Glad you could join me,  how did you do at panning?  Panning is the very basics of gold prospecting.  Even with equipment costing thousands of dollars, it will all come back to how well you can use a pan.  Practice makes perfect!  All the equipment you purchase after the pan helps you get more concentrates.  But at some point it will come back to how well you will be able to pan, I can not stress this enough!

Ahhhh the ole sluice box, ready to move up a notch??

The sluice box has been around for many, many years in one form or another.  The Chinese were the first to put riffles in a gold pan.  Some one looked at it and thought, "I can do better!"  And the sluice box was born.  The modern sluice boxes are made of an aluminum trough with a flared mouth to force water through the trough, a set of metal riffles and some type of "miners carpet".

In the same amount of time that you can pan a 5 gallon bucket of material with a pan, you can send a dozen or more through a sluice box.  It doesn't take a genius to see the difference in the raw material that can be processed.

To use a sluice box you will need:

1.   A sluice box with a set of riffles and carpet, a stream that can meet the water flow requirements needed to run this piece of equipment.

2.   2, 5 gallon buckets to place the raw material to be classified and one to hold the concentrates, once it has been through the sluice.

3.  A good shovel with a long handle, (a pick/mattock?  To loosen heavy material)

4.    Classifier with a pan, a container for the black sand and a small jar/vial for the gold.

Now you are set to go after some gold!

If you followed the previous page for sampling you should know if the stream is going to "pan out" if you got some black sand chances are that there is gold in the stream.

Where you find gold, you will find black sand.  However, where you find black sand, you will not necessarily find gold...

Place the sluice box with the flared end up stream, the flow of water should be 1 1/2 to 3" deep in the trough.  Use the shovel to gather a 1/2 gallon of material place in the flare, if it shoots down the trough very fast you will need to adjust the flow of the water so it is slower. 
If it is pulled through the trough at a moderate pace it is about right.  Place your hand in the stream about half way down the trough.  Measure the pull of the water.  If it moves the material too fast you can loose the gold off the back of the sluice.  However, if it moves too slow, the sluice will become clogged. 
You must balance the two.  This can be done by, slowing the water down/speeding it up with more volume. Or changing the drop of the sluice higher or lower.  Or a combination of the two.  Too much drop will allow you to loose gold as well.  It will take a little practice.  Once it is right you will pretty much know when you have the right combination.

Once you get it right, use one of your buckets to place the raw material in.  Place the classifier over the bucket shovel the material on to the classifier,  If you fill the bucket with water it drops better as you shake it. As always check your classifier before you throw the rocks off.

Send the material over the sluice gradually, too quickly can choke it, and you will loose gold.

Once you have sent 2-3 buckets over the sluice it is time to clean up.  Lift the sluice gradually out of the water, so the concentrates will not wash off.
Place the back end of the sluice into the empty bucket deeply, use the gold pan to get water, rinse the concentrates into the bucket.  Once the carpet is fairly clean, dismantle the sluice.  Rinse each piece off into the bucket.  When you get to the carpet rinse it well in the bucket filled with water, this is where a lot of the fine gold will be trapped.  Finally rinse the trough out into the bucket.
Reassemble the sluice you are ready for round two!! 

When you Finish at the end of the day, you can carry your concentrates home to work off with your pan, use a "catch pan" to pan in to, so you won't loose anything.