>Reposting from /diy/ Gold sluice So I have a problem where

I'd make sure you have gold in your exact spot by panning it first before investing in a sluice. You have the right idea with reading the river but it's irrelevant if it's had many opportunities to slow down before your exact area. If you can't even pan down to a good amount of black sand a sluice is a waste, need to find better areas.

>>908240

I know non commercial quantities have been collected about 50 miles downstream so I am hoping that means some is in my area, but I'm certainly not expecting any great results. The whole point isn't actually to get gold (although it certainly would be nice) but to learn the process that's used for it. As far as costs go I have everything I need to build the sluice already, so I'm gonna build it to try playing with it.

Who knows, maybe one day I will go out west somewhere and try it for real.

You need to pan. Otherwise youre just gonna have a big dirty trough with no gold in it.

In fact, panning is probably all you really need to do. Collect enough sluice and it looks like black amd gold snot its actually p cool. The problem is youre probably just gonna end up with a fuckload of pyrite and if you try to extract the gold from the sluice youll end up with nothing, so keep the snot instead. It really does look cool.

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So small update, I really half assed the sluice since it was colder than a witches tits, and I don't have a heated shop, just took a 2 foot piece of tile, cut it in half, and ran it like that. Set it up on the side of the creek in three different spots so that any runoff stayed on the ground, ran five 5 gallon buckets through it in each spot, then put the pile through a second time. I saw two extremely small specs that "might" have been gold, but I likely isn't. Also found some bird shot and a few neat rocks, so maybe I will put those rocks in a tumbler and see how they clean up. For now the plan is to spend the colder days studying up on gold mining and the warmer days this winter building/refining what I need to concentrate those specs into enough to figure out just what they are. Then this spring when it warms up enough to play in the water I'll give it another go.

Pic related, my quarter assed "sluice".

>>908487
That is shit. Just pan for it. Your idea is retarded and you will not have good results.

Pan first to make sure there is actually gold to find.

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I pan a lot and I've never really got into sluicing. Mainly you have to set up the sluice then shovel dirt into a 5 gallon bucket with a classifier on top. Then after that you poor the dirt into the sluice, if they'd not properly set up your screwed, then after you put a couple buckets through it you pull out the miners moss then clean it in a bucket THEN you pan that. I just pan, suck up the gold in a snuffer bottle, then move on.

>>910383

Asked my cousin (who gave me the idea while bragging about a nugget he found in Colorado) to come out and tell me if there is gold, he's confirmed that gold is present, but in such small amounts that it is pointless even as a hobby.

But I'm an idiot who can't quit until I see results, so I spent the day today drawing logs and digging up the creek. Made a little damn thing that cuts the creek from 6 foot wide down to about 8 inches, then runs diagonally to the slow water behind the damn. The plan now is to take a shit ton of dirt from where my cousin tested it and dump it in front of the fast water and let the creek eat down the pile and hopefully concentrate the gold somewhat as it carries the material away. Since I've set it up its already ripped it down to clay in the fastest spot and I can see different distinct zones where everything has settled out going from bare to rocks that decrease in size down to silt, so I am hopeful that it will work and all I will have to find out is where the gold is settling out.

I'll post a picture tomorrow if I remember.

>>910566
I would also get some material from the sides of a river bank. Look for a sort of flood zone, it could be as far as 10 feet from the actual water in a creek. I almost never pan from stuff in the water, I pan the dirt on the bank.

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panning is key to finding where you want to start really exploring. I built a high banker like the one in your pic for about 100 bucks and can borrow a small pump from my boss. A few guys a know have legit claims on good ground and don't mind me fucking around from time to time.