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Gold Well Vortex Drop Riffle Sluice, By HM Research
Clay Diggins
post Dec 4 2014, 05:48 PM
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Yep it's a machined part, as I mentioned previously. Yes it has been deburred and finished.

I have personal hands on experience with this sluice as do two professional machinist friends of mine (I am not a machinist). They both applauded the design, materials, fit and finish work. The photograph may be misleading?
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fenixsmom
post Dec 4 2014, 05:58 PM
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Hmmm thank you Mike. I didn't see it from that perspective. The crappy thing about text is the inability to hear or see faces. I interpreted it as sarcasm, but you could very well be correct.

If this is what you meant it as Clay, I sincerely apologize for my outburs and stand humbled and corrected.
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Clay Diggins
post Dec 4 2014, 06:27 PM
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No need to apologize fenixsmom. The internet forums are a difficult form to express intent in. I have a rather dry writing style that may lead some to impart meaning to my writings that are unintended. It might be better if my posts meanings were based strictly on the words I type but I can see why readers might have a more nuanced interpretation.

I'm sure if you were to try either sluice you would find them up to the task for the weekend prospector. They are both well designed and well regarded by those who use them.

I imagine the Raptor is seen as the lower priced sluice because it comes with almost everything needed to begin processing material. Lower priced is good all things being equal.

My impression of the Goldwell unit is influenced by the longevity of the materials and construction and the ability to hold a good percentage of the gold at high feed rates. In commercial mining downtime kills profits.

In your situation maximum gold retention is probably going to be the bigger consideration. The Goldwell has a very good retention rate at high volumes but the Raptor might well do a better job at lower feed rates. I don't have the experience with the Raptor to give an opinion on that unit or to compare the two directly.

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EMac
post Dec 4 2014, 06:46 PM
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QUOTE (Clay Diggins @ Dec 4 2014, 04:48 PM) *
Yep it's a machined part, as I mentioned previously. Yes it has been deburred and finished.

I have personal hands on experience with this sluice as do two professional machinist friends of mine (I am not a machinist). They both applauded the design, materials, fit and finish work. The photograph may be misleading?


That you did sir, but I wonder if there's an echo in the forum now.
QUOTE (EMac @ Dec 4 2014, 02:39 PM) *
(appears to be cut metal blanks to me vs die formed)


I'd hope the photo isn't misleading....I'm not sure how to be more clear. I agree with you that it looks like a solid design and sound craftsmanship. I was simply commenting that I'd love to pick the designers' brains on why they chose that manufacturing process for it. I was focused on the vortices' edges and my deeper curiosity is if the edge breaks matter. If so, how and why? Then I have a few materials selection questions which would be followed by how frequently do the plates need to be replaced (goes towards total cost of operation) since all tools wear when abraded? This isn't even getting to my curiosity around the effectiveness of the design as a whole, did they optimize the design, etc.

With your hands on experience, perhaps you might know these things?

Everyone - Generally am I confusing with what I write? If so, I need to be conscious of this and would appreciate the feedback in order to improve.


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fenixsmom
post Dec 4 2014, 07:16 PM
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I think I have an I.Q. of like 70..... (I've never taken a reliable test to actually determine) As I said in text "I'm just confused. Its a lifestyle."

Knowing you and being able to hear you in person all I can really say is: you are very brilliant. You are one of the very few that makes me want to learn things. Don't dumb down to accommodate me. Just give me time to figure out what you just said.
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NewRockHounder
post Dec 4 2014, 07:28 PM
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I like the one where the mouse kills the cat -

Oh hello? Is this another post not relating to what I just said - eh, that'll happen, sorry, my bad.

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Clay Diggins
post Dec 4 2014, 08:05 PM
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QUOTE (EMac @ Dec 4 2014, 05:46 PM) *
That you did sir, but I wonder if there's an echo in the forum now.

I'd hope the photo isn't misleading....I'm not sure how to be more clear. I agree with you that it looks like a solid design and sound craftsmanship. I was simply commenting that I'd love to pick the designers' brains on why they chose that manufacturing process for it. I was focused on the vortices' edges and my deeper curiosity is if the edge breaks matter. If so, how and why? Then I have a few materials selection questions which would be followed by how frequently do the plates need to be replaced (goes towards total cost of operation) since all tools wear when abraded? This isn't even getting to my curiosity around the effectiveness of the design as a whole, did they optimize the design, etc.

With your hands on experience, perhaps you might know these things?

Everyone - Generally am I confusing with what I write? If so, I need to be conscious of this and would appreciate the feedback in order to improve.


You are certainly right about the abrasion factor. Many sluice manufacturers claim a lifetime of use out of their bent sheet aluminum creations. In a production environment those "lifetimes" vary between a few hours and a few weeks for recreational quality sluices.

The reason we got interested in the Goldwell was because we saw a commercial operation using the 12" to process in excess of 800 yards per day for over a year. That's not a big operation by commercial standards but it's similar in size to our operation. The sluice had the usual appearance of a chemically challenged aluminum surface (iron compounds) but the structure and function were virtually as new. That is exceptional. We hadn't even considered aluminum until we saw that. The excellent recovery rates were the clincher that caused us to try a trial run.

I am under the impression that in real life the plates might last several years. That's a lot longer than the steel and aluminum creations available today.

The inventor of the Goldwell sluice has had several public discussions, on other forums, about how and why he chose the design, manufacturing process and materials he uses. One of my machinist friends was particularly skeptical of just the very points you have raised. I'm sure the gentleman would be glad to answer your professional questions. I am obviously not qualified to do so.

I will say that the designer has stated that the deburred (not radiused) edges of the vortex cups are not a function of the gold capture. My machinist friend questioned that also but once he understood the reasoning he tipped his metaphorical hat to a "great designer and machinist". Once again out of my league but it seems to have something to do with "uniform plate tension" if I understood correctly?

You will notice that I said we are considering the Goldwell. There are other new technologies being employed in production sluice design. One of them being formed mats like the Gold Hog previously mentioned. Those are an unknown also when it comes to wear and longevity but the technology has been broadly adopted for several years in the form of "rubber" wear surfaces on steel sluice forms.

With the Goldwell the longevity of the materials are better known and understood. The concept is not "new" (see the traditional Chinese wooden hole sluice) but the materials and intentional design is.
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Clay Diggins
post Dec 4 2014, 09:51 PM
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I'm hoping this visual will help you define the manufacturing process and wear points on the Goldwell eMac.
Looked like machine milled plates to me. If you think differently feel free to add your professional opinion here. I'm just a miner. (no sarcasm intended) smile.gif

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fenixsmom
post Dec 4 2014, 09:55 PM
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Whew!!! Someone needs to let me take one of those for a spin!
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Crusty
post Dec 4 2014, 11:16 PM
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It would appear that the major disadvantage of the goldwell would be the recommendation to pre-classify to 1- or 1/2- prior to running material, over a standard highbanker that you feed raw material and let it classify before it hits the sluice.


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Denise
post Dec 5 2014, 08:47 AM
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QUOTE (EMac @ Dec 4 2014, 05:46 PM) *
Everyone - Generally am I confusing with what I write? If so, I need to be conscious of this and would appreciate the feedback in order to improve.


I don't think what you write is confusing at all Eric, quite the opposite. You have a way of explaining things so It's easier to understand I think. You are a brilliant man like Jessie said so don't change a thing. happy112.gif

Great information guys!


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EMac
post Dec 5 2014, 01:10 PM
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Thank you Jess and Denise for the feedback; I was noodling on that last night some.

Much obliged Clay; that's interesting info. Reading more on their material selection, it's a healthy blend of the desired properties coupled with a relatively cheap availability (a good, reasonable choice with 6061-T6): Alliance Data

For the majority of folks here, I suspect we'd be hard pressed to move enough material over those plates to make plate wear a factor...they'd very likely last for years. Now 800+ yards per hour....that might be a different story, and could likely warrant some structured testing by the mine owners.

I can't find discussions from HMS on the design; do you know where those are at? I'm now curious if they performed a DOE (design of experiments) to fully understand how the input variables (including interactions) affect yield. OFAT (one factor at a time) testing won't give you info around interactions, and to me it seems somewhat obvious that there are interactions between factors (i.e. water speed and volume work together).

Seems some drama ensued around the Goldwell on the GPAA forum, but I couldn't find the thread. It's mentioned on the Oregon GoldHunters site, and someone provided a quote where Goldwell mentions quantifiable data...that's what I'd like to see: data and test methods.

FYI that this is all intellectual curiosity primarily for the noodling I've been doing around testing specifically, so if it's not easy to find, it probably ain't worth a lot of searching.

Sidebar: For disclosure, I'm not a materials or machining expert either, but I have had plenty of exposure to those worlds; I'm a EE, so all these questions might seem odd from that standpoint. Practically though, unless someone is doing design work, most engineering functions are interchangeable. Further down the stream, we have the liberty to 2nd guess the design choices and make improvements/corrections. I've been primarily handling mechanical, material and production issues/improvements from a wide variety of production processes since 2006, and understand how to optimize and reduce variation. These questions come to mind as I put on my process/quality engineering hat, and manufacturing parallels mining production quite well.


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fenixsmom
post Dec 5 2014, 01:19 PM
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So from an engineering standpoint based on the design, would this be viable or even superior design to the other riffle designs out there? I read on gold hog's website that in their private testing they found minimal differences between riffle designs. Even so far as to say the difference difference is negligible.
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EMac
post Dec 5 2014, 02:32 PM
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QUOTE (fenixsmom @ Dec 5 2014, 12:19 PM) *
So from an engineering standpoint based on the design, would this be viable or even superior design to the other riffle designs out there? I read on gold hog's website that in their private testing they found minimal differences between riffle designs. Even so far as to say the difference difference is negligible.

I have to go off thread topic for this, but feel it's pertinent.

My base answer is I don't know, and that gets to real crux of what I've been noodling on which isn't fully congealed in my head yet. Here I'm doing a bit of thinking out loud, so there may be flaws in this logic:

So far I've yet to see a suite of standardized tests used to compare apples to apples the various recovery methods. I've seen significant flaws in most test videos and test discussions, and think they're useful for providing anecdotal evidence only. Don't get me wrong...anecdotal is better than nothing, but putting myself in Clay's shoes for a commercial production plant, this can translate to significant efficiency losses ($$). The counterbalance is this work isn't necessarily cheap or easy for most, and it's quite likely more economical to just re-run tailings. For something like determining plate wear and whether it has an effect, a simple 2-sample t test or even a full-fledged DOE could suss that out in order to schedule preventative maintenance appropriately (if at all tipping my hat to Clay's comments earlier about the edges not mattering). To optimize controllable factors such as feed rate, classification size, water volume, water speed, bed angle, etc. a DOE is more apropos. Something narrowly scoped liked that with equipment that's already deployed should be within reach of even smaller commercial or even casual operations.

My sense so far is that comparing one product to another seems to be a bit of a crap shoot based on preference and experience...something more akin to my truck brand is better than your truck brand, but even worse since there they at least have standard data on HP, towing capacity, load mass and volume, warranty, reliability, gas mileage, etc.


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fenixsmom
post Dec 5 2014, 02:41 PM
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The only downside I can readily see is the fact there are gaps between vortices and they are aligned as opposed to staggered between rows. I'm sure there are safeguards built in to reduce loss, but I would think some loss would occur.

Then again I could be completely wrong.
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