Post
by Slatco » Fri Apr 26, 2019 2:26 pm
Hi Dick, that is what I have- Devin gold sluice. I have the prospector series but have also used the Klondike series. For the gold I am in which is flat flake, I have found it works the fastest for processing sluice box cons. Since Geo asked earlier and now you as well I will try and give a little run down of my cleanups.
Call me crazy but I typically only run for two to three hours consecutively before I shut down. This is due to numerous factors- sluciebox loading due to not enough water (hence the bigger pump shopping), fueling requirements of pumps and trommel, fueling requirements of operator lol, tailings management, boredom, excitement to see gold in the box etc, etc. The portion of my sluice I cleanup is 3ft wide by 6ft long with angle irons riffles over miners moss so at the end of the day I probably have 20-25 gallons of concentrate.
Since the ground I am in does not have large nuggets, I run the cons through a 1/4" classifier and then into the Devin sluice. I then fire up the pump for the Devin sluice (I use a 2" Honda at about half throttle) set a 7 degree angle and feed away. It takes me about 2 beer (45 minutes) to process the cons (less when I was using the larger/wider Klondike sluice). If the ground has gold in it, the top riffle sections will slowly start to trap more gold and push the blacksand and other material out. At the end of the run if you had a good day, the top three riffles will be primarily gold. To cleanup the sluice, you shut the water off, place a pail under the collection trough and then tip the sluice vertical. It is hinged and now all the material in the cleanup sluice can be washed into the collection trough. I generally wash the bottom 80% of the sluice out and into a pail that I save for later (I usually bring all the bottom 80% out and deal with when I am at home and have time and not at the minesite). The tops 20% contains the majority of the gold and by performing a up and down motion with a small garden hose in the V of the collection trough you can wash off any remaining sand and just be left with pure gold. (Hard to explain and this is what I will attempt to video next trip out) The gold is usually so clean after this step it can go right to the scale after drying. I really like this method as I have a really accurate idea of what my ground is doing on a daily basis and I can change things up for the next day based on this info if I need to.
I stick my LeTrap sluice after the end of the Devin and at most it will have only 5-10 pieces in it after running that much concentrate.
To summarize, for the gold I am in which is mostly flat flake around 20 mesh and the way I have my op setup, the Devin sluice is the most efficient cleanup device I have found to date. (I have tried the LeTrap, the Gold cube, the Wheel and they were all slower)
