Headed out for a few hours sluicing to test out my new classifier I made, pinched the idea off of here. Was way faster to fill buckets! Got onto some nice inside bend flood gold, not a bad afternoon.
13 Likes
Ha ha. I recognise that classifier set up.
JW 
2 Likes
That looks like hard work - bugger that. Its against my religious principles to work. It says in the bible not to work on the seventh day so being a devoutly Holy Roman Left Footed Extremist and not knowing which is indeed the seventh day I am not allowed to work at all.
Looks good though. Almost looks familiar.
I dont know about those classifiers though - the only thing I like classifying is womans nipples and …
3 Likes
Yep that’s where I seen it, cheers kiwijw! And yep it’s pretty mixed thoughts about classifying but I definitely have to do it with my little sluice, have tried many time shoveling straight into the box and have watched gold get washed straight out. Will be making a larger box that can handle the jandle, but am perfectly happy with my setup at the moment 
So far how classifing has worked out for us is- Your traditonal riffle based sluices almost always need classifing if you want a high gold recovery rate, they get jammed up with the larger rocks and smaller sands/ gravels get displaced and you almost always end up losing gold especially when the rocks create a low pressure zone and sands build up in front of it where they normally wouldnt the rock then moves and all the sand will likely be washed downstream.
But a vortex (I think thats the word lol forgot the names for the diffirent sluice classes) sluice like a Gold Hog or Gold rat based sluice box they can cope a lot lot lot better if you dont classify as the way the riffles work even if you only have a standard amount of flow for the sluice it will normally wash away big rocks pretty easily and they will just go straight over all the rifles no disrupting the gravels much, If you can get it at a good flow rate where 95% or more of the larger rocks go straight through, it can be better not to classify, we did a test put 1 gram of gold down the rat sluice with classified gravel and got back the intire gram if anything was lost it was lest then 0.01 grams, we then put down the same 1 gram but with unclassified gravel and rocks and got back 0.97 of a gram so still a very solid gold recovery, so in my opinion its fine to not classify with one of those sluices but with a regular standard riffle sluice you defintley do as we tried not classifying once and every time we test panned the tailings there was still at least 1/4 of the gold per pan as we were getting out of the gravel before we put it through the sluice so probably about a 30% loss rate.
Nice classifier though, I might make one and see how it goes, the one thing i dont think about the look of it is that you wouldnt beable to get buckets as fill, so would have to stop and convert to feeding the sluice more often wasting a bit of time but if its a lot quicker its bound to be better.
Yeah mate it definitely works better and faster than the usual classifier that fits in the bucket or on top. Only thing you have to worry about is filling it up too much as it will simply become too heavy to classify as you try to move/shake it around, but you’re still putting way more material in than what a normal classifier would hold. I plan on drilling more holes to make it even better 
Oh and I prefer to carry 3/4 full buckets than full ones, gotta look after the ol’ back even though ya spend all day digging anyway 
1 Like
It also pays to not put too much material in to the classifier first off. Like about 2 shovel fills then classify, chuck out the oversize & repeat until, like you say, the catch bucket is about 3/4 full. I usually do two buckets so I can carry one in each hand, better balance, to the sluice box. By running classified material down your box you don’t need a faster water volume going down your box as you don’t have the larger rocks & stuff to wash on through. So the fine gold recovery is way better in the gentler flow & you aren’t having to manually pick out the larger rocks & stones. You also get a more gold bearing concentrated amount of lighter material to put down your box as you aren’t filling the bucket with worthless, bulk, heavier & bigger rocks & stuff that you will just chuck out at the box any way. So wasted energy & effort in carting those to the box.
JW
3 Likes