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Triple
sluice troubleshooting:
Now
what modifications did we do? 1.
At the front of the side sluices in the area you call a slick plate, we
put ribbed doormat carpet in this area, these are held in place by
Velcro. A strip glued to the aluminum and the corresponding strip glued
to the carpet. The carpet runs from the baffle to the first riffle. A
rubber damper is mounted over this area from the rear of the baffle to
the first riffle. These mats are called spotter mats. Dredge for half an
hour or so, slow the water down, lift the rubber flaps and you will be
able to tell straight away if you are on gold. It will be quite visible
on the spotter mats. We use a blue mat. Believe it or not, these mats
will retain 95% plus of the gold that goes down the side sluices. And if
you want to clean them off its simple, rip them out, a quick flick in
the bucket and you have the gold. And they do catch fines, do they what.
Experiment with the baffle to get the right angle. That baffle is the
key and that is why these front mats work so well. Oh yea, we also have
a rubber baffle on the middle sluice. 2.
We ripped the side riffles out and put expanded metal in their place,
this cuts the concentrate down. And catches any fine gold that gets over
the front mats. Very little I might add. 3.
To improve floatation in fast water, we put a truck inner tube up under
the front of the dredge. This makes it more stable and lifts the front
of the dredge and stops porpoising. By inflating or deflating the tube,
you can adjust the angle of the dredge; but we found it worked well at
any angle. 4.
Although I never got around to it, the recommended process for the
grizzly under the header box is: Chuck the drilled screen away and
replace with a wire wove screen, that way all fines will drop through
and be treated in the side sluices. Plus wire wove does not block up
like the drilled holes. 5.
Nothing worse than frigging around with nuts. On the foot valve get one
of those industrial clamps that have a nut. Have the nut braised into a
piece of box section galvanized steel, braise a handle to it. You then
have a T, no more spanners. Do the same with the attachment power jet to
header box. 6.
Where the suction hose goes into the quick coupling on the power jet, we
attach two lengths of nylon rope (Quarter inch) to the suction hose and
then tie these to the dredge frame. This stops fast water pulling the
section hose out. Plus it acts as a back up if you haven’t got the
dredge anchored off and the suction hose pulls out. Sometimes when you
are on gold, you forget to pull the dredge forward and then wonder why
you have lost suction. 7.
We always run ours with the plug up hole open. That way the surface man
knows straight away when the diver has a plug up. The water stops
squirting out. So Diver Dan can just lie there and wait for his surface
man to clear the blockage. There is nothing worse than to have to fight
your way to the surface in fast water with two weight belts on, and
signal a blockage. If the wind is blowing the water back over the motor,
we drape a wet towel over the header box and over the hole. You can
still tell when a blockage occurs. It is a similar effect to a common
occurrence that males often experience when only wearing a towel or a
pair of swimming trunks. 8.
We use a grip lock pulley on the front anchor, easy to pull the dredge
forward and saves heaps of time. As a back up the spare rope is tied to
the dredge frame. 9.
To stop motor boating in calm water and the need for a rear anchor. 10.
That’s all I can think of for now. You
may or may not have some of these modifications. If not I hope all this
stuff helps you as it helped us. I
might add these modifications were all done years ago when the first
5" Triple came out. So they were thought out and not acquired. It
was all new ground then. Heck there weren’t even computers around
then, well not many anyway. So no gold forums. Cheers Trev Trevor
Alty is a well known |