Randy's Latest Keene Dredge Sluice Mods with Gold Hog Matting -- 6 Jul 16

Hey Gold Adventurers...

Time for a quick DIY posting of my latest effort to GET MORE FINE FLOOD GOLD...  

I have a Keene ultra mini 4-incher..........and have successfully run a 2 foot aluminum extension and 5 feet of Vortex-type matting in the box...

However, since Doc at Gold Hog was super nice to me and sent me some GH matting a while back to try out, I wanted to give his various matting types a fair trial as to fine, fine, fine gold capture here on the Arkansas River in High Kolorado...

Probably 75 to 80% of all the flood gold here is -50 mesh to 200 nano specks, so this would be a good test for GH matting on nothing BUT the finest flood gold and loads of heavy black sand.

SO, I removed the previous mod, reinstalled a 4 foot extension and cut/installed 14 GH matting pieces in my 7 foot box.  I have UR up front under the flair, alternating sections of scrubber, UR, river hog and razor back.

I temporarily taped them all together with Gorilla duct tape, as I may need/want to change some of them around after I start dredging....  Then, IF I am happy, I'll consider gluing them all together.

Here's what my "Long Tom" sluice box looks like now:





The "before" mod was a total of 40.0 lbs with the flair, box, matting & screens.

This "after" mod is 43.8 lbs, so about 4 lbs heavier overall.  The GH matting alone weighs 19.2 lbs for 14 sections 16 inches wide all taped together...

SO, Doc says to run my 4-incher full throttle, suck it all up, poop it all out the back of the box....  We'll see come the end of the month.  

Plz standby for a post dredging Trip Report on this aggressive mod & GH matting.

Randy  C-17A  

Randy this is just what I was wanting to end up doing BUT I was going to use the 2 inch I made to start with. A 4 is in my future (I hope) and will be doing the same thing! So Im watching your progress!! Im thinking youll do very well!

Randy:
How much tilt on that 7' long sluice. It seem like it will need to lift the front end up quite a bit above the water to get enough fall. It's an interesting idea and hope it works real well. Looking forward to your report. Lots of gold in your pan.

Dickb

I don't see how ANY fine Arkansas gold would get out of that combo! As you can see I really like my GH matting even though I haven't got to use it yet! More flooding / high water hitting us again!

I would put one more peise of ur at the very end .I do get a lot of very fine stuff at the end of my box .Some you can't see very well.

jloyd if your getting anything at the end of the sluice with GH matting , your loseing gold. are you feeding the material to fast for your setup? BUT I agree that putting more mat in would be a good idea!

Jloyd, et al.,

Well..............I am out of GH matting, except for a couple of short scraps of several of each............so, unless I taped and glued up a piece with mostly "X" mat on the left & right and a center section of "Y" mat, then I have no more.

I figure that if 7 feet isn't enough with GH matting in my box, then one last strip wouldn't make the difference.

We'll see!

Randy C-17A

The gold I get in that last mat if any at all will be so fine you have a hard time seeing it in the pan .200 mess or less .Most of the gold is in the first 3 mats.

Looking good buddy! No Tallon matt, shame on Doc. LOL. A buddy of mine has all Tallon in his little back pack dredge. Works really good but so does all of Docs matts. Got my new mobile motel last Thursday. Step two is complete. Wish step one was done I would be heading that way. I'll post some picks in another thread. That's one nice looking sluice....

John,

Thanks for looking....

Ha. Well, I had what I had and I used what I had... I figure even without some Talon mat, this will be a pretty good test just to see IF I can get it to run clean, not need any rock screening inside and if it will catch our fine, fine gold here.....without too much loss out the back.

Congrats on your mobile hotel! Bet it looks nice as can be... You can camp at Cache Creek in big time style now!

Good luck on completing your helicopter and maybe hittin' the road to High Kolorado some day soon.

Randy C-17A

I was wanting to come to Co. this week but the heat is keeping me home for awhile. Maybe in Aug. Ill attempt another try.

Russ,

Sorry to hear you'll be coming our way... Was like 93 in Denver yesterday, but probably low 80s here in the BV area.

My 6 pots of tomatoes on the front deck just LOVE the sun & heat lately....

.....I think, they think, they're in Misery!!! Ha.

Hope to see you in August!

Randy C-17A

So, I am interested if 7 ft of sluice is going to be supportable on your floatation system. Of course, if the GH mats don't hold much in the last few feet, the balance may be just fine. So I think we are all very interested in how it performs on Ark River gold.

Dave,

Good questions...

Fact is, we put the dredge into the Ark yesterday morning and pulled it out today about noon.  So, got about 3 1/2 hrs of good runnin' yesterday and about 3 hrs today.  All seemed well...

I had a foam swim board under the back of the sluice box to help keep it "up".....  Worked O.K., but towards the end of Day 1 we were moving the dredge between some big rocks and the bungee cords popped loose and the flotation board and cords were washed WAY down river...  Ugh.

However, with the sluice box pulled all the way forward on the frame, it seemed to run fine w/o the extra flotation.  Ran fine for 3 hrs today.

We usually ran 1 hard hour and then did a cleanup.  Never really saw any gold in the matting.  Still, upon cleanup and panning the cons we got decent VERY fine gold.  The section of the Ark we had access to has O.K., but not great for fine flood gold...

Still, VERY happy how little final cons we had from all that matting.  We put a tub and pan behind the sluice several times and panned the material and didn;t see much of anything....  SO, that means one of two things:

1).  The material we were dredging was very gold poor,

or, 2).  The GH matting did a great job catching most every speck & tiny flake.

We gave John, the claim owner, the cons to take home and Miller Table, so once he gives me a "gold take" I'll share it there...

Also, soon, I'll try and post some pics for "you all"......

Randy  C-17A  

I'm looking forward to seeing some pics.

You and ALL of us also!!!

I just ran my final test on my recirc system .All it has is goldhog mats .[ ran the material as fast as I could run it and found no gold in the last two mats .Only two pieces in the two middle sections .All the gold was in the first section.Then ran it back through and only found one small flak of gold .That is for what I run.

Hey everyone...

I just posted a big Trip Report under Western Gold States..........  Plz go take a look.

Seems that the GH matting "Long Tom" sluice box mod worked out well.  It ran clean, caught some very fine gold too.

I won't know the gold take until John Miller Tables the cons some day soon.  Will post the numbers when I get them.

Overall, I an VERY happy.  Ran real clean, caught some very fine gold and test of the tailings seemed to show next to nothing was blowing out the back of my box...

Now................to dry the matting, clean it and permanently super glue all the sections together! For this testing I simply had them all Gorilla Taped together, just in case I wanted to make some changes...

Randy  C-17A  

Randy , how far down the sluice did you find fine gold?

Russ,

Ha. NO way of knowing.... When we stopped dredging for a 1 hour cleanup and shut the engine off and looked..........we basically never saw any gold at all in the matting. Some sand and some black sand here and there...

I had the whole 14 segments temp Gorilla taped together, so it was a real pain to carefully roll it up, splash/wash it in a big tub without ripping the whole matting chain apart.

So, no way to know what was doing what... It all just "worked" as best we could tell. Can't wait to see what John Miller Tables out of the cons...

Randy "C-17A"

Yep my GH mats are still taped together also BUT I still haven't gotten out. Its either to hot or the water is still up and has been all Spring/Summer/ and probly this fall also. its been the craziest Season ever! If I get another 4 incher I plan to use the GH mats in it also. That's why I was asking about the fine gold on your mats. This 4 incher will be my last attempt to stay dredgeing if my ole bones can take it or not!

And to top it off im comeing to Colorado and Ill start my journey early Saturday morning. probly stop off in Eastern Colorado and get a room for the night and go to Leonard Leepers Sunday about 8AM. Im buying his 4 inch Keene dredge , 2 inch Keene dredge and his Keene highbanker and some other misc. items. He is calling it a day pertaining to dredgeing and I thought I was doing the same thing after selling my 4 inch dredge last Fall BUT I want to give it one more shot. And Im going to see Brian (bugg) hes got a air line and regulator for sale that I said id buy and he lives fairly close to Leonard. then turn around and drive back the 13 hours to home. As soon as I get home ill get my order in for more Gold Hog matts for the 4 incher. I still haven't got my homemade 2 inch dredge with the Gold Hog matts in the water yet.( BUMMER!) the weather forecast for ST. Louis Misery is for LOTS of more rain all week. so NO surprise when the creeks are flooded again! Christmass in August is just around the corner for me!

Russ,

Well.............good for you and Leonard! You're not getting any younger to get wet, cold and go dredging, so why not give it one last BIG effort??? Good job!

Looks like a LOT of equipment. You got an 18-wheeler to take it all back to Misery?

Yep. Christmas for Russ in August!

Randy C-17A

Russ,

I'm headed up to the Douglas Creek Claim with Steve tomorrow, to do some maintenance on the claim and get some nozzle time in. How much time do you have in this part of the world.

Trevor

Trev Ill only be there to load up Leonards equipment and turn back around. My wife is traveling with me and this was the only time I could travel out to do this. and again to top it off yesterday I was out in my shop working on my 5 inch subbie and my left knee popped and is real sore. I got a Dr. appointment for Aug. 17 to have him give it the once over. Hes been telling me it (also) needs to be replaced like the right knee back in January. LOTS OF FUN COMEING MY WAY!