Some Thoughts On Newer Materials And Trends In Prospecting Equipment

[John-Edmonton]

I have noticed a trend where sluices, highbankers, hoses, batteries, pumps are becoming smaller, lighter, more affordable, more popular, and nearly all manufacturers are offering a new line to include these. At one time, bigger was better. 12" wide, 12 foot long highbankers were promoted as getting it all. And, maybe often times it did. However, the downside was it was heavy, not very transportable and the amount of concentrates to process was incredible. Fast-forward to today. New materials make for very light, more portable equipment, along with smaller pumps. People now realize a 6 or 8 inch sluice works well, especially with new types of riffle and matting systems. Gasoline pumps have often times been replaced using bilge pumps, with new, light weight lithium ion batteries. The final, screened remaining concentrates can be taken home in a plastic bag. The equipment can be transported in a back-pack, a wagon or other light trolley. You can hike into areas now, not available without a boat or roads to get a much higher gold return. With science & technology producing new riffle deigns, resulting in better capture rates, smaller, leaner cheaper just might be a better choice. What are your thoughts?

 

[Tom T]

I’m going the route of building SOME of my own recovery equipment. Right now I have two 12 volt current controllers coming my way. One will be for my bilge pump to control water flow for the Blue Bowl that I’ve had since about the time Frank Robinson bought the patent and the mini type sluice I’ll be starting on this afternoon. The other will be used to control the voltage to a 12 volt vibratory motor I’ll be attaching to the sluice.  Sort of a hodge podge of concepts rolling around in my head… the idea for the sluice is to classify everything down to 20 mesh before it gets run through the sluice then classifying the concentrates from the sluice to 40 & 80 and running all three through the blue bowl… the sluice will have no riffles other than the rubber v matt…with a thin wool blanket over the lower half of the v matt being held down with the expanded mesh out of an old sluice.  Gonna bottle up all the free gold and run the tailings in a smelter…The whole purpose of this setup is to catch all the fine gold I get from my hardrock mill. 

At this point, it’s just a very addictive hobby.