NSW/QLD highbanker solution

[reefer]

This brings up an interesting subject...in relation to 'rock'or not!...My personal opinion is that the 'rocking motion disturb s the free flow of water over your riffles.
Resulting in reduced areas of low pressure on the 'Downstream'side of the riffles..the result is uneven and sporadic distribution of the heavy metals ...ie the gold. This is what I have observed over the years in those cradles I've made..ie Two!... :lol: but also of those others that I've seen in operation...some,worse then others!
I just feel that is right to observe that a body in motion will travel in a straight line unless influenced by an outside force...so if the sides of the sluice are straight as well...water will conform itself and under the influence of gravity, in an even column...read 'thickness of the flow' layful: (resulting in more even distribution of the wash material and consistent low pressure on the downstream side of the sluice! layful: ...Well it sounded good when I said it in me head! :lol: it may or may not be me being a little pedantic but I think 'rocking the cradle' is just one of those things that are not necessary'...but even flow over the riffles is. layful:

 

[Keitzy]

Reefer, Depends on the size of said rocker.

In mine, I ran carpet and ribbed mat, with only a nugget trap at the end. Was basically washing away the lights and leaving the heavies.

Flow needed was minimal, and the rocking action basically turned it into a giant gold pan. Much quicker and more efficient tho.

Running riffles in a rocker without constant flow doesnt really make sense to me.
Itd be like stop, starting your banker or sluice. Vortex ends, then On re startup, you blow your gold out the end.

 

[20x]

Prototype,
Too rough.
I built it too prove a few points.
Going to build it much better as I worked out from
it where it was wrong.

Much more efficient design and a lot more portable.

Things like leverage, pump stroke, angles etc.

You can use it all day without ending up with tired arms.

As for recovery, Bloody brilliant.

I have even worked out a better spray bar assy, and a mechanism to rotate the
sieve assembly while you rock it.

So the whole sluice orbits instead of rocks?

 

[reefer]

Keitzy...using a foot or hand pump results by nature in interrupted flow...even with the two-way pump there is a slight pause in flow between pumps..Gold already trapped in behind the riffle...or trapped in the mat will in about 99% of cases stay right where it is until the next surge of low pressure acts upon it....at least ,that's what I've found
But mate you know...there are many variables involved,ie. shape,size and flow rates,angle of incline and god knows what else...if rocki'n the cradle works for you ...mate that's good enough by me. I am still blown away by Gold rats version of a hand-banker! awesome...I'd like to have one of them for the rest of my days on the Diggins! layful: :lol: it's a straight shooter and it is almost ventirely like the one I drew up sometime ago but never got around to putting in-place...hehe!..cheers mate :beer:

 

[reefer]

Woops!..just realised Imight of made a mistake in the builder of this unit...Ithought it was from Gold-rat...But I've confused meself now! :8

 

[Mungoman]

Reading and thinking about how people see the interruption of flow, I thought about bag pipes...

A bag pipe has a reservoir prior to the chanter - the flow from the bag is restricted by the orifice where the chanter joins the main body of the bag pipe. The i.d. of the mouth piece is larger than the i.d. of the chanter. The piper will fill the bag, or reservoir, and maintain that constant pressure by blowing into it, then pause, then breathe into it.

Ok. Lets transpose this to Gold.

Have this rocker unit piped into a reservoir first so that reservoir contains sufficient water to remove the pause. The reservoir doesn't need to be pressurised, it just needs and exhaust that is smaller than the venturi...so to speak. This water then is gravity fed to the top of the incline where it interacts with the pay dirt

That's the principle anyway. What dyer reckon?

 

[reefer]

Mungoman...exactly!....it would do things very nicely! layful: ...continue to run water over the riffle system..of whatever type...ie.conventional riffle...goldmat,,,etc..until the next pulse of water restores the hopper level...the way to go!.However!...If your paydirt happens to be associated with clay soils..or clay soils even forms part of the paydirt.. The water burst from the column of water contained in one thrust is significant...that surge of water from the right footpump..coming out of the right sort of spray bar..like the double pump banker(THE ONE ON THE VIDEO), thumps those clayey bits real good I'd reckon...just by observing the obvious vigorous thrust per pump cycle! :Y: so...a tweak to the hopper water capacity so as that blast of water, gives way to the next one,is sufficient to maintain the water levels over your sluice arrangement. :lol: I think that's what I take from it.!...

 

[Smoky bandit]

Water flow seems to be a big issue for some people.
Where we sluice for gold you might get 1 speck per 20 ltr bucket of dirt .
I can easily count the specks I get from 10 x 20 ltr buckets and I have never seen them move more than the next ripple in th Matt from bucket feeding with water. :Y:
The gold lost from this machine would be nil to very minimal. :Y:
IMO.

 

[reefer]

Well Smoky!...sounds like you have a good system happening mate...and yeah...I'm not surprised at all to hear you confirm that your gold stops right there where it lodged when the forces at play put it.It's as we all know...or...( should know for their own benefit) that Gold is 20x! heavier than water!... .... yet the vortex the water creates as it meets that outside force 'I was rattling on about above...the riffle. It generates so much low pressure as to cause the nugget to sit snugly as it may...low and tight to the downstream side of the riffle.The other thing is to remember is,it's good to have a pan, dish or bucket perhaps, catching the discharge fines from the sluice.That way you don't lose any fines that were washed out. :lol: Just my angle on it...pun intended :lol: :lo: Cheers to yers :Y:

 

[Smoky bandit]

Well Smoky!...sounds like you have a good system happening mate...and yeah...I'm not surprised at all to hear you confirm that your gold stops right there where it lodged when the forces at play put it.It's as we all know...or...( should know for their own benefit) that Gold is 20x! heavier than water!... .... yet the vortex the water creates as it meets that outside force 'I was rattling on about above...the riffle. It generates so much low pressure as to cause the nugget to sit snugly as it may...low and tight to the downstream side of the riffle.The other thing is to remember is,it's good to have a pan, dish or bucket perhaps, catching the discharge fines from the sluice.That way you don't lose any fines that were washed out. :lol: Just my angle on it...pun intended :lol: :lo: Cheers to yers :Y:

Yer mate we put pans there to catch any losses many times during the testing of a bucket feed highbanker many years ago.
And for some reason we never lost a speck .
Not that I can remember anyway

 

[Geehi]

Ive set up a recirculating system at home based on a Gold Rat 8 modular sluice.
I feed it with 10 litre buckets of dirt collected from a number of locations locally.
At first, I classified through an 8 mesh sieve into the bucket, but soon got jack of that, particularly when the dirt was damp and/clayey.
So, into the bucket she all went, I fitted the optional classifier to the 8 sluice, and fed the sluice rocks, clay, and all.
This meant I had to reach into the water flow at the head of the classifier every couple of small spades of feed to break up clay and remove rock buildup out of the main flow.
Having read about flow interruption on this forum, I was concerned about the effect my constant disruption of the flow might have on recovery.
So, I panned out the sluice spoil from twelve 10 litre buckets (oh, joy!).
Couldnt see anything in the pans, so dumped the concentrate from them into the blue bowl.
Still couldnt see anything from the blue bowl, so stuck the blue bowl recovery under my Andonstar digital microscope.
In amongst some damned fascinating and colourful stuff I found three tiny specks of gold.so small I couldnt pick them out with very fine tweezers.
I no longer worry about interrupting the flow into the sluice

 

[user 4485]

8" version with some material being run (1 person operation):

 

[reefer]

Geehi... and the same can be said by just about every prospector I know..highbankers these days deliver more of the pay in the first or second riffle and anything slipping through the riffles ain't gonna be really worth worrying about ( I no longer worry about interrupting the flow into the sluice ''.)but yeah it's basically the pan out front is just in case of that one big clunker! :lol: However!..soils ain;t soils,there's clayey soils and sandy soils and loamy soils and each has an ideal flow rate and angle of recline!...getting it right can sometimes take a bit er tinkerin'...and there's a lotta blokes on here who's like tinkerin'! :lol: Cheers mate...good luck out there! :Y:

 

[Jemba]

8" version with some material being run (1 person operation):
[video=480,360]https://youtu.be/z9SheT_ilZY[/video]

:Y:

 

[Geehi]

Geehi... and the same can be said by just about every prospector I know..highbankers these days deliver more of the pay in the first or second riffle and anything slipping through the riffles ain't gonna be really worth worrying about ( I no longer worry about interrupting the flow into the sluice ''.)but yeah it's basically the pan out front is just in case of that one big clunker! :lol: However!..soils ain;t soils,there's clayey soils and sandy soils and loamy soils and each has an ideal flow rate and angle of recline!...getting it right can sometimes take a bit er tinkerin'...and there's a lotta blokes on here who's like tinkerin'! :lol: Cheers mate...good luck out there! :Y:

Yep......understood.

That's why I stopped classifying into the bucket out in the field.
The rationale for doing it was "less lumps of rock equals more dirt in the bucket".......but then it occurred to me that, unlikely as it probably was, one of those rocks might have more gold in it than all of the dirt
So now I bring it all home, separate out the rock with the sluice classifier, and then run the Nox 800 over the rock....just in case.

Tinkering is definitely the name of the game........finding any gold and making a quid is a bit like this:

 

[brendomac]

This has got to be one of my favourite threads on this forum in a while. Similar to the cradle threads, it's looking at ways we can look for gold using new/different/old-timer thinking. Overcoming the stupid bans on mechanical devices.

Awesome!

 

[reefer]

brendomac, I'd have to agree with you mate! :Y: We are blessed in a funny sort of way, in that we have a hundred and seventy years of experience to work with on top of some of the most advanced recovery methods on the cutting edge'' of technology! ...I'm glad I said that!... :lol: ...Anyhow,So in terms of a viable alternative means of processing the pay-dirt...I'm sure that the ideal alternative is not far off ...I personally would be looking at exactly what the video describes...I mean it's a powerul looking. little pumper!.... And it's 'how much power are we talking about'. Ideally,I would want oodles of pumping power in order to have a hopper containing gold in clay-type environment washed out
of solution in say..2-3 pumps.An experienced ...shall we say...'sorter' has equipped he-herself with a ...shall we say...'sorting tool'...a bit like a poker but with a square flat scraper...so yer can kneed that ''clay sucker clod''... right down to dirty water sludge!....in quick-time...for that you need that spray-bar literally Belting the pay-dirt :lol: ..Just from what I've seen that may well be it;s capabilities..it may need to up-size the pump capabilities..(and I'm kinda understanding Jemba's line of thinking now! ) obviously to make an accurate Assessment...one would have to work with the builder in order to attain a 'maximum flow rate from the pump...top-side...and Topside...well I think we try thinking in terms of not one operator trying to do it all on his-her self...as opposed most "efficient process'' with least manpower..in other words small teams! With two men operation you might have one person with a bucket go to pay and return with a load in the bucket he hands that to the banker boss...he's job is to avail his own bucket to the 'loader'...who goes off to seek another bucket load...and the banker boss unloads the bucket into the hopper and runs the load through the sluice.old or young, this method goes close to being the most efficient way for two ...my ideal ...''Party'' is three!...digger fills a bucket and receives an empty bucket...he digs another bucket full and so on..loader is strong and resilient..or slow and steady a good loader will have a special leather shoulder piece..upon which he rests the bottom of the full bucket with a break for a meal and a "CUPPA'or two, you may easily see the loader work 2-8 hrs a day..cubic tonnes are do-able ....in any given case...your looking at a1cubic meter in any given 24hrs a day. and the beat goes on!...Gold keeps pounding a rhythm,..to my brain!...La de la de...Dee... Lad de la de Dar! :lol:

 

[MikeB05]

I really like the Gold Rat foot operated double bilge pump.... but for an old bloke (like me) unsteady on my feet...with buggered knees and irregular balance, I would have to do a modification to operate the pumps with a long handle...making it genuinely "hand operated".

Working alone, there would be stop start on the water flow but my experience (so far) is this should not be a problem as the pumps tend to surge the water anyway.

Surging the waterflow might cause some material migration in the dream mat cells...but again it should not be a problem.

I notice from the video that the material is already 'wet' and wonder why this additional step is really necessary as I thought high bankers were intended to process dirt as it is dug up???

 

[Mackka]

You could always sit down next to it MikeB05 and think of it as exercise and you won't fall over. Like the old treadle sewing machine, hey there's an idea! Same principle just a flat plate that rocks.
Mackka

 

[silver]

Need some sort of pressure tank to opperate it... one that pumps itself up on your back from the movement of your body as you dig etc... straps on your shoulders and thighs connected to it....]
utilising all your latent energy