Gimmick or revolutionary new design?

http://www.hmresearch.net/

Looks like a well put together unit. They've got a 20% off black Friday sale(through MOnday night); should I take the plunge and test it out?

Drop riffle design with vortexes, I like it!
I saw it being used on one of the large dredge barges on Bering Sea Gold.
Which one are you thinking of getting? I don't think that the prices are too bad. Are the prices listed discounted... or deduct 20% from what is showing in red? They look extremely well engineered and built. If you got one with the highbanker option, all you'd have to do is add one of those HF pumps and you'd be good to go!

.... I don't see an option for a highbanker hopper box.
they have what's called a "waterfall box", but that sounds far too gentle for blasting clay
I'd check on that, maybe call them if you're planning on putting a highbanker together. Ask them about spraybars.

here are their BF prices

http://www.hmresearch.net/#!online-store/c1efi

Their "highbanker" is only for classification, so there is no current option for what seems to be a "standard" highbanker, though they say they are working on one. The waterfall box is just another name for making it a "power sluice". They also have a dredge box option.

http://www.hmresearch.net/#!accessories/c1sxt

Seems like running it with a pump, going with the 12" would be a better choice, as the 6" would be pretty limiting on the amount of material you could run.

Here are the videos from the TV show

http://www.hmresearch.net/#!au-grabber-videos/c21z4

Based on all that.... I think it's more of a high end cleanup sluice used to reduce high volumes of concentrate.
I think you can do better if you're looking for a good field highbanker.

Rog, thanks for the input! :)

For that kinda money.... look at the GH Raptor - better machine, better value methinks: Raptor

.... and I just noticed they have a banner to the right with 10% off highbankers for the holidays.

The design is really interesting. Would be fun to pick their brains around why they went with metal (appears to be cut metal blanks to me vs die formed), versus an injection molded or thermoformed plastic or rubber. Hard edges are more difficult to achieve with these processes, but I suspect after some use, those sharp metal edges start to round out anyway.

The Goldwell is machined aluminum and stainless. It's an incredibly well built sluice. It has great retention and will handle many times more material than other sluiceboxes of the same size. It's a really nice well thought out design. There are no "hard edges" the finish work is first class.

They do offer a highbanker hopper but the smaller sluice design makes the hopper pretty limiting. Many buckets per minute can be fed directly into the sluice box. Testing shows there is some loss of fines when the material is not classified to 1/2". The commercial installations I've seen just use the sluice as a replacement and use their current feed fabrication.

We are considering the Goldwell for our next sluice on our commercial operation. It shows better retention than the others we've tested. More importantly it passes our "60 pound rock dropped from four foot survival test". At present we are using a steel sluice we designed and built ourselves. It's hard to find ready made sluices that will pass the 60 pound test.

The Gold Hog Raptor has great feedback from those who have used it. Gold Hog mats have a good reputation in the industry. Several prospectors I know use the Raptor for stream sampling and prospecting. It also appears to be well made. I've never used one. I've asked about the 60 pound test on the Raptor but no one has been willing to try it.

I have no financial interest in either sluice nor do I know the makers or designers.

Umm I hate to hijack this thread but I can't keep my trap shut anymore. Clay can you please stop with the sarcasm? I get your ass is chapped but continued sarcasm isn't helping your cause. It's just getting childish and petty. Please behave appropriately and you will possibly be considered a go to guy for knowledge. But right now you are coming across as a dick. Just my two cents. Please carry on with your riffle chat.

Thanks for the feedback fenixsmom. I understand what you are saying but I have been continually portrayed here as a "vendor" and a seller of "wares". I have been called names and accused of trying to sell something. On neither of the unnamed sites I shared privately with Dan is it possible to actually purchase anything. I do not retail anything to prospectors.

My comment here was not meant as sarcasm but to derail any more false accusations that sharing my opinion or experiences is in any way an effort to share anything but my own hard earned knowledge. I don't have a "cause" other than to help my fellow prospectors.

I'm not chapped but I do have feelings. False accusations are hurtful to anyone with feelings. I'm used to prospectors piling on the new guy. Tough bunch here.

To avoid derailing the thread - do you have any thoughts on either the Goldwell sluice or the Raptor?

LOL...You like to get hung up on semantics I see....or just enjoy incorrectly interpreting what I write. I tend to prefer practicality personally, and I used two commonly accepted terms we use on our manufacturing floors for this. Maybe this will help alleviate your confusion: Deburring and Edge Finishing Handbook (Figures 2-5 and 2-6 have good examples of how this can be specified on a print)

If not, this (from HMS Research's site....3rd column, 4th from the top) is what I'm referring to and it appears they didn't break the sharp edges very much if at all, strongly suggesting a machined part:
Click to view attachment

Unfortunately I haven't any experience with the industrial size sluices. I'm still rather wet behind the ears, so I cannot add anything to the thread.

I know you have feelings and have tried to show empathy. I'm going to end this thought with a plea for the pissing contest to end. Can't we all just get along?

Thanks for the input!



Did I miss something in his post? Are you referring to his last line? I know there has been some going back & forth with CD; I don't know him personally, but that is a standard statement when reviewing stuff, so I didn't take it as sarcasm.

Not poking you or stirring the pot; just thought maybe I missed something.

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?

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.

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.

Heavy Pans

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.

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.

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.

Colin

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.

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)

Whew!!! Someone needs to let me take one of those for a spin!

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.

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.

Great information guys!

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.

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.

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.

Spend a romantic evening with this: Clarkson Study Fine gold Recovery

There are many who have tried to define standardized testing for placer gold recovery and several other materials. I have a library that easily has several tens of thousands of pages written on this very subject. From De Re Metallica, and well before, to the recent work of Gold Hog and many many others it is obviously a subject of great interest to prospectors and miners.

The real crux of the matter is there is no standardized placer deposit. Literally nearly identical deposits a few miles apart have enough different qualities that they may require very different methods to achieve the same recovery rate.

A simple example would be the one most touted by those who sell sluices. The claim often goes something like this - "will recover 98% of gold down to 400 mesh". Leave aside the percentage and size of the gold and concentrate on the other unspoken variable - the shape of the gold. When this factor is taken into account the numbers go out the door. Very thin flat 400 mesh gold will not be separated from it's mother material by any water based gravity separation method. Well formed chunks might be well separated.

Now add in all the other factors as found in the deposit like Ph of processed material and water source - clay content - percentage, composition and weight of vegetable oil content - size, shape and specific gravity of gangue materials or secondary ores - amagalmation and chemical bonding - encapsulated ore - and on and on ad infinitum and you start to get an idea of the real, on the ground, difficulty of defining the best recovery method for any particular material.

There are no two deposits alike. This is the reason equipment for larger water based gravity separation operations are always custom made. There are no simple equations that will fit a multitude of different placers perfectly. A good portion of mining history revolves around the success, or lack thereof, in solving the recovery problems encountered with any given mineral deposit.

In a sense this discussion itself is missing the mark for most operations. An example - In your Colorado gold placers recovery of smaller fractions of gold may well make the difference between success and failure economically speaking. Not too many miles south in our New Mexico operation 78% of our deposit consists of chunky gold particles greater than 1 grain in weight. The smaller fractions are bound up in gangue and require milling to release. As such our operation shows the best gold returns for hours worked /funds expended by ignoring that 22% of the gold that requires milling before recovery.

We can get a consistent, known, profitable return by running as much material as quickly as possible by simple sluicing with minimal classifying. The 22% we leave for the future. All we are interested in with a sluice is the ability to capture that 1 grain and up free gold with reliability, good separation and high volume. Just about any sluice can capture the 1 grain stuff but few can meet the volume and reliability requirements.

You might think I have now wandered off the mark and I'm pretty sure you are busy eying that 22% I just threw out. And that illustrates my point. We have different goals and standards for a successful day of sluice processing, which is at least as big a variable as all the other factors I mentioned in determining the effectiveness of any sluice in comparison to another.

What we have when considering the effectiveness of a sluice as a machine is a constantly moving target. There can be no "standard" of testing in the real world because in the real world the only constant is the sluice being tested. What works perfectly for me may be your worst option.

Gold Hog and several thousand others through the long history of mining have built up an admirable and useful body of information that can be of great assistance to miners needing to understand the dynamics of gold capture. Those resources, if used wisely, can be a great resource when determining the best way to get the greatest recovery by any given method on any given deposit. In the real world that amounts to solving the unique problems that arise when mining any given discovery.

There is no "perfect" sluice or sluice design but if you're lucky and clever you can take the knowledge you've gleaned from yours, and others, prior experiences to "get 'er done".

Heavy Pans

Great discussion! Awesome to have so much smartiosity in one place, willing to share with us rookies!

On topic, Since I've still got a whole year until I retire and can get a little more serious about mining, I don't think I'll buy a new set-up; I'll just keep an eye out for some used gear that will give me the chance to get a little more experience over the next year. Then I can make a more educated decision on what system I want to invest in.

Too bad this guy is all the way up near Salt Lake; he's looking to sell all this for less than $700!

"Is there any interest out there for a 2" dredge/high banker combo w/gold hog mats? I'm letting this go since every time we go dredging, we always use Rocky Mountain Prospector Ryan's 3" dredge. This one just doesn't get used. I put $700 into building this dredge, but will consider all reasonable offers. Pump works like new, everything works like new. Aside from being a dredge/high banker combo, it can be reassembled into an original keene A52 stream sluice. I will post a couple videos of the dredge in action in the comments below. Would make a fantastic Christmas for someone!"

I like your plan of getting used equip. I bet you can do even better if you keep an eye on Craigslist Denver.
That's a pretty good deal but the hopper looks a little questionable and I don't see a sluice stand for it in case you had plans to use it as a highbanker. Looks like he built it solely as a dredge.

Here's a decent setup for $800.... offer $600, maybe get it for $700? Sluice is 16" X 48"... hopper is 16" X 22".... it's a biggun, I like.
It cost me that much to convert my A52 into a banker and I think the one listed is a way better setup.
Would kick ass at the claims, CC, or wherever.
GH Highbanker Used

Nice find; shot him an email with a few questions. Only downside to buying one now would be the wait over winter to use it lol

Here is a pic of the hopper

Interesting design or mod to the inside of that hopper. Looks like it would work well.

So the top would classify the smaller stuff and then as it drops out, it would catch the 1/2" (?) stuff and drop it in to the sluice?

He's only for 25' of lay flat hose, with a quick disconnect. Haven't shot him an offer; just told him I didn't know if I wanted to spend that kind of cash this early in to winter, so I'd ponder it. With it only having 25' of hose, what do you think would be a good deal on this?

That's what I was thinking regarding the hopper. You could always reverse engineer it if you didn't like it... but it looks pretty dang functional like that.
Layflat hose is super cheap, I wouldn't worry about that... not a strong price deterrent. Quick couplers are nice.

Thought I would add a quick update to this Goldwell Sluice thread..... I think they recently went out of business.

I was wondering about this today, and saw the last post; they do not appear to be out of business.

The most expensive one ($1149 before tax and shipping) is 12" x 60", and HEAVY at 33lbs: HMResearch

Anyone seen one of these in action?

One of the crews on Bering Sea Gold was using it as a cleanup tool a few seasons back, that's the only one I've seen in use. They are out of business and I think they only lasted a year or two. Not sure if the concept and configuration were effective or not.

They're still selling them on the website with size, length and accessory options. Not sure I'd plop down that kind of cash or hump the heavy beasts around without seeing some amazing performance.