Alluvial Gold Prospecting - How to Set Up a River Sluice - Aussie Bloke Prospector

Oh today guys he going my head set up my sluice box today and it is now running beautifully doing exactly what it was designed to do what I'd like to do is step back through the process and explain to you exactly how I set my sluice box up and all the important factors involved in getting your sluice box set up so it works to its optimum level you [Music] there's not been much rain this year so this river is running fairly slowly so I just noticed this little channel here have a little island of grass and then we've got water on the other side and in this little channel the water is running a little bit quicker than everywhere else but I'm gonna zoom in save in CDs I threw a handful of gravel in there and it's not even moving so there's a lot of things that need to be done to this sluice box to make it work sluice boxes work on the principles of specific gravity and displacement you three main factors that you need to take into account to get your sluice box running to its optimum the first is the speed of water the second is the depth of water and of course the third is the angle of the box now those three things if you get them right your sluice box will do exactly what it was designed to do [Music] you when I set my sluice box up I always take at least half an hour to get it set properly because when I start sluicing I want to know that my box is doing what it was made to do [Music] you looking at how my box is currently set up I'll point out a few things that are fundamentally wrong with it right now as it is firstly the water is too deep secondly the water is too slow and thirdly the angle of the box is all wrong so to set this box correctly I would have to lift up the end of the box a good half an inch to get some sort of an angle and you'll notice now that the water is actually running a little bit faster but now it's too shallow and that's because there's not much water coming in at the head what I need to do now is I need to look at the surrounding environment here and see what I can do to let the general level of the water up before it hits the sluice and also channel it into the box so if I look at where my box is now there's a larger body of water off to the left and I've got this what I need to do is I need to divert this water down to the head of the box now there's a few ways I can do that I can get a shovel and just make a temporary wall or I can get some rocks lengths of wood today I'm gonna use some buckets and build a temporary wall which will hopefully divert the water to the head of the box that's going to do two things number one it's going to create more flow but number two it's gonna lift the general height of the water probably a good half inch or so okay so what I've done here now is I've started bridging the gap towards the sluice box with all these buckets they're all full of dirt and then I've shoveled dirt in between the gaps we'll see here the water is now rushing around them the water in the box is moving faster and the height is lifted but we need that water they're going over there so what I found flying around there's a big old stump a big old blob and I'm gonna use that to finish the job okay so now we've got all the flow heading into the box and if you have a walk the waters deeper and it's moving faster problem that we've got though is that there's still a bit of water escaping on the outside of the box so that's our next challenge we need to block that off and divert that into the box and it's not until I filled up all these gaps that I'll then start making adjustments to the box to get the angle depth of water and the flow just right okay so I've got a little wall on the other side of the box and now all the water is being diverted into the head of the box okay so I've managed to dam the water up I've had to place a couple of tubs here with dirt I put an old log forget a line of buckets well yeah so let's have a little sluice now that's the top of the sluice and there's the water there so I've actually lifted this water a good inch and a half maybe almost two inches so now of course I need to lift the back end of the box up to get the fall or the angle that we need when it elects the box what's gonna happen is all this deep water here is gonna start running under it so to combat that I'm gonna need to place rocks and sticks under the lip and form a little game under the box so the water doesn't go under it that goes through it I've got some rocks ready to go I'm just gonna lift it up probably one inch or so maybe 1/2 inches and jam some rocks under it so the water can't escape under it but will continue to flow through it I'm gonna do that now and I'll get back once I've done that okay so I've lifted the box up all the mouths show you've done that I've basically created a little wall of smaller rocks just on the other side this is forcing the water now to lift up and go through the box what I do is I just get little different sized rocks and I just plug all the holes and if you have a look now remembering back earlier how deep the water was in the box now we've got around about or three-quarters of an inch of water I might have to make a couple of slight adjustments to the angle I'm almost happy with its fall however it's slightly sitting on its side and that's evidenced by the fact that we've got a V here which is slightly off to the left really important is that you take the time to set your box properly because there's nothing worse than spending four or five hours digging lots or not to do it and having the gold go straight at the end of the box so this is probably the most important part of sluicing is taking the time to get your box set start shoveling the good dirt in I'm going to show you another thing that I do which is I run some test dirt through it and I'll do that several times until I'm happy with the action of what's going on in that box we're getting some pretty good action on those ripples they're just from the dirt that's flowed down whilst I was setting it up you can see that the dirt is now settling behind each riffle I'm going to explain how these ripples work and why they work the way they do and why it's important to set your box in relation to what your riffles are doing what the riffles do is they disrupt the flow of water and that disruption creates slow and fast areas drop-offs vacuums and vortexes so we need to create a situation where the water is hitting those riffles in such a way that it creates enough violence to create the vortex that we need but at the same time it clears them out so that's real bit of test do it in here let's see what happens now that's not much do it that's only a couple of handfuls and it's still moving fairly slowly so there's a propensity here for this box to fill up very quickly now very important you'll notice this first one here it's not emptying yet it needs to be emptying out you look at the one below it it's empty data bit the fourth one is emptying out and so forth and so on but what really counts with the sluice box is what's happening with the first two riffles your first two riffles should be catching 92 95 percent of your gold so when you set your box up you really want to set it up so the action on the first two riffles is at its optimum right now they're not at optimum because the first revelation can see is not clearing out so I'm gonna have to readjust the Box might have to lift up slightly more so there is more violence we need to create violence okay so I've adjusted the sluice box yet again I've lifted up the head of the box even further placed more rocks underneath it and just in front of it and I'm getting now a three-quarter inch 1/2 to 3/4 inch flow what that's doing now is creating more violence which is creating more disturbance to the flow which is what we want three handfuls of dirt and look what's happening to the first riffle there it is cleaning out better than it was but it's still fairly slow if you've got a fair quantity that you need to place through your box well then you want to clear out faster than that so we really do need to create more disturbance in those ripples now I'm going to run some more tests to a true and I'm going to show you a little trick here's where the humble rock comes into place we're gonna place this rock right here what happens the center water is now been forced backwards and is now flowing around the sides of the rock and what it's doing is it's creating a lot of violence just before it hits the first riffle and look how quickly the first ripples now cleared out that's almost set I'm pretty happy with that I'll now try out a couple of handfuls of tests go through again and let's see how quickly they clear out because that's the real test you basically want to have a set so you can feed it fairly quickly and it will clear out as it should and you can see there that the first riffle is clearing out nicely now and that's all because it's experience has been created by that rock so that rock I can just adjust him a little bit just twist it to the left or the right or continue to move the rock until I get an even action right here in the center of the first ripple because that's really where the action is that little there and the second result they're the ones that are going to do the majority of the work and that's clearing out beautifully male hands on the tester true and just watch this action so really you are dictated by the speed that that first ripple clears out so what I tend to do I'll put a handful dirt in or a little spadeful a bird in and once I see the first group for clearing out just on the upside of the second riffle that's what I'll throw the next one again I just love the sound of a sluice box there's nothing more relaxing than seeing the side of sluice box and just putting dirt through it all day I love it just love it so that is very sweet so now my sluice box is set I'm happy with what's going on with the first and the second riffle I'm getting the water I need I've got the right amount of water coming in at the right depth the right angle and with the help of the rock there I'm getting the right action required in the first to riff course so now some good dirt in you that's people's clearing out beautifully that's what we want I've mentioned this on my other solution video sitting in a big river you cannot throw material into a sluice box that is chopped a box full of plate your miles will just throw the gold out so here the dirt has got some soft clay in it so I just whack it through my quarter instead and that's sufficient to break it up so just remember that you must break the clay out before we put it in your first box because sluice boxes are not designed to cope with clay overfeeding the sluice box before it has a chance to clear out below the first and second ripples will basically just send the gold straight over the top and all the way out the end we just keep an eye on it make sure it's clearing out you can see it's starting to build up and I always try to keep that fairly clear because believable or not what happens down here can actually dictate what happens up there it has a damming effect and pushes water back up loose and therefore affects the actions of the riffles so just be mindful of that just periodically every few minutes or so just clear it out so the tailings can freely move on and not create a dam effect at the end of the box another one is a very common thing that I've seen happen so many times people will take the time to set up a sluice box and then what they'll do is I get to the end of the bucket of dirt and there still be a bit of good in the bucket so what they do is they fill it half with water and then they just tip it straight into sluice what that does it creates a messy flushing effect everything including gold can and most likely will be displaced very violently so you could have been sluicing all day for five hours in really good dirt and then at the end of the day haphazardly throw half a bucket of water into the head of your sleuth and all of a sudden given out flushed out half of the gold that you've spent on they digging so just be aware of that because all that creates is excess volume and rush of water which flushes out your gold when a box is set don't touch it this is another common one that I see people they get their fingers and they start mucking around with the riffles they start touching and moving and prodding and poking once again I don't touch it because you're messing with a dynamic of what's going on there same as once your box is set don't move it the second you move your box is you now affect the dynamics of displacement and specific gravity so the golden rule is that once your box is set don't disturb it another common mistake that people make when they're sluicing as they stand in front of the box now if I was to stand right there in front of the box what would happen is it would actually change the dynamic and the flow of that water it would lift it up and therefore affect what's happening in the box so that's another thing to beware of take care not to disrupt anything in front of the box including the water it's just about to enter it I'm not gonna do a clean-up on this video I'm gonna say that to another day because that's the other very important half to sluicing and I've seen over years people lose 50 percent of gold during their point up so that's gonna be another video but today I just want to show you how to set the box up and for those who are interested this is 1805 River sluice about 160 bucks available in most prospecting shops in Australia I've got my loose boxes put I love these clean boxes they're just so easy so simple if said correctly they are as good as in any box out there on the market [Music] and this box is now working beautifully thanks for watching [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Aussie Bloke Prospector

Views: 35,015

Rating: 4.8383231 out of 5

Keywords: gold prospecting australia, gold panning australia, aussie bloke prospector, gold prospecting, how to pan for gold, gold sluicing, gold panning, finding gold in australia, sluicing for gold, gold australia, how to find gold, how to get gold, prospecting australia, prospecting, panning for gold, finding gold, australian gold, River Sluice, Sluice, slicing tips, aussie gold prospectors, sluice box, how to set up a river sluice

Id: XGgzFO3c0rI

Length: 20min 33sec (1233 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 16 2019