A modified DFS sluice for cleanup work, Buck's modded sluice Options

[russau]

as is, theres not enough slick plate to use as a dredge sluice. remember 1 Mississippi,2 Mississippi etc. for the flow.

[rich on western ...]

Russ, how much slick plate do you think should be added? Think I will go with a 1.5" instead of the 2". Should help control water flow and material input. I could use a 2.5 hp motor that way too. Just hope it allows me to move more material than I do with a shovel now. It has to beat setting up a river sluice and lugging buckets around though ;)

[russau]

Rich, Phil Hontz (PhilNM)should/could answer that one better and more acuratly than i. but, imho , you can have to much slickplate (weight,bulky)but it wouldnt hurt anything.the thing about slick plates is that in order for them to work correctly, the material needs time to stratify before it hits the screen/matt. so depending on the size of hose/sluice,volumn of material and water,width of the sluice,speed of the pump will really determine the length of the slickplate. and if you hog material, youll flood the sluice and then all is out the window! correct me if im wrong Phil!

[rich on western ...]

Here is my DFS converted into a 2" dredge. I am using 3/4" raised expanded for riffles. The area I'll be working has a lot of larger flakes and some pickers. All I need now is a suction nozzle and a pressure line fitting for my pump and I'll be ready to go! Took me about 3.5 hours to put the header box together. Will probably put a square of miner's moss in the bottom of the header box and will add an Alaska Damper flap when I can find some thick rubber sheeting. Next project is to build a hopper to convert it to a 1.25" highbanker. Also building a small highbanker to run a bilge pump and recurculate for my fine gold area. Will post pics of those when I get them done. Just have them on paper right now.

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[rich on western ...]

Finally got to test out the dredge. It has been raining every day over here for the past 2 months and the rivers are up. Went out anyway. Couldn't see 1" into the muddy water. Had to go by feel. Very happy with the results. Have a 5.5 HP 220 gpm pump that I got new off e-bay for $170 shipped. Able to move a lot more matterial than with a shovel. Expanded metal caught gold. After running a total of about 2 hours got 2 1/4" pickers and a lot of smaller flakes. Biggest issues I had were with the throttle not staying open and just had it running at idle. Also kept getting blockages in the bend of the suction nozzle. I have since worked on the motor and welded a piece of rebar across the nozzle to reduce the rock size intake by 1/2. I know I will have to move more rocks by hand this way, but I would rather do that than keep getting blockages. I am also going to try some riffles that I built based on the Clarkson study. They are 1/2" angle set at 15 degrees spaced 1" apart. I will be running it at an angle of 2" per foot. I turned the miner's moss upside down to form a flatter surface for the riffles to rest on. No gaps underneath this way. Will be going back out tomorrow. Hope the heavy downpours that are falling now won't flood me out tomorrow. Wouldn't you know that as soon as I get a dredge that the weather never cooperates anymore.

[ScottKS]

Posted Today, 05:00 PM
Finally got to test out the dredge. It has been raining every day over here for the past 2 months and the rivers are up. Went out anyway. Couldn't see 1" into the muddy water. Had to go by feel. Very happy with the results. Have a 5.5 HP 220 gpm pump that I got new off e-bay for $170 shipped. Able to move a lot more matterial than with a shovel. Expanded metal caught gold. After running a total of about 2 hours got 2 1/4" pickers and a lot of smaller flakes. Biggest issues I had were with the throttle not staying open and just had it running at idle. Also kept getting blockages in the bend of the suction nozzle. I have since worked on the motor and welded a piece of rebar across the nozzle to reduce the rock size intake by 1/2. I know I will have to move more rocks by hand this way, but I would rather do that than keep getting blockages. I am also going to try some riffles that I built based on the Clarkson study. They are 1/2" angle set at 15 degrees spaced 1" apart. I will be running it at an angle of 2" per foot. I turned the miner's moss upside down to form a flatter surface for the riffles to rest on. No gaps underneath this way. Will be going back out tomorrow. Hope the heavy downpours that are falling now won't flood me out tomorrow. Wouldn't you know that as soon as I get a dredge that the weather never cooperates anymore.

Something i learned (from CP outting 2 years ago) and still do is to take out the raised metal between the riffles and miners moss all together because it flattens the miners moss and reduces the really fine gold recovery (just like in a beach box in nome)...also i could see where the raised metal could make gaps under the riffles disturbing the black sands and gold...i leave the flat side still down on the black ribbed matting because that away the mat fibers can help catch the gold just like brushes. But everyone has their own way of gold recovery.

Another thing i leared from the outting is to put a jug (milk) or in my case a empty water bottle with some holes with soap inside in a bucket with holes with the foot valve (water feed) to mix soap with the water in the sluice to help with the fine gold recovery....these are all really good ideas i use from the good people of CP (P.S. i know alot of with's in that sentence )

[russau]

well this is my first post in awhile! my computor had a virus and it was a pain to get it removed. the slickplate length needs tobe longer for dredgeing ops. your moiving more material and water so you need to count: 1 Mississippi,2 Mississippi untill youve gone to (as the driections say)to 5(?) Mississippi. this will give to fines a chance to stratify and have the lighter material a chance to blow off the end of the sluice.

[rich on western ...]

You're probably right about the slick plate length. But I figured it couldn't hurt. I also just utilize what I alreay have available. So far seems like the 3/4" raised expanded is the best setup. I've been getting flakes of all sizes and have caught some small nuggets. Large ones are pretty rare around here. So far almost all the gold except for the real fine stuff has been getting caught in the top half section of the Miner's moss. Stuff gets imbedded deep into the moss so you can't even see it. Even a 1/4" nugget made its way into the matt so I couldn't see it from the top! Hope the rain stays away so I can get back out into my hole. Haven't been able to see anything that I'm doing yet as the water is always muddy. If anybody is looking for good cheap gloves to wear try the thin nitrile stuff. I bought a pair and they are holding up real well and are grippy so you can grab slippery rocks easily.

[Phil(NM)]

and if you hog material, youll flood the sluice and then all is out the window! correct me if im wrong Phil!

You are not wrong.... Timing is everything.

One thing I'm noticing is folks seem to be forgetting that the DFS is for FINE gold and nuggets up to maybe a #10 screen, although I've caught much larger ones. Using my original DFS design for larger gold, or even a dredge is not going to be as efficient as perhaps some of the older riffle design sluices. I simply did not design it to be 99% efficient for larger gold like I did for fine gold. There are many excellent sluices out there designed for larger gold, or as I call them california designs. The DFS is for those areas where the fine gold hides. Colorado, Arkansas, New Mexico, Alaska's beaches, Chile, etc etc etc. The future of making a living off "wild" gold is capturing the super fine gold that miners, both professional, commercial and hobbyist have been throwing away for the last 200 years.

Current dredge designs simply have too much throughput and turbulance to capture ultra fine gold. Do a search for Marc's remarkable results on the Arkansas River in Colorado where he had been sluicing for years, but when he went DFS, his comment was IIRC, "I never knew this river had so much gold in it... " he went from one ounce per week to over 4, if memory serves correctly. It's been many years, I may not remember it right anymore. Or search for the results of Steve;'s placing DFS's immediately downfloe from some large dredges that ended up with a fine gold dusting in them. All throw away gold.

Looks like the DFS II, DFS 2 or DFS xxx isn't going to ever make it to market. I can't afford it, and there aren't any believers out there anymore. Everyone wants everything for free. Maybe that's why a lot of old-timers took their secrets to the grave with them. dunno.

As I don't check the gold forums much anymore, questions are better addressed to me off-forum, otherwise, you'll have to wait till I check in again. Or ask Russ. He's got it down.

Phil

[CP]

As I don't check the gold forums much anymore,

Good thing the Colorado Prospector forums are "gem and mineral prospecting forums" and not just gold. See ya' again soon.

CP

[rich on western ...]

Hi Phil. Love the old DFS. Would you build any of the new ones as a custom deal? Would be interested in one if it was within my budget. I utilize the DFS I have now for my dredge. Works real well with the bigger expanded and a low angle to catch the fines. I use the expanded that came with it for sluicing in very fine gold areas with great results. I do like the new drop riffle sluices like the MacKirk but they have their advantages and disadvantages. They have less cleanup so you can run longer but are very sensitive to fluctuations in water flow. It is real easy to have stuff blow out of them if you can't keep the water consistent which can be hard to do in a river. Nice to have the moss to hold everything in there once you catch it.

[russau]

i cant speak for Phil,but i cant see him makeing/selling them as a custom order. he showed the original DFS sluice over the net and everyone strated coping it and his sales suffered from it. he wanted to sell the new design and make his money. he had offered the manufactoring of this new design to me, but i cant do it for one reason or the other. i would love todo it but.............id also like to see the design but Phil requires that any one looking at his design sign a confidentiality contract to keep them from building/making from his design and i understand his position 100% from previous experiences he had!i retired 1 1/2 years ago and originally wanted to start making mining equipment for sale. i have all the equipment but my ole bones are telling me i better think about what im doing!! i hated to turn Phil down but i dont think i could have kept up with the demand for manufactoring equipment.

[Phil(NM)]

Hi Phil. Love the old DFS.

Thanks.

Would you build any of the new ones as a custom deal? Would be interested in one if it was within my budget.

Sorry, if I did that, I lose protection for my design. Maybe someday I will be able to produce them to sell, or someone will realize the potential and buy my design. So No, can't build you one. I talked to a plant in Mexico, but by the time everything was added up, it was too expensive for my budget.

I utilize the DFS I have now for my dredge. Works real well with the bigger expanded and a low angle to catch the fines. I use the expanded that came with it for sluicing in very fine gold areas with great results.

Fantastic. Although you will be losing some of the finest gold due to the design flaws and material speed thru the dredge, you should do better than most any other unit out there. Try increasing the slick plate to as long as you dare.

Good luck! Let us know how you did come end of the season!

Phil

[rich on western ...]

Here is a pic of my cleanup from about 4 hours worth of dredging in SW CO. Does pretty darn well. Lots of fine gold mixed in with the sand too. Forgot to mention that I am using the green super moss that came with it in the top 1/2 which does better with scour and concentrating and the standard MM in the bottom 1/2.

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[russau]

looks like you are in a promising spot! thanks for posting!