Not Enough To Be " Just A Letrap "

[johnedoe]

I was wondering how you would get the flow needed to clear the b.s. under the punch plate.

How much clearance do you have between the mat and the punch plate?

Is the mat a deep "V" or standard shallow "V"?

The "V" mat alone can be pretty effective but it will wash out unless you have everything really tuned... It would possibly help to put a slick plate ahead of it to allow things to stratify before they go over the "V" ... That's what I have with my beach sluice is a large slick plate ... It allows the material to stratify and the gold gets to the bottom of the slurry so it then just slides along the bottom till it hits the capture medium where it is entrapped.

Here is a little vid of that.

 

[johnedoe]

Here's another shot of the sluice ..... 

 

[Swampstomper Al]

NOTE: Posting this reply incomplete to show johnedoe & I are following the same train of thought as far as a possible solution posting time-wise.. Remainder to follow.. Swamp

Question: Is that V-mat or U-mat..? I blew the photo up as large as I could and still can't really tell.. Reason I ask is cos one time I'd ordered some V-mat and what was sent was this extreme U-mat, closer to a T-mat really.. The stuff was basically unusable (at my water-flow rate at least) for exactly the same reason and under the same condition(s) you describe.. No punch plate involved either..
 

[Swampstomper Al]

-- continued:

Two possible solutions / suggestions -- one more along the lines of a johnedoe approach, pre all of Doc's many new matting designs, tried and shown workable; the second following along with delnorter and his usage of doc's new mat designs..

I ended up ripping out that T-mat and going with a conveyor-belt type mat / design, which at that time was extreme as far as traps and/or trapping areas were concerned but with no scientific testing proof-of-concept to back it up.. The one thing I found I needed to do to achieve the best gold recovery was further classification and not running 20+ and larger through due to this matting's depth / shallowness.. It was the disparity of weight between the fine gold and larger black sands together that was causing gold loss both after it had been captured and also due to flowing over already loaded up traps..

The second is basically the use of Doc's new high flow rate matting designs, and/or in delnorter's case the use of Doc's new river sluice and its matting combination / pattern..

The second isn't what you're after though.. I think " a " solution is as simple as no need for the punch plate, a different mat design and further classification due to the black sands volume.. The stacking of screens + dry material = hardly any add'l time in order to get to both a higher capture return and clearing rate..

Swamp
 

[LipCa]

JD, that BS looks about like mine....   I do have 24" of slickplate prior to punchplate/V mat(Yes, it is V mat, not U plate)

I think there is just too much BS and it is overwhelming the V mat.

The distance between the punchplate and V mat is twice the diameter of the punchplate(or, 3/8")

More later....

[johnedoe]

When I do run punch plate on my beach sluice I have it at least an inch above the slick plate... Even then it can stall and stop flowing... I have since adapted it to more of a high banker where I have the water available.

[GB_Amateur]

On 8/27/2017 at 6:03 PM, LipCa said:

I think there is just too much BS and it is overwhelming...

Now I'm confused.  I thought this thread was about a sluice box but now it appears to have degenerated into a discussion of detector manufacturers' pre-release hype.

[Steve Herschbach]

I believe BS equals Black Sands and not what you are possibly thinking it means.

[LipCa]

Right