Subsurface Gold Dredge Mods

[sjmpainter]

I would love to meet up, unfortunately I will be in Maui on Monday.

I know what you mean on the Tiger Flex hose, It has a hard time in the cold temps.

Some pictures of the 6, I am working on. Keep in mind this is a prototype and until I see it in operation and prove it is worthwhile to put more effort into, it's kind of rough construction.

Any way the basic idea is similar to Keene's new SuperMax 6 with a sump and secondary sluice. For the test run I am just going to hook my 2 inch dredge in behind the 6.

If this set up works well I will  rebuild it with a better frame and floats. Replace the sluice box with a custom made one where the sump is incorporated in it and mount the secondary sluice above the tube in-between the motors.

I'll be curious to see what comments I get on this.

[IDdesertman]

Quote

unfortunately I will be in Maui on Monday.

That doesn't sound so unfortunate...

[Bob(AK)]

Great looking builds. The frame on the 6" looks like you may be adding another float on each side. Only comments I have on the 4" would be that you may not want that piece of punch plate in there. The overall width looks good. I widened mine some to make it more stable. Those little dredges are quite wild in rough water. Good luck with them

[sjmpainter]

Thanks Bob, I do plan to leave the extra aluminum  incase a second set of floats are needed. Both you guy's have fair warned me on the stability in rough water.

Rite now the problem I see is the test sump is well below the floats and will stay that way until I do my test run as the only way to fix it would require a major frame mod or larger floats.

The problem I see now that it is getting assembled. The sump will be below the water surface and I think with the water  pouring in.  I'm not sure what that will do. In essence the tube may have to be placed on top of the frame?

I think your rite on the punch plate.

[minerdude]

 Send a PM when you return from Hawaii. I see possible problems with the intake to the 2" in classification so as not to clog up as it necks into the 2" ,but you will be experimenting with that ,you will be only interested in fines at that point so maybe just a bigger punch plate ? Keep it in mind. The bigger gold should never get that far. .I see you have a blaster "Y", we have been using them in clay and bedrock to increase production for fines. We will not dredge without one. We have found that the blaster helps remove the  bedrock by clearing the cracks with less effort...plus it breaks the gold from the clay. Enjoy the sun.. See you when you get back.