Predator III

Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2011 1:17 pm

I got my Predator III in the mail yesterday,didn't get to try it out because I was taking my boat to Bob.After breakfast this morning I set it up and ran a 5 5gal buckets of material that I had allready run through my homemade clean up sluice and panned.I was shocked to see how much gold I had been missing and I thought my homemade sluice was getting all the gold.A lot of the material I ran had allready been run twice.This thing is a snap to clean out too.Debby was so excited I thought I was going to have to give "it"up,and I don't mean the gold or the sluice!But that's another story.Any way Thanks Shay,this thing is great. Wes

Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2011 2:11 pm

That does it, I'm getting one after the boat gets done.

Don't forget what I told you about that older dredge. 3-M's 5200 is the caulk to use on those leaky area's. Smoothing it out, using an ice cube, works very well. Hold the ice cube with a paper towel and just rub it over the caulk to get it like you want.

Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2011 2:18 pm

I have been pleased with my predator III. It's one of the best investments out of all my prospecting equipment.

Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2011 6:55 pm

Picker Pete and I go back and forth on which is better. I prefer the Gold Cube, he prefers the Predator III.

I will admit that when it comes to cost, the P3 has it over the GC.

Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2011 8:49 pm

I see a gold cube run once a month and its actually 2 gold cubes in one and ive seen it not catch everything. Not saying the P3 does either, none of them do but as far as setup, cleanup and gold recovery, cost, etc. the P3 has it hands down and I would put money on that.

Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2011 8:57 pm

I have two in stock ready to ship and 4 on back order. Wink

If I didn't have a shaker table this would be what I use for cleaning up my cons.

Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2011 8:58 pm

Southern Prospector wrote:

I have two in stock ready to ship and 4 on back order. Wink

If I didn't have a shaker table this would be what I use for cleaning up my cons.

dont forget to add a 1000gph bilge with that order.

Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2011 4:32 am

I ran mine w/ 450 gph pump. Wes ??

Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2011 6:28 am

The GPH on the small pumps depends on the how high you pump the water. The Atwood pumps and many others give a GPH at a certain height, usually 3', as well as 0 (zero) feet. There's quite a difference between the stated GPH and 3 feet high.

Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2011 12:37 pm

There is another final recovery fine gold cleanup item on the market I feel is worth a mention / look:
The Black Magic Fine Gold Recovery System
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--ZDhbS7uCM&feature=related

The P III simply cannot be beat in terms of price, portability and convenience. Plus it is the only one of the three mentioned in this thread that requires no power; simply set it up in a stream with a catch pan (or not) and yer good to go. I got to try out Pete's one time and I'm sold -- I'll end up getting one eventually.

However, if one is getting into closed-loop recovery systems, the Black Magic is definitely worth a look.

So far we've run ours with nowhere near the amount of material at a time as shown in the demonstration vid. The material we've been running is nearly 100% black sands and I have to say it is simply amazing how quickly the black sand is carried away and how little travel there is with the gold. Plus almost none to none of the gold we are trying to recover and have been recovering is even as large as the smallest piece visible in the vid either.. and it pretty much gets stopped dead in its tracks by the Black Magic.

Bottom line is this thing works -- and works quite well. It's about a third the cost of a Gold Cube. Don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying the Black Magic is a cheaper alternative to the Gold Cube, because it isn't. That would be comparing apples to oranges. The Gold Cube can process much coarser material.. and fast too! But as far as closed-loop fine gold recovery recirculating systems go, the Black Magic is right up there as far as we're concerned. It works. It works really well. We're pleased. End of story.

Swampstomper Al

PS -- The Black Magic no longer ships with the screen shown in the vid. No biggie.

Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2011 3:09 pm

YOu know I'm going to make a pitch for the Gold Cube.

NOT my video, I don't do videos! My Father always said that I have a face for radio! Rolling Eyes

I also don't even get that much tailings when I run my GC. Usually about 2 cups you can pretty much count on. Not matter how many buckets of cons you run.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3IsoXv0Fd0

I ran a 1/2 bucket of black sand through my Predator II. Then ran the tailings from that through my Gold Cube. I was surprised at how much fine gold the GC pulled out of the black sands that had been through the P2.

I have done a similar study than what this guy did. (I have a 4 tier GC.) I'd say 80% of my Gold is in the first vortex matting tray, 12-15% is in the second tray and just a few specs are ever in the bottom vortex matting tray. And your left with about 2 cups of cons to pan through.

The only thing you have to make sure before you run your cons is that the matting is saturated with water. I start at the bottom, set my hose nozzle on fan spray and saturate the matting, then work my way up, adding tiers as I go. Also, you don't need Jet Dry or Dawn when running the GC. In fact they tell you NOT to use it.

When I clean out the trays, I carefully lift out the tray, set it in my tub, on it's side and run the fan spray down the side, turn it over and run it down again, and that's it. Ready for the next tray. Once in a while you get a piece of gold that is big and stubborn and doesn't want to come out of the matting. I turn my hose nozzle on "shower" and it comes out.

Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2011 3:27 pm

gold cube doesnt catch clunkers though. Smile

Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2011 3:57 pm

Picker Pete wrote:

gold cube doesnt catch clunkers though. Smile

You're right.

I screen everything to -12 mesh. It says -8 mesh, but I can see 12+ mesh gold. I then pan out everything 12+ mesh. All the -12 mesh I run the the GC and the tests I have done on the tailings, it's hasn't missed anything yet. (But that is just me doing sample pans from the bottom of the tub. Though I did have about a 1/3 of a bucket that I ran through twice. Second time though, I didn't see any gold.)

But yes, anything bigger than +8 mesh, or in my case +12 mesh, it's not going to catch, because I'm not running it through there.

Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2011 4:00 pm

Ahh im just givin you a hard time, one day we need to put them both to a good scientific test and see which one out scores the other. I would be very curious as to how that test comes out.

Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2011 7:27 pm

Picker Pete wrote:

Ahh im just givin you a hard time, one day we need to put them both to a good scientific test and see which one out scores the other. I would be very curious as to how that test comes out.

I know, so am I. It would be interesting to see. All I can compare it to was the P2 when I had it. The P2 is a good piece of equipment. I just like the Gold Cube better.

I had one guy argue with me that you couldn't call the Gold Cube a "Sluice" since you don't put it in the water. Rolling Eyes

(He acted like he was serious, but you never know.)

There's a guy on the GPAA msg forum that has split his sluice in 1/2 and is running Vortex Matting (Rough Top conveyor belt) against various other materials. (Carpet, ribbed matting....) This think, I have read his posts in a month, the Vortex/Conveyor belt was beating all contenders. (Of course that was against matting.)

A friend of mine gave me a bog of Randy's Expert Panner. Here's what I got after running the bag through my Gold Cube. This is just as it came out of the clean-up tub.

(The yellow dot is a reflection.)

This is some pretty fine gold in my book!

Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 3:31 pm

After doing a quick clean up this morning of Randy's Expert Panner cons. (This after being run through my Gold Cube.)

Photographed in my Falcon Pan.

Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 5:14 pm

Definitely got some fine gold there!

Pun Intended! Very Happy

Dickb

Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 8:05 pm

dickb wrote:

Definitely got some fine gold there!

Pun Intended! Very Happy

Dickb

I was afraid if I sneezed, I'd lose 1/2 of it! Laughing

(It was still a little wet though when I took the pic.)

Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 8:17 pm

Charlotte49er wrote:

dickb wrote:

Definitely got some fine gold there!

Pun Intended! Very Happy

Dickb

I was afraid if I sneezed, I'd lose 1/2 of it! Laughing

(It was still a little wet though when I took the pic.)

Thats too funny I told my wife earlier if I had that in a pan I would sneeze it out for sure.

Joined: 15 Aug 2011 Posts: 8 Location: E. Tennessee

??? I didn't know that Angus Mackirk made the Gold Cube! Hmmm...learn something new every day.

Posted: Thu Oct 06, 2011 8:02 am

pastorals wrote:

??? I didn't know that Angus Mackirk made the Gold Cube! Hmmm...learn something new every day.

Last I checked he doesnt make the gold cube.