This 12 x 60 inch Vortex Drop Riffle Sluice sluice box Package includes the 12" wide x 60" long sluice, Highbanker and Waterfall Box Attachment, and instructions. Shipping weight about 50 pounds. NO legs or stand included. NO pump included.
ABOUT THE GOLD WELL VORTEX SLUICE:
This unit is a commercial grade sluice box, with 4 feet of vortex plates which allows extremely fine gold particles more opportunities to 'drop out' of the water flow and collect in the gold wells, and also allows longer duration between clean outs. This sluicebox is easy to set up, easy to use and is a full foot wide. Constructed of the toughest 7075-T6 aircraft alloy aluminum and stainless steel, it has been designed for serious gold recovery operations and all day use, day after day with minimum wear. This unit comes bare bones without a water source attachment. 12" wide, 60 inches long, 3" deep. Weighs about 33 pounds. Virtually any mining application can be served by this unit.
The Gold Well Vortex Drop Riffle Sluice was designed to be used in the field, at a dig site. It can process more material per hour than traditional sluices double its size. The reason for this is because the sluice clears light material out quickly and the upper portions of the pockets clear rapidly of material, creating a place for gold to go and be trapped much more rapidly than a typical sluice.
Although its optimum performance is considered to be classified material 5/16” or less, it by no means fails to collect gold or is less efficient when material larger than the recommended is processed. The only noticeable difference is that when processing larger materials, rocks in the range of 3/4” to 3/8” are more apt to become stuck in a vortex pockets; this does not prevent the pocket from collecting gold in most cases and is merely a nuisance easily dispensed with by flicking the rock from the sluice. Slots near the end fit a 5 gallon bucket for a simple support setup.
The Goldwell drop riffle sluice was invented by the late Bernard Markowski because he was frustrated by sluices that did not capture fine gold. His design does by creating a vertically oriented vortex! This vortex keeps material in the spiral shaped wells in motion, causing light material to be flushed out easily and concentrating heavy materials. When gold crosses this vortex, it finds no stable bed (false bottom) to rest on and like a heavy object dropped in a bucket full of ball bearings being vibrated around, it drops to the bottom where it stays because there is no force in the bottom of the wells to flush it out.
This sluice will serve one or two people doing occasional or weekend prospecting, yet has a good production rate if classifying material isn't needed. It will probably require two people to keep this unit fed at it's peak processing rate. Excellent for cleaning up large volumes of concentrates, recovering gold missed by other cleanup devices such as spiral wheels, shaker tables, blue bowls and even the most careful panning. Although it works well for cleanup, it is perfectly at home in a stream with a stream flare or being used in a recirculating system if you're in a remote area with not much water.
MANUFACTURER'S INFORMATION ON PUMP (NOT INCLUDED): Water flow through the sluice should be a minimum of 2200 gph or better. Once the desired angle is established for the sluice (8% pitch is suggested to start) is established for the sluice, you will want to adjust your water flow. The flow is in the proper range when particles in the vortex pockets show circular motion. To do this you should set the water flow rate low, add a few scoops of dirt, then while watching the Gold Well pockets, slowly increase the flow rate UNTIL you see the material in the Gold Wells begin to rotate. This then will be the minimum water flow that you want to maintain in your Gold Well Sluice for proper operation. The water flow volume will be different for different materials. If the bulk of the material you are processing is light, you may want to run enough through the sluice first to get some heavy black sands built up, then adjust your water flow for the black sands, not the lighter silicon dioxide sands (generally the light colored sands).
