with medical problems.
I suspect that you have had a try in making a mat that size and was met with a bit of frustration and maybe not too successful.?
Trying to make a mat that size at one time has many problems as I'm sure you are aware now.
You need to be able to work with Silicone in a warm environment and unfortunately, I have to make mine outside and it will be freezing weather and snow here for several months. We won't have temperatures warm enough to work Silicone until May and at that time I will be tied up with a number of other projects. So I'm sorry but I'll have to pass.
However, if you feel like giving it one more try, I can tell you how to do it to where you will have better success at succeeding.
The basic idea is, to make a small mold that is 24 -1/2" wide x about 6" or 8" high depending on how wide the troughs are. Starting at one end, you start filling the end with 1 or 2 tubes of silicone. Then let it harden, remove the silicone and check for defects and repair any defects such as holes, low spots, creases etc. You now have a good section that is 6" or 8" x maybe 6" that is good to go. Soap the mold, put it back in the mold and do 2 more tubes and so on till you get the mold filled. This way you only have to deal with a couple of tubes or how ever many you feel comfortable in doing at a time. If something goes wrong, you are only out 1 or maybe 2 tubes. You can take your time and spread it out over a period of time if you want. You make sure each section is perfect and move on till the entire mold is filled. Then make another one or as many as you need to make the length you want. Then you mold them together into 1 long mat.
If you make the mold properly, you will be able to mold the sections together across the bottom of a trough so the seams are invisible and it will look like the mat was molded in one piece.
If you would like more info on making the mold or the process, just let me know and I'll see if I can fill you in with a little more info.
@@utahavalanch Thanks so much for the reply...sorry to hear that you've been having medical problems bud, I thought that might be the case, since you haven't been on here in a while...im having some issues with hernias myself
I had thought about doing another mat, a couple of tubes at a time, but wasn't sure if the sections would bond together properly......several things went wrong on my first try....i used too much soap in the water...the temperature here was too cold, and like you said, it's a BIG mat....anyways, hope you're getting well brother, and again, thanks for your help
Shawn Mccracken
Hi Shawn. If you don't mind, I'll show you how I make my larger molds so that I can add on to them seamlessly.
I have found for my large sluice mats that I like a 1/2" frame and for the troughs I like them 3/4" wide to hold a lot of black sand as well as the gold. A lot of your black sand is the same weight as much of your gold and so if you lose it, you lose the gold that is the same weight.
I like 3/8" high dowels but to get the 3/4" wide you have to glue 2 together. If you have a table saw you can cut them to size. You can make them to whatever size you like. I'll just use these as a reference in this example.
This is how I would make your mold.
I make spacer boards 1/2" wide x 1" high so you can get hold of it that go almost the full length of the dowel but are cut short enough so I can keep them in place when I put the clamps on.
Here is how I would lay it out.
Frame__________________
Space 1/2" wide
Dowel 3/4" wide
Space
Dowel center of the mold
Space
Dowel
Space
Frame___________________
This will give you a mold 12-1/2" wide X 7 1/2" high if we use 3/4" wide troughs for this example. Easy size to manage.
When you fill it, start at the end and fill the height part and not one of the long grooves. 1 tube should fill to about 10 - 12 inches x 7-1/2 inches. My earlier post will give you an idea of how I would do it.
Say you did 1 tube. Let it harden and then remove and check for holes, creases etc. repair at this time by adding more Silicone, to the damaged area, soap the mold and place the mat back in the mold to cure. Remove check the repair and then cut the end off square to remove any uneven edges. Then soap the mold and put back in place.
Yes, when you add more Silicon to the end of this it will bind together. Be sure to press and work the new wet material firmly up against the old piece with your fingers and heel of your hand. You can do as many tubes at a time as you feel comfortable with and just let harden and then check for problems.
The reason for making the mold this way is for joining 2 sections together without a visible seam.
To join 2 sections together, place 2 of the outer solid mat Riffles into 2 of the empty spaces on one side of the mold and seat down firmly. Then place 2 of the Riffles from the other mat into the 2 outside spaces on the opposite side. You should now have the edges of the 2 sections embedded in the mold with a dowel going down between them separating them. Now you just fill in that small gap over the dowel and smooth out and let harden. Your seam is now at the bottom of the trough and invisible.
Couple of notes:
*1/2 oz dish soap to 2 - 3 quarts of water. I heat in microwave to about 90 degrees but you have to work fast at that temp.
*Keep temperatures of mold in the mid 70's range. If you seal the whole mold well with Helmsman Spar Varnish, you can put in tub of hot water to warm.
*you can run hot water from tap over the mat and mold to help harden a little faster. Or put in bathtub with enough hot water to cover it.
*problems such as tears, holes, missing sections can easily be repaired. Just put the damaged section back in the mold and add Silicone. Cut the width too short? Put back in the mold so you have about 1/2" space between mat and frame and add Silicone.
Very best of luck if you try again. Takes a little practice but once you get the hang of it, it opens a whole new world of mats and molds for other things.
@@utahavalanch Thanks a bunch bud!!!