| Setting
up your sluice box is crucial to getting gold. If you
have the water flowing to hard then chances are your gold
will wash right out of the sluice box. If the water is
not flowing fast enough then your gold will drop quickly
along with everything else and you could end up with a
big mess. So getting that water flowing just perfect is
the key and there is a science to this madness.
If you think about it, it really makes sense. The top
layer of water that is not holding any debris in suspension
is not affected by the riffles. It moves right on by
which is what it is supposed to do. The lower layer
of water is carrying the heavy stuff like gold. The
riffles help create that much needed back flow which
is just enough for the gold to drop out of suspension
and into your pockets.
Here is what you want to achieve and it can take a
little bit of time to get your sluice box set up just
right but once you do, you can move a lot of material
quickly. A perfectly set up sluice box allows the gold
and other heavy objects to drop out of suspension and
the lighter material flows right out of the sluice box.
This is the ZEN or perfect sluice box set up.
Remember we are working with gravity and the general
rule is one inch drop per foot of length of your box.
So if your sluice box is twenty four inches long, you
would start out with about two inches overall drop from
upstream to downstream ends of your sluice box. Be careful
and don't overload your sluice box either, have some
patience and feed the sluice box small amounts of material
until your confident that the sluice box is full and
remember precious stones are also found right alongside
that treasured gold so make sure you look over everything
that your sluice box has captured.
Sluice Boxes are available in many sizes and there
is one for every location. Here is a sample of the different
sized sluices. Small
Sluice Box, Medium
Sluice Box, Large
Sluice Box, Folding
Sluice Box.
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