riffle setup with expanded metal

[Next1m8]

Turns out with the reject shop mat underneath the miners moss failed epic the water gets lost in between the two mats, it's over kill on a massive scale, I since butchered my mat from my front door as it has grooves on it cut it down the guts and put that in it, until I get a larger pump and extend the sluice run I've taken out the riffles and given up on those for now, seems I get left with loads of lights and it fills in where the gold should be sitting. Wouldn't mind doing some test pans today only my sister is here and I can't get out :-0 oh well all in good time I guess patients is a virtue

 

[Next1m8]

I need some advice on marine carpet this one

Or this one

 

[jamie]

are you running just the carpet under the expanded/riffles, or will it be under the miners moss? i use rubber 'v' mat under bunnings miners moss with expanded on that in my river sluice, i haven't used carpet but have read and been told that the carpet can be really hard to clean out properly

 

[Next1m8]

Well I've got miners moss and expanded metal with V groove on the bottom, I find the miners miss lets the fines thru and the V matting does not catch it too well at all I'm going to get some marine carpet just to try 15$ for 300mmx2m isn't too bad

 

[Next1m8]

It is a pain to clean my mate has some but if it's hard to clean it should catch everything better too theoretically

 

[jamie]

well i do like that thinking if its harder to clean it must catch it well, if you are loosing fines through the miners try putting a length or two of wire across the sluice under the miners, it will stop scouring (spelling?) acts as a 'dam' stopping fines migrating out the end, i done it with 3mm tig filler wire bent to a v, with the v towards the end when i wasn't using the v mat, worked well for me but give the carpet a test run first you may be happy with it and it is all trial and error till it works for you, like i said i haven't used carpet so i am curious too now

 

[Next1m8]

If I use the carpet under the moss I shouldn't need the wire to create a damn do you think? I'll have two lengths so I won't need to clean up as often I can run through once wash out the miners and then throw my second carpet in and bam go on.. I hope

 

[jamie]

yeah i wouldnt worry about the wire if you run the carpet under moss, i like the idea of the two lengths so you could just go hard swap them out go again then have one big clean up with a beer then go again for afternoon shift

 

[Marked]

Two words - backed moss.

 

[Next1m8]

Turns out I'll have enough for 3 lengths and for 10$ score!! Yeah I'll still have to clean the mos out each run but that takes no time at all, next mod will be larger expanded metal just for a test and then smaller expanded metal

 

[Next1m8]

Two words - backed moss.

Can't say I've heard of it? Currently I have a reject shop pvc shower Matt that's like moss but with a back on it, do d it catches literally everything. And then holds on like tarzansgrip

 

[dwt]

I've always been a carpet fan, blues my choice, shows up the yellow better than the 'salt n pepper' coloured moss in the first pic,
Anyone here knocked they're moss around into a tub after its dried a day or two after clean up, if you haven't, it's well worth doing to see what gets locked into the moss, you'll be amazed what won't come out until it's dry.
Moss on Vrubber gets a vote for sure, as does expanded metal on top of Vrubber, as does moss on Vrubber with expanded metal, as does moss on Vrubber with expanded metal and riffles, backed moss with all of the above,
It's almost endless the variables that can be used,
There is no one absoloute gaurantee that what youre running will be the 'be all and end all' of gold catching, no two one dig sites are the same,
So how can one gaurantee your not loosing gold out the end of your box?
Sample your tailings!
I might do random samples from time to time, but other than that I find 4 pieces of moss (on top of whichever underneath whichever) instead of one long piece allows me to clean each one into a seperate container and see where the gold was/is being caught.
One just has to work out what is best suiting them for the area/ground they're washing

 

[jamie]

well said Dwt, as always your knowledge and input is welcomed, and that is why this forum is great the experienced guys helping out the lesser experienced, which in turn we can pass it on to others

 

[Goldtarget]

Matt testing is important. I really don't like carpet as dwt and I have discussed and each to their own. No matter what mats you use I can almost certainly say that materials can eventually reach a saturation point whereby no extra material will collected up, this is independent of flow rates angle and exchange properties of the setup. What I mean is the use of riffles, expanded, or whatever else eventually the exchange breaks down once the mats are full. At some point they become so packed with material like ironstone, black sands or residual clays no more can be exchanged.

The answer is more frequent clean ups. This can easily be tested by anyone running matting. I love the backed matting but around the two hour mark in my configuration you can see saturation and losses. The systems I have adopted now try to seperate the gold at the entry point as much as practical instead of relying soley on exchange. There's many examples out there that do well at this.

 

[BJ Bates]

Hi Jamie,
hahaha mate, I looked at the marine carpet and boy did it give me goose bumps !!!!

That was the stuff we used before the Nomad carpet was ever brought into the dredgers life, (where I come from anyway) it was good to a point until it would become saturated with fines, whether it be sand or tin or black sand and wouldn't allow anything to stay attached to it when bogged with these fines, I'm with Goldtarget when he suggests to clean out more often is to keep more of your hard earned gold.
Always carry spares and clean up after you retire at night.
I ran several types of recovery systems and experimented with each and every one of them and found that the Nomad works a treat, but don't run it too flat as it will bog and push/or washout any gold before it has a chance to settle.
I am running a high banker/sluice at the moment and have found that if I give the gold a chance right from the get go and it settles to the bottom of my initial classifier it appears to trap everything, I have panned and panned my tailings and haven't found anything yet, but that's not to say it won't lose gold if I push the feed rate up too much and it has difficulties in classifying the material.
I have a box full of the gold hog mats (imported) but am not convinced just yet, but will do more with them this year.
I am working on (as a guide only as feed type will be a decider) 8 in one 1, theory of every 8" long 1" down for my sluices at the moment and it seems to work well and I run stainless ten mill punch plate above the aluminium expanded mesh on the first classifier over nomad carpet. and on my sluice I run expanded mesh over nomad carpet without punch plate.
( Goldtarget has suggested I run cable tray as it wont hold the little stones as much,which is true)
I carry a length of wood 2x2 pine to belt the punch plate to dislodge the stones caught in the holes and it works fine, as for the water flow I run a 3" at just an idle, for two reasons, primarily the noise factor, I am not one to advertise my presence and an idling 5hp motor is very quiet, also it allows you to hear if anyone has driven up on you and is playing silly buggers and if I want more water I've got it on tap so to speak.

I apologise about being long winded, happy hunting

BJ

 

[jamie]

yeah i like the bunnings matting with a v mat backing, i have so far steered clear of the marine carpet cause i was told it was to hard to clean properly unless it was dry, and that it clogs/saturates faster but like i said before i havent used it, i have seen it used on a highbanker and seemed as tho they were going ok with it, but like all things i guess it is what the individual likes or prefers.

BJ Bates, dont apologize for being 'long winded' it will help not just us in this conversation right now but anyone later on that reads this, i done a hell of a lot of reading and printed of pages of sluice/riffle designs etc before i really asked questions for my own benefit, this will help others too