This 6 x 48 inch Vortex Drop Riffle Sluice sluice box Package includes the 6' wide x 48" long sluice, Highbanker, and Waterfall Box attachment, and instructions. Shipping weight about 28 pounds. Legs / stand NOT included. Purchase front and rear legs through drop down menu for additional $350.
ABOUT THE GOLD WELL SLUICE:
This 6" x 48" Gold Well Vortex Drop Riffle Sluice model employs patent pending vortex technology. This unit is a precision CNC machined product and is easy to set up and easy to use. Comes with 3 feet of vortex riffles, which is especially useful when gold finer than 200 mesh is plentiful in the materials you are processing, and allows for longer duration between cleanouts. Made entirely of aircraft alloy 6061-T6 aluminum, one of the toughest alloys of aluminum available, and stainless steel, this sluicebox provides many years of corrosion free use in freshwater environments. Feed rates are significantly higher than other types of sluice boxes.
Although this sluice is only 6 inches wide, it is not intended for cleanup only. It just happens to work well for that purpose and can recover gold that was missed by other cleanup devices such as spiral wheels, shaker tables, and blue bowls, but it is by no means intended to be just a cleanup sluice. The Gold Well Vortex Drop Riffle Sluice was designed from the beginning to be used in the field, at a dig site, and is perfectly at home in a stream with a stream flare or being used in a recirculating system if you are gold prospecting in a remote area without a lot of water. This 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, which means it can process more material per hour than traditional sluices double its size.
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 until you remove the rock from the sluice. Slots near the end fit a 5 gallon bucket for a simple support setup.
This 6" x 48" Gold well vortex drop riffle sluice was invented by the late Bernard Markowski. Frustrated that other sluices did not capture all the fine gold, he made sure his design does recover it all 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 drops to the bottom where it stays because there is no force in the bottom of the wells to flush it out. Works over a large range of angles and water flow rates. Process concentrates and reduce their volume quickly at the same time feeling sure that you are not losing your precious fines.
MANUFACTURER'S INFORMATION ON PUMPS (PUMP NOT INCLUDED): Use a 2200 gph pump or better. Once the desired angle is established for the sluice (8% pitch is suggested to start), 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).
