New Zealand Gold Prospecting & Metal Detecting Forums Archive

i would really get your self a good one , mine is a keene a2 ,have a look on trade me . around $290 but worth it i think more chance of catching the yellow stuff , comes with basic green carpet and rubber but ive just put some blue miners moss and more rubber matting to catch more gold , you can pick it up from mitre ten for cheep . https://www.facebook.com/groups/527460370728575/ you can see a pic of mine on this page , its the bigest legal size you can get i think .

I use a green le trap sluice for both sluice river materials and cleaning up cons from our dredge. Fantastic on fine gold

I have been using an Angus Mckirk boss 2 sluice with good results. I once ran it against a home made sluice operated by a well known sluicer and at the end of the day we came out equal. Interestingly despite all advice I have seen to the contrary neither of us were classifying just shovelling straight in. Being a sucker for technology I have just boght a bazooka sluice but have not had a chance to try that out.

I also run a Keene A52, its awesome but there are advantages and disadvantages.

I would probably get the smaller and lighter A51 if I did it all again, gold has dropped by the second or third riffle so you do not actually need the added length and I don't believe it could process any faster with the added length either

I have tried it will miners moss and I have gone back to the factory green carpet, it doesn't help gold retention and the carpet is much much easier to clean up at the end of the day then miners moss, it works very well out of the box as it comes.

It does need a decent amount of water, small creeks in summer they are useless, I have had to divert all of new creek (new creek, howard fossicking area) through my sluice to get it to work, and thats with classifying the material I feed it.

There is a reason you see blokes using roof guttering as a rudimentary sluice and its not because they are budget conscious, its because they don't need as much water to get working as a hungarian riffled keene. The cost is minimal but they do actually work quite well if you can afford a keene you can afford some offcut guttering so you might as well pack both.



The most important step I havent heard mentioned is classify!!! I use a #2 or #4 into a 20 Litre bucket, then feed that to the sluice and never have to pick stones out and I don't lose gold down to the end of the tray.

I think the difference between the A51 and the A52 is the A52 is made to go hard and can take two people shovelling supposedly. Whereas the A51 is designed to be carried about a bit more.

I have a bought sluice that is very similar to the Keene A52. Bought from Miners Den in Oz and freighted over. Works just as good as the A52 just lighter even thou its about the same size. used for many years most days and still going strong. Can run in a dribble or a raging torrent and still catches the gold when set up correctly.

As pointed out the hardest part of sluice box making is the riffles. these need bent at an engineers, then theres the welding etc. Sometimes easier to just buy a sluice. the time saved you can find gold to pay for a bought one.

I used to build my own but they were just too heavy. Anything made of wood is a waste of time as it gets waterlogged and too heavy to carry far.

I still use the boat style carpet and it catches the gold. you can see it too (the gold). i find the miners moss is good. maybe too good. If you use this moss you need to be really careful cleaning the moss as it is very good at holding gold. A good wash in a bucket of water often isn't enough. i found that drying the moss completely then giving it a good shake always produces more gold. Good stuff for a dredge but maybe overkill on a hand sluice.

A lot of people are using the ribbed rubber profiles instead of standard matting. this is great for showing the gold as you shovel, especially if you are a classifying type guy. personally i prefer to set up the sluice well and just shovel the lot. its all about volumes moved. its not too hard to pick bigger stuff out and keep an eye on the box for jams. I see way too many people wasting time classifying. sure its great when you're working a trickle but odd when you have raging torrent to work in. I've tried both ways and are happy to stick with the volume thing and a well set sluice.

I start at about 100mm over a 1m long sluice. bit up or down depending on flow..

Edited by user Tuesday, 9 June 2015 9:41:31 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

good investment. that's a handy wee book to help if you are just starting out. that's where I started and were lucky enough to run into a very helpful older guy on my first trip to goldsborough who gave me a few pointers.

Its a difficult question to answer, there isn't an optimum angle as such, but there is an optimum angle for the conditions being water volume and water velocity.

Think of the sluice as being powered by the mass, and therefore inertia, energy, of the water travelling across it, thats what gets the heavies dancing and the blondes shedding.

If you don't have enough fast enough water, you need deeper water or more angle
If you dont have deep enough water, you need faster water or more angle

Angle just adds velocity to the water travelling through the sluice, you might not need any angle at all in a fast flowing river, you might need quite a bit in the slow trickle of a summer creek (you can do this by digging out a 'tail race' to get some drop, or building a 'wing dam' to get some height)

I have taken a picture of a keene sluice because that is what I am familiar with



Now how I like to get the water running through my sluice is with about 40-50mm (roughly) of water, with enough velocity that where the flare join the sluice section a 'vee' is developed, and where that 'vee' ends another starts. It seems to work out as being just the right amount of energy flowing through that sluice, clearing the blondes and leaving the heavies.



General rules again, if there is not as much water as you hoped for, then add more angle to get it started ... if its absolutely boiling then try raising the sluice out of the water with stacked rocks underneath so not as much flows through, or by decreasing the angle.

The sluice wont clear instantly, it needs a minute of two, but between swapping out buckets of washdirt it should look a little something like this



Gold loves the black ribbed mat, you will see it when you are shovelling dirt in, it really doesnt like moving off it, gold also likes to collect around the two bolts holding the front of the riffles down, the rest is mostly in the middle of the first two riffle sections.