ANGUS MACKIRK AU. TRAP BOSS SLUICE SET UP IN STREAM

Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2011 5:01 pm

AU. TRAP IN ACTION:

I classified through a 1/2" and a 1/4" screen before running the material through the sluice. Next time, i'm going to try just the 1/2" screen. From what i saw today, this sluice will handle 1/2" material.
There was so many small 1/8" 1/4" pebbles in the stream that the gold-n-sand stayed clogged up most of the time.

Can you see my little buddy in the last picture? He's about a foot above the white rock in the middle of the picture.

The sluice is heavy enough so that i could use it without having to weigh it down with a rock. I liked being able to observe the riffle action down the entire length of the sluice.

This sluice has the same reverse 6 degree slope in the flair as the grub steak, so to clear the flair area efficiently of material, must be set up with the flair bottom level or parallel with the water surface.

i used the small shovel to feed the sluice from the 5 gallon bucket instead of the hand scoop i normally use. because of the sluices ability to handle the gravel, i fed a lot more material through the sluice at a much faster rate.

Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2011 9:31 pm

Cool setup!

Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2011 9:47 pm

Hey deerman is that creek anywhere near the haile gold mine?

Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2011 7:19 am

no.

Dredger Joined: 27 Jan 2011 Posts: 176 Location: Aiken, SC

So you did not have any problems with waterflow. I am thinking of getting the same sluice. But the stream on my property does not have a lot of flow. I do think I have more flow than you though. I want something that can handle material fast also.

Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 8:21 am

i've been using a Keene A51 sluice and then i converted it to an A52(added a flair) since i started prospecting 4 years ago. for the most part, i have never had enough water flow to clear the riffles efficiently. and i always classified down to 1/8" or less.

with the Au. Trap, i have not had a problem with 1/4" gravel clearing the sluice quickly. the pictures above are from the one trip to the creek using this sluice. my next trip will be to the same creek and i will classify with the 1/2" big screen only. based on what i saw the last trip, i don't anticipate having a problem. we'll see.

never-the-less, hands down, i like the Au. Trap better than the A52.
the Au. Trap riffles are lower and simply won't hold 1/4" gravel. any kind of
water speed will push the gravel right on through.

when i read the SLUICE TEST DAY post under PRODUCT REVIEWS posted on november 28, 2010, i knew i had to have the Au. Trap. after reading the comments by SHAY, DWIGHT, and KEV, i was convinced that i had to have the sluice. they had done the comparisons with all the most popular sluices and, with their experience, if they thought that the Au. Trap was that good, that was good enough for me.
when my wife said she would get it for me for chistmas, the decision was final.
i emailed shay and he and dwight met me in rock hill a few days before christmas with the Au.Trap and a Grub Steak which i bought for myself. turned out to be my best christmas gift in years.

Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 8:41 am

Nice, looks like a fun place to mess around. That classifier looks really good too. I see you have the gold and sand dredge there, were you cleaning off submerged bedrock or just using it for those gravels?

Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 8:55 am

there was submerged bedrock against the bank and a trench on the inside of the bend i was working with the shovel till i got down to the bedrock and then i switched to the gold-n-sand to clean out the cracks and crevices.
see the 8th(of 10) pictures. bedrock is on the right against the bank.

the reason people switch to a hand dredge, highbanker combo, or a dredge is that once you get to the bedrock, you have no other way of getting the gold other than suctioning it up. a shovel just simply does not work. if you don't have one of these devices, you are leaving most of the gold on the bottom on the rock.

Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 9:07 am

seems like its a close race between autrap and a bazooka as far as most gold in least amount of time. Ill never buy a bazooka but may have to make me one someday. I like my autrap as well but the grub steak is more versatile than the autrap as far as having a spot to setup.

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2011 8:39 am

kirk73,

as to waterflow, i had more than enough. in daming the stream up, it caused the water level to keep rising, so periodically, i had to raise the sluice. in the pictures above, you can see the water at the bottom of the
sluice is backing up, so after i took these pictures, i raised the bottom up above the water level and then raised the top so that the flair was level and i had an inch or so of water entering the sluice. i can't say enough about the sluice and how well it moves gravel thru. i'm gradually backing off of how small i'm classifying the material i process. i ran 1/4" last time. i'm going to try 1/2" next time.

Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 8:32 am

kirk73 wrote:

So you did not have any problems with waterflow. I am thinking of getting the same sluice. But the stream on my property does not have a lot of flow. I do think I have more flow than you though. I want something that can handle material fast also.

i would not have been able to keep up with the au. trap even with less flow than you see in these pictures, because it clears that good.

with this kind of water flow, using the proper sluice, a bigger sluice, is the only way to go. remember, at this time of year is when you have the most water in the creeks.

classifying below 1/2" is a waste of time and effort. i'm talking sand and gravel. if you've got clay and/or compacted material, obviously you have to modify your classifying.

the riffles will not hold or pack up with 1/2" gravel but will pass them right on through.

the biggest gravel that the riffles will hold is 1/4" as long as you have any thing more than dead slow water flow.

just make sure you have the sluice set up right with 6 degree slope for the main body of the sluice. it's easy to tell when you've got it right because the gravel does not just sit on the flair, it moves right on down the sluice.
if it's sitting on the flair, just increase the angle until it does clear easily.
using a level to get it right isn't necessary.

Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2012 12:03 am

How often do you do a clean up? I have been doing a clean up every bucket but think I can go longer. I just don't want to loose any gold trying it out.

Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2012 4:27 am

cleanup is so fast and easy that you can clean up as often as you want without killing your day doing cleanups.
you can also wait until the riffles load up with black sand.
the most time consuming part about doing a cleanup is getting the sluice reseated in the stream for the next run.

Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2012 7:35 am

Good looking setup. I like the classifing setup. Saves time. I sometimes use something similar. Thanks for sharing.

Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2012 9:40 pm

deerman wrote:

cleanup is so fast and easy that you can clean up as often as you want without killing your day doing cleanups.
you can also wait until the riffles load up with black sand.
the most time consuming part about doing a cleanup is getting the sluice reseated in the stream for the next run.

Thanks. The reset is the hardish part. I did have an email exchange with AM and he said to run a few buckets at a time (meaning screen down a few buckets then run them) then do a clean out after that. I am taking that is they do not suggest letting the sluice run with material in it while you are gathering more to run.

Easy enough with an AM sluice.

Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2012 12:59 pm

i do one bucket at a time. my back needs the rest. if theres gold in a riffle, it will stay there. the lighter materials will have time to work themselves out of the sluice.

i've got an au trap boss and a grub steak sluice, so i'm really talking about the flairs on those two. i don't specifically know about the flairs on the other am sluices.

if i've got to build a dam across the stream, i will build it high enough to get the slope i need(6 degrees). while i dig, the water level behind the damn builds up. if the water level isn't high enough when i've filled the first bucket, i fill my second bucket.

heres an idea. at home before you leave for the creek, get your sluice out, a ruler and a short level.
set the sluice down on the driveway. put the level on the flair. raise the front of the sluice until the level shows the flair is level. the flair has a negative 6 degree slope. measure the height of the front of the sluice from the driveway. that gives you a rough idea of how high to build your damn on the creek.

for these sluices to work properly, the flair must be level.
for the water flow to move the material off the flair properly, the flair must be level. yeah, you probably will have to raise the height of the dam to get the flair level. you live, you learn.

this approach works fine on 3' to 10' or so creeks. for wider creeks, a different solution may be called for.

Mr. BrownEyes Joined: 13 Nov 2010 Posts: 130 Location: NC

Great idea on estimating height of dam! Outstanding Deerman Smile