as i said mate stick to what you know clearly you’ve had great success with your mats why would you change or care if someone else was using another system?
i’ve never knocked anyone recovery methods people have been mining for hundreds of thousands of years using little more than sticks and hide with success
No one is knocking you at all but merely pointing out that that tried and true methods can be just as good and expensive gear is not necessarily required nor the best.
Were people mining hundreds of thousands of years ago or just a few thousands of years ago - I must check on that.
sorry mate to be clear was referring to myself not knocking other systems not others knocking mine, you definately got me there i doubt we were mining that long ago i think the oldest aboriginal records of existence are only 70,000 years old. weve probably been mining over 5000 years if that well never really know.
i was watching an old series about the golden fleece last night the story is kind of focused on the healing powers of the fleece while the later stories are of the fleece being golden as it was used by miners. probably all folk tale but interesting none the less.
I had read once that back in ancient Greece they used sheep skins to recover gold and I suppose that does make sense. Whether it is a folk tale or not it certainly seems to be a popular legend and many legends have been proven to be based on fact.
wow go gold haha say what you will i do love dream mat and gold hog very much i stand by there products as i do with moss and carpet i truely love all of the options and own many products from gold rat and gold hog and keene like i said i love all new ideas and these companys dont disappoint do i love gold rat ? yes i do till death us do part do i love gold hog yes i also do till death us do part for richer for poorer i fully stand by these products and companys have a happy day fella
hi danno are we talking for dredging or just shovel sluice boxs for hog mat ?
Interesting topic alright- For dredging ive used hog matting before. Did extensive testing with it using fine gold and pieces of lead in various sizes as well as different amounts of black sand in a 4 inch dredge. Loses were up to 30%. Ended up ripping it out.
Problem with dredging is that you have so much water in a sluice and large slurry loads and variation Also it is very hard to control pitch and theirs only so much real estate to classify
For fine gold recovery in a dredge you have to classify and reduce turbulence within the water column. Thats why over under setups and sump setups like the supermax are so effective at ultra fine gold recovery. Simple expanded metal over miners moss or carpet is great.
Proline do a good job with a heavy damper and a wave classifier at the head of their sluice creating a fluid bed for fine gold to settle out.
Dave McCraken said the best thing for fine gold recovery in a dredge is raised expanded over deep V matting/carpet sitting under a classifier.
Cant really comment about high bankers but recovery in a high banker is a lot easier to create as you have more room to classify and control things like pitch and water flow. Ive seen some setups with raised expanded over carpet or miners moss. Problems occur when you turn off a high banker and then turn back on, this will causes migration of gold down the sluice.
thats why i asked what application likes of hog mat is being used for , i had no luck with it in my dredge, it seemed to create a shock wave when rocks hit it causing the gold to jump over to the next riffle and work its way off the box. im with lammerlaw some of the most basic , grass carpet and mesh work as good as anything , i have not used any of the other mats only gold hog and it wasnt for me in a dredge .
I love when people spend 100’s of $ and spend countless hours trying to save a few cents worth of gold. Keep it up guys. It means I can find all the good stuff while you dick around.
Dredging, slicing, panning, and heavy equipment mining. You will never catch it all. If your happy at the end of the day with what you got. Leave it at that.
As I always say when I pan a few specks back into the river. Gotta save some for future generations.
Yep…hence “The Golden Fleece”. 
JW 
yea gold mining for me is absoluetly a passion i love every aspect of prospecting and mining so spending money on what i love is nothing for me its what i love to do spend money on gold mining for me is like a little kid in a toy shop i have spent tens of thousands of dollars and will continue to do so until i take my last breath i have more sluices than you could point a stick at and any one who knows me surely knows this part of finding gold is loosing gold i like what you say leaving some for the future i feel the same as soon as i started getting heavily involved with finding gold i found that you have to be able to loose gold in order to learn its just how it is the better we get at it the more we understand and the more we find and retain…i have absoluetly loved this thread or conversation on matts and moss ideas and companys its been very interesting i will continue to spend shit loads on equipment and support the companys and dealers that make and sell the gear technology is a beautiful thing all the ideas and companys need our support in order for our passion of gold recovery to flourish so many thanks to dan at nz dredge and gold rat and gold hog and keene for making my passion a reality i will continue to promote and stand by all of these guys as best as i can and where ever and when ever i can super mac massive thanks to all …lets get some gold yahoo
Lets talk “Fine Gold”. in laymans language and not microns etc. I consider fine gold to be gold smaller than the head of a pin. Right down to the pointy bit of the pin and smaller. But visible to the naked eye. Anything smaller, lets forget about it. If ya can’t see it, you will never catch it. Rivers and creeks in NZ are high velocity in a flood. So fine gold is continually on the move. A splendid example of this was the richness of the West Coast, South Island beaches. Heres a wee tip. There is beach gold at Moeraki, home of the Moeraki Boulders. There is a creek there that comes outa the hills and carries gold. Dredging and sluicing in a creek bed or river bed, aint gunna get ya much fine gold. Any fine gold is thrown up to where the flood level is. Esp on inside bends. Its high and dry. Hence the term “Flood Gold”. It stops there because the flow is slower and there is a tendency for fine gold to be pulled towards the banks, created by a stationary bank and moving water. You may find a little fine gold in the main flow. Dropped there as the flood lost its velocity. So at the end of the day, you can use all sorts of catching devices, mat’s, configurations etc, but ya ain’t gunna catch, what isn’t there. Never was and ain’t gunna be. The hype revolves around catching the fine gold. That is what drives the advertising etc. I go with the term. “Mining the Miners”. and that has been going on for eon’s. As has been said on here, any type of matting, riffles and or expanded metal will catch the gold most of you are likely to encounter. I look at Gold Stamps claim and the size of gold he gets, which tells me, there will be diddly squat in the way of fine gold in that area of waterway. The further down a waterway you go, the finer the gold. Same thing happens in your sluice. If you are really keen on catching fine gold, get a Gold Cube or make something using the same principle. This season I will be doing just that. Targeting fine gold at flood levels. Keene Eng on are the right track, with their sump at the bottom of a dredge, where the fines are recirculated to two small side sluices. What lets that down is, they are using conventional methods to try and catch that fine gold. Now if they had a small type gold cube principle each side, they would be in the money. So lets talk gold Cube. As most of you are aware, without me, there wouldn’t be any gold cube. And Mike Pung of the US of A who makes and produces them, would still be turning wood. That was his occupation. An expert woodturner and a good one. Made spiral wooden staircases,works of art they were. Hope I made him rich lol. Now how does the gold cube work. Well I have included a diagram. so will explain it. As the water flows down an angled slope it goes down and under a slat, this creates a back pressure and the angle of the table does the rest. As the water emerges from under the slat, it tries’ to climb back to its previous height, but eventually fails and collapses and moves forward. Now what happens here is that a stratified column is created. And the minerals are sorted into their relative gravity. As the water moves forward over the catching medium, those minerals are captured. As they are at the bottom of the column, so get first go at the matt. By the time everything gets to the end of the run. Everything is all mixed up again. So the process is repeated. Most guys using the cube get 90 per cent on the first run (tray)and the other 10 per cent on the second. (tray). So little need for a four stacker, to be honest. Although that is what I will be using. Yep I got a free one from Mike Pung. This principle is similar to that used on a wifley table or shaking table, but has a different configuration. Well I have either bored you or confused you lol. Now as there will no doubt be some flakey stuff where I am going to work I aint going to let that escape. I have the high banker attachment for the cube, but I don’t like Mikes riffle configuration to much. So made my own Polypropelene sluice. (Yep I do a bit pf plastic welding). That will be fed with a two and a half inch Hydroforce dry land suction nozzle powered by a Honda GXH and Keene Pump. Nice and light. The material hits the sluice and goes over a screen. Sand etc, fall through an aperture in the sluice floor and are directed down into the Cube. The classified material then runs over expanded metal on miners moss on the rest of the sluice Where I catch the flakes. And that folks is how you catch fine gold and flakey gold at the same time. Like I said on a previous post here. You have to process each one differently and not together. Right time to go find some pics to attach. My gold cube is away at the moment, having a wee holiday down Queenstown, but coming home soon. It sits under the sluice on a piece of plywood.
Cheers Trev aka “The Hatter” aka Kiwigold.
Thanx KG, perspective is what this is all about, I think peeps should work the 80/20 prenciple more, and they would be a lot more successful. To put it simply, for 20% of your time you will get an 80% return, it then takes 80% of your time to get the remaining 20% return.
