ELDORADO Small Stream Gold Prospecting Sluice **Limited Stock**

ELDORADO | Small Stream Sluice

This is the first and the smallest of our all new range of ABS plastic stream sluices made in Australia.

Very light and can be carried in a daypack for hiking into those remote locations for testing the gravels or for getting stuck into shovelling all day.

Great for weight - conscious hikers/day trippers

These are very strong and very light with dimensions of 50 cms long x 28 cms wide and 7 cms deep. It has six riffles and a nugget trap at the bottom or downstream end.  

ABOUT SLUICES:

Sluices are long, narrow "boxes" that water passes through when putting in a creek or stream. Sluicing is a method of separating and recovering gold from the placer gravel by the use of running water. Gold is caught or trapped by riffles. Riffles are purposeful obstructions which slow the movement of gold in the sluice so it can be trapped in miner's moss, carpeting, or rubber matting in the bottom of the sluice, or in the case of plastic, the riffles and small indentations at the base (downstream end)  called the nugget trap.

Nineteenth-century gold miners used wooden sluices that were at least 350cm long, but modern gold prospectors primarily use sluice boxes made of plastic or metal which are typically 50, 70, 90cm or 1.12m long and approx 25 - 30cm -  wide.

The idea is to position a sluice box in a running stream so that the water does the work-- separating the dirt and rocks away from the gold. Since gold is heavy, it will stay in the bottom of the sluice, trapped in the miner's moss/ matting.

A good rule of thumb is to set your sluice at a grade of 25mm per foot (30cm) of the drop. At least start here, and adjust as needed. A steeper grade may result in all but the coarsest gold being carried away by the force of the water.