New Zealand Gold Prospecting & Metal Detecting Forums Archive

This is something my dad has used to great effect ...

Go down to your local Real Estate office ... ask if they have any OLD For sale signs (almost unlimited & ongoing supply for future projects).

It's a very light, but strong plasticy material, that can be cut with a sharp craft knife.

They are approx 1m wide, so gives a good length when turned portrait style instead of landscape.

Simply measure the sign top to bottom width ways ... find the 1/2 way point & measure 4 inches either side.

This will give you an 8 inch wide bottom & the cuts will match exactly for the sides to fold up & match perfectly.

Use Duct tape both sides of the join to fix the sides in place ... overlap the inside tape at the top end to avoid any fine gravel working it's way under the tape (tape the inside & fold it over to the underside).

Depending on the height of the sign, trim until you end up with sides approx 8 - 10 inches high.

TIP ... If you leave a small gap to allow folding when you tape it ... you can then lay it flat or fold it up (1 side over the base & 1 side under the base) when transporting ... less risk of buckling the sides by crushing them.

Place your mat in the bottom & fix in place with the bulldog clips that let you fold the arms down.

To stabilize the walls ... cut a few strips out of the left over material & put a slot in it at each end to slide over the edges of your box ... OR ... use a small piece of wood that you can screw into place creating a handle or 2.

We have wood & put 1 at the bottom & the other 1/2 way up the box (2 handles) ... the top is held by my auto sizing rail system ... but that's another story :).

Now you have a sluice box that will weigh less than a kg or so.

I'll try to post pictures at some stage after Xmas.

Edited by user Monday, 13 December 2010 7:23:01 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

I've finally had the time to complete my version of what I call my "Plastic Fantastic".

Over the 2 weeks either side of Easter 2011, I managed to get down south from Wellington to spend a few days at Dansey's Pass (approx 60km inland from Oamaru) with my dad (70) & gave it a trial run.

Combined with my lightweight rail classifying system, at it's peak (current flowing perfectly through the sluice box at approx 8cm (3 inches) depth, I could place 20 - 30 FULL shovel loads through ... NO classifying into a bucket prior !!

At other times (current not quite right), I could do approx 15 shovel loads before needing to partially clear the top mat before continuing with more shovel loads.

On the 1st day, we ran my dad's sluice box directly below mine to check if i was losing anything ...

I had visable gold in my mats & nothing ended up in his box after an hour (approx 100 shovel loads), so he moved to another spot.

Some quick stats ...

Total weight ... approx 2 - 3 kg maximum (when wet) including rail system
Length ... 1.1m ... 2 x 60cm lengths that overlap by approx 8cm when joined
Top width ... 22cm (approx 8.5 inches)
Middle width (where the mats start) ... 20cm (approx 8 inches)
Bottom width ... 18cm (approx 7 inches)
Wall height ... 20cm (approx 8 inches)
Short wall (rail system) ... 12cm (approx 5 inches)

Rail System materials ...

Plastic litter tray for a pet
approx 22 bicycle spokes
wire to hold the rails in place

http://s184.photobucket....io/Dansey%20Pass%20Gold/

Please copy & paste the link into another tab or window ... otherwise it takes the current window away from the forum.

You'll need to watch the videos seperately as they are not part of the slideshow ... sorry for the quality.

The videos are short due to using my mobile to take them & emailing them while onsite at the river.

Unfortunately, it had a file size restriction, so I had to record multiple short clips to replace my original video ... 37 secs long was too big to email :(

I'll post some more close up photos of the box & rail system soon.

If anyone knows of a free editing program where i could maybe join all the short video clips together ... let me know.

Edited by user Tuesday, 3 May 2011 7:00:07 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

When i cleaned up, i done the 2 mats seperately to see what was happening with the gold.

Almost all of it was in the top 1/2 of the top mat.

Cheers Joe - I'll be checking out the wares at Repco now. Thanks for the advice! :)

Having said all the above, the warehouse sell a thin foam backed "corduroy" looking carpet for (when I bought it..) about $15/meter, and it's 2.5M wide, with the 'grain' running down, not across the width, I only bought a meter and I still have some spare, years later, even with three different home made boxes (horses for water-courses) that I use it in, with the grain across the box, little nylon riffles, about 1.5mm high and maybe 2mm wide with a gap of 1-2mm between, small gold stops dead, stays glittering at you all day. They had two different colours, I bought the blue, rather than dark grey, reasoned that black sand (in 'clogging' quantity) will show in the blue better than the dark grey.

Cheers for that hint GBM, I'll ask a trukky mate if he knows...

The repco mats have little 4-5mm dots on one side,to grip the carpet in your car, I chiselled mine off to glue the mat down flush, not hard to do.

here,s what that matting looks like.
Well as usual page keeps timeing out...il try again another day.

Edited by user Sunday, 5 June 2011 6:17:47 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified