expanded mesh or riffles

[ausniper]

Hi all .i don't know if this has been covered before as i couldn't find anything specific doing a seach.with the chances of finding cornflake size gold in quantity not very likely.i decide to make a smaller grizzly bars,7mm gap.i haven't come across anything that size or bigger.so rather than running large amounts of barren material through my highbanker,i found i am catching more fines and less cons to take home.them buckets of wet gravel are quite heavy.i was fortunate enough to bump into aushunter(hi again brad).and he showed me a great little highbanker he made with hungarian riffles.but like all of the hungarian riffle setups i have seen they catch alot of non gold rocks which dosen't leave alot of room to catch the gold ones.i have added some adjustable riffles to my new highbanker to slow heavy material down as it flows through.the riffles can be spaced as close or as far apart as needed for different areas.or removed alltogether.most highbankers i see run about half the size pump/water volume they need to be efficient.i thought if all the riffles are covered with material they cannot catch the gold(from my testing).also very slow 10-15 minutes for a bucket.by running expanded mesh and my new design low riffles.i can run a 3 gallon bucket every 15-30 seconds.and my cleanups are smaller with more gold.i have also been collecting my tailings and checking and have not found a speck in them.so my question is.do you run hugarian riffles on the chance there may be a larger nugget going through the highbanker one day.or stick with expanded over moss and go for the fines that everyone seems to be finding.as the bigger ones seem few and far between?

 

[Tathradj]

I made a set for mine.
They are made so that you can slip the bread crate out then slide these in.
The way I made them proved them selves at Oallen.

 

[ausniper]

I would like to test my new highbanker against a walbanker that someone else has made.the removable/adjustable ones i have are working better than anything i have tried so far.i built a walbanker and my new one out performs it by far.not that there is anything wrong with my walbanker.it is very slow going checking every rock that comes out.i can run 1 cubic meter every 10 minutes.2 guys cannot keep up to it.2 inch petrol pump a bit over idle.6 cubic meters an hour is a bit of material to shovel and i am not getting any younger

 

[dwt]

Nugget traps, extended sluice box, run a detector over your tailings, nugget traps built into the riffles is my personal favourite, fine gold traps built in the base of sluice boxes, and sluice box maintenance is a must, no matter how well you think your unit is, maintaining your sluice box while operating is key

 

[ausniper]

Good ideas there dwt.my highbanker is 1.2m long and i can add another 1.2m.and apart from looking sternly at gravel exchanging there is not much else to do but shovel them cobblers.i find pretty much everything drops out straight away.the smallest pieces cannot be seen with the naked eye. 60x jewelers loupe can find them.and countless hours cleaning through 2 cleanup sluices a blue bowl then through the miller table and not a speck that i can find.

 

[HeadsUp]

I would like to test my new highbanker against a walbanker that someone else has made.the removable/adjustable ones i have are working better than anything i have tried so far.i built a walbanker and my new one out performs it by far.not that there is anything wrong with my walbanker.it is very slow going checking every rock that comes out.i can run 1 cubic meter every 10 minutes.2 guys cannot keep up to it.2 inch petrol pump a bit over idle.6 cubic meters an hour is a bit of material to shovel and i am not getting any younger

i would love to put my highbanker in series with others and compare the outcome

I designed a fine gold separation and catch zone that worked so awesomely the first time i tested it that i doubled the length because the first one was blocking up with fine gold after 90 minutes

and i am talking 100 - 200 mesh talcum powder stuff that you cant even see until you have it concentrated together in one small area

i have a microscope camera now and will post photos of this stuff at 800X zoom when i get a spare moment.

In regards to nuggets , you can catch those in almost anything . its surprisingly hard to knock them out of riffles or mesh provided those traps are not filled with gravels / sand.

as you correctly say , you must have the water flow to keep the exchange cycle occurring

i would say most sluices / highbankers do not catch the fine gold . they spit it out the end for the next guy.

I read a report on dredging operations on the Shoalhaven from the 1900's

The recovery rate for gold in their sluices was around 4 %

Thats 4 % catch . not 4 % loss

 

[ausniper]

The big ones seem to take care of themselves.its surprising how much fine stuff there is.some places i have found good amounts of fines in my pan.i was panning one weekend and had a metal detector guy pull right up next to me and had a swing all around me and not a beep.i waited for him to drive off then pulled out my highbanker ran for 15 min and did pretty well.when i am out most people that come over to have a look ask if there is gold here and i tell them yes they usually don't believe me have a chuckle and go on there merry way.to me 1oz of fine is the same as 1oz nuggets

 

[slowflow]

HeadsUp. love to see some photos of that talc before & after magnification.

 

[elrodeo]

I would like to test my new highbanker against a walbanker that someone else has made.the removable/adjustable ones i have are working better than anything i have tried so far.i built a walbanker and my new one out performs it by far.not that there is anything wrong with my walbanker.it is very slow going checking every rock that comes out.i can run 1 cubic meter every 10 minutes.2 guys cannot keep up to it.2 inch petrol pump a bit over idle.6 cubic meters an hour is a bit of material to shovel and i am not getting any younger

i would love to put my highbanker in series with others and compare the outcome

I designed a fine gold separation and catch zone that worked so awesomely the first time i tested it that i doubled the length because the first one was blocking up with fine gold after 90 minutes

and i am talking 100 - 200 mesh talcum powder stuff that you cant even see until you have it concentrated together in one small area

i have a microscope camera now and will post photos of this stuff at 800X zoom when i get a spare moment.

In regards to nuggets , you can catch those in almost anything . its surprisingly hard to knock them out of riffles or mesh provided those traps are not filled with gravels / sand.

as you correctly say , you must have the water flow to keep the exchange cycle occurring

i would say most sluices / highbankers do not catch the fine gold . they spit it out the end for the next guy.

I read a report on dredging operations on the Shoalhaven from the 1900's

The recovery rate for gold in their sluices was around 4 %

Thats 4 % catch . not 4 % loss

Heads up I'd be interested to see your set up as that super fine stuff is what pays for petrol.
Any detailed pics ??
Definitely agree with you that most highbankers don't catch the super fines.

 

[Beagleboy]

This is an interesting topic. It would be great to see photos of your different setups. Like your (DWT) nugget trap built in to a riffle.
I understand the walbanker is designed to have interchangible set up for different applications. If you are hunting for gems as oppose to gold. Wal has explained it number of times. It would be interesting to put up your sluice up against walbanker with Wal him self seting it up. Like with anything in live you can not beat years of experiance.

 

[dwt]

Image upload probs at the moment mate, my end of course, however,I know another good mate who might do me the favour of posting it for me, this might take a while

 

[Beagleboy]

I have all the time in the world so no rush.

 

[HeadsUp]

This is an interesting topic. It would be great to see photos of your different setups. Like your (DWT) nugget trap built in to a riffle.
I understand the walbanker is designed to have interchangible set up for different applications. If you are hunting for gems as oppose to gold. Wal has explained it number of times. It would be interesting to put up your sluice up against walbanker with Wal him self seting it up. Like with anything in live you can not beat years of experiance.

I think you would need to thoroughly clean the mats before doing such a test so you start with an absolutely clean reference point

I am not sure if it would be a very fair test though coz mine is capable of handling around 6 cubic metres per day ( and that's a day with smoko and lunch breaks ) whereas I think the Wal banker would be a bit slower while they do that visual check for stones and nuggets as they rake it by hand across the cable tray

Fwiw. The 6 cubes per day mentioned above is based on a location in VIC with very high fine sand content , its much higher throughput if the location has more gravels and less sand

Note the regulations for your state regarding the permitted volumes per day you can excavate

Putting sluices in series to catch the output of the other will quickly show if anything is being lost / caught , then clean them again and reverse the order

 

[dwt]

There is a stainless steel stud in the little trap

 

[dwt]

Hahaaa, God my mrs is good, thanks for getting the pic up babe, anyways, quite easy to work out how it works from the pic, step up, with a V shaped gap in the centre, great little spot for some serious eddying action, this box is off a Z style 3 stage banker, ridiculously large, some forum members would be able to testify to its size, why did I build it so big.......... Coz I want more gold, and to do that I have to process more dirt, simple.
No pics of the Z style banker as she still has a bit to go before being finished, and then I think I'm just going to sell it off before it gets any gravel burns!! :lol:

 

[Beagleboy]

G'day HeadsUp, I am just imagining how big is 6 m3 skip. That's a truckload of paydirt mate. You must have some serious kit and huge arms to dig that much material in a day.
Obviously that's a good thing to process more material but I thought this was about how efficiently each set up catches gold. I have seen some more experianced prospectors do better crevissing with a yabby pump and a pan than me high banking. If you know how to read the creek and have some knowledge of where the gold is hiding you can do very well without moving so much dirt.
You would need to process the same amount of dirt with both set ups to make it objective.

 

[Beagleboy]

https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/img/member-images/428/1417906792_image.jpg

That sort of looks like the nugget trap at the end of my AM Boss. Thanks for the pic mate.

 

[HeadsUp]

I am just imagining how big is 6 m3 skip. That's a truckload of paydirt mate. You must have some serious kit and huge arms to dig that much material in a day.
Obviously that's a good thing to process more material but I thought this was about how efficiently each set up catches gold. I have seen some more experianced prospectors do better crevissing with a yabby pump and a pan than me high banking. If you know how to read the creek and have some knowledge of where the gold is hiding you can do very well without moving so much dirt.
You would need to process the same amount of dirt with both set ups to make it objective.

I used to work for a plumber when he needed a bit of help , my shovelling record per day with him was exactly 20 tonne in an 8 hour day .

I don't have big arms , its all about maintaining a rhythm and bringing strength from your mind.

Re crevicing , absolutely .

But there are some locations that are known for only having fine gold and if its spread right through 8 feet of gravel over 400 metres of gravel bar then it becomes a volume game "for that location"
I can't dig down to bedrock there as I would have 3 feet of water flowing over it when I got down to that strata

no 2 locations are the same

If I can dig down to find crevices I will do that any day

The laws in NSW require us to fill in our holes , if not for that fact I would have spent a week or two digging down to bedrock through 6 feet of gravel in locations where I know there is very good coarse gold ,but I can't do that because of the risk somebody will turn up there half an hour before I start and accuse me of "breaching the rules" , and of course I am limited to 1 cube per day here so it would take me 30 days to expose the bedrock there.

 

[Beagleboy]

Has anyone used a sump on their banker? We met this guy in Eldorado and he had an amazing set up. He sells them on eBay.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Gold-Slu...dustrial_Mining_Equipment&hash=item43d3c27d2d

 

[HeadsUp]

Has anyone used a sump on their banker? We met this guy in Eldorado and he had an amazing set up. He sells them on eBay.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Gold-Slu...dustrial_Mining_Equipment&hash=item43d3c27d2d

Yeah nice guy , that works well for him in that heavy tin at eldorado as well as catching heavy gems with the fine gold there

A forum member uses something very much like that on his big mutha sluices but I can't divulge detail without asking him first

They have value in certain types of product