New Zealand Gold Prospecting & Metal Detecting Forums Archive

Hi all
Just wondering if anyone has ever seen one of these in action? and if there any good
Cheers

ok. just looked this up on you tube.

i've seen many contraptions like this.

some work. some don't.

i have a little plastic mini sluice that concentrates in a similar way but it snaps onto the top of a bucket and looks way simpler than this set up.

the question to ask is prob what is the sell price? is it worth it? and how effective is this to recover ALL of the fines?

many of these easy devices often lose much of the fine concentrates if not set up correctly.

personally i find it easier to return home and run concentrates. it's also time saving to accumulate several days fines and run them together.

as for this device being named as a nugget bucket - is it designed for fines only or the whole works? seems odd to run such a setup that would usually be for fines but expect to recover nuggets in it.? i would prefer to collect nuggets with a detector / dredge or hand sluice as they would all move/cover a lot more material.

i have found most concentrators do not like bigger bits of material in them as they screw its performance, thus losing fines if not careful.

at the end of the day i personally hate having to classify piddly amounts of material while processing pay dirt. you're going to find more gold moving more dirt. simple.

Depends on what you want to spend.

if i had the money a shaker table would be good. or a duplex jig. without a heap of concentrate and a operating mine of scale i would look at a wheel.
they hook up to your car/truck battery (12volt). good for a small operation or if you're running tests on areas away from base. they sell for around $900 i think. i didn't think too much of these but was impressed when i saw one in action. a good investment if you have a lot of fine gold. not sure if it would handle chunky stuff, gold or black sand. i only saw the thing running with fine gold and black sands that were fine also. not sure if it would deal with too much of the chunkier black sands that seem to be a bit more of a cube shape.

a cheaper option is a blue bowl. i've heard various things about these some not so good.

i bought a cheaper option which is simply a short mini sluice made from pvc with recessed riffles in the plastic. you connect it to your garden hose. the trick is getting the water flow right. you just need a paint bucket. drill a hole for the excess water to flow out just below the top of the bucket. the little finishing sluice bungee cords to the bucket handle. there is a garden hose connection to connect to water. mine runs fine as long as no one on the property turns any water on elsewhere as i found this screws the flow in the sluice. you have to get it just right.

i run big plaster buckets of black sand through mine. i have dried all this black sand in the past and run a magnet over it and removed all the gold. or so i thought. you always get a certain size of gold that will get trapped and transfer via the black sand on the magnet. i find these same sized bits of gold can easily be lost in the little finishing sluice also. so it [pays to run it all through a couple of times if you have the patience. from a big bucket of concentrate that had been previously run i could get a bit over 1 gram of gold. not much really for the amount of black sand.

this sluice sells for about $65 i think. online from a guy up nelson way?