Corrugated Mini Sluice/"Poop Tube"
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This
type of clean up gold
equipment comes in different
styles. The one that I have
used for the last 15 years
is made of corrugated drain
piping. If you give gold a
place to settle out in
moving water it will work
its way down through the
black sand and settle out.
All of the different types
work on this same principal.
The advantages of the poop
tube is its capacity.
I can run 5 gallons of
concentrate through mine
before cleaning up. I do
this with a self feeding
hopper. The
other sluices have to be fed with a
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spoon, which takes a lot of
time. With the poop tubes'
hopper, you can get it
started and go do something
else, checking on it once in
a while. I do check the
material washed into the
bucket for gold. If I find
any I just run it through
again a second time. This
is a real time saver for
people who dredge or high
bank and save a lot of
concentrate to bring home.
I take a screen (window
screen
mesh)
along to screen down my
concentrate on the river or
while highbanking, so I
don't have to carry all those rocks
home. Any gold that won't go
through the screen is easy to pan
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The
other pieces of equipment needed to
operate the Poop Tube are:
water
pump- 12V bilge pump or a small 110V
submersible
Hose- ½
“ID plastic”, to go between the pump
and the Poop Tube
5 Gal.
plastic bucket
The Bucket Classifier: Best piece
of DIY equipment we have used in
years!
We were out sluicing with a friend
of ours and he showed us a bucket
classifier he had made. I believe it
works better than the plastic pan
screens that are in most prospecting
stores. This classifier can be set
in a bucket half full of water and
shovel into it. You pick up the
classifier and spin it around to
wash the material through into the
bucket. The screen for the
classifier is ½ square hardware
cloth. If you are working in an area
without water it will work that way
also. With the material screened, it
is easy to pan or feed into a sluice
or highbanker. Remember the key to
separating gold in any manner is to
have the material of more uniform in
size. The instructions for making
these bucket classifiers can be
ordered by visiting the panning tips
page and checking the box next to
its name.
Blue Bowl - Great for Separating
Black Sand
.....as long as you are very careful
to screen your material correctly
This is one of the few machines I
have found that will separate black
sand from concentrate. The spiral
wheel separators are great at
catching larger gold (flakes and
small nuggets). The draw backs are
trying to catch dust and flour gold.
In Colorado and other places
a majority of the gold you work for
is dust and flour and I don't want
to lose mine. If you adjust the
wheels to carry the dust into the
cup you get black sand. If you set
it to carry only the larger gold
through you will leave gold in the
black sand. If you don't believe me
try panning the material left in the
wheel or has run over the edge. Or
better yet, send it to me and I'll
keep what I take out, and send the
black sand back to you.
To make the blue bowl work
successfully you will need to screen
the concentrate into many different
mesh sizes. If you look at the ads
for the bowl, you will see they sell
all the different mesh screens. If
you do all of the screening it will
work great. I recommend this piece
of equipment if you can afford all
of the screens needed to run it.
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