Gravity Dredging.wmv
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- Опубліковано 29 лип 2010
- This is a simple way to prospect for gold in a creek. The two main things that you will need are a 4 inch solid Big-O pipe and a creek that has some drop, about a foot for every eight to fifteen feet of run would be best. The length of pipe is not important, but should be between 15 feet and 100 feet and it should not have any holes in it because air stops it from working. This method of prospecting uses the same basic principle as your dad used when he syphoned gas from his neighbours car when he was a teenager, it works on gravity. I've used this method for about 3 years now and have done well catching gold ranging up to about half a gram in size. In the video I am shown banging the pipe with my hand to shake the gold and gravels down to the bucket, but a stick works best for jarring the gold loose from the pipe insides.
In general the pipe should have rounded ridges instead of overly square ones, each manufacturer has their own style and you just have to look around for the rounded ridge styled 4 inch non perferated Big-O piping that fits this discription in order to have your best success. The main points of making this gold dredging system workable are as follows: The pipe can have no holes or breaks in it anywhere, a suction hose really does not operate with air leaks entering it.
The best way to start this suction dredge is to duct tape a 4'' end cap to the output end of the pipe, which by the way is layed out down below the input as you can imagine is the only way gravity will work in your favour. Then tape a fist sized rock to the input end of the pipe and place it in the creek or puddle that you hope to dredge, this will stop the input end from floating. To start the system you could do a few different things to fill the pipe with water such as pouring water into the pipe or lowering the pipe into the pond/creek and lifting it up over and over again until the pipe appears to be mostly full. At which point, go down to the output end of the pipe and remove the end cap thus starting the pipe water flow. I should note at this point that you should create an air trap in the last foot of pipe by kinking the pipe so that it has a small dip of 6 inches in it, this will prevent air from entering the suction pipe from the output. Trust me, this step is mandatory! Also if you have good suction you will notice that the input end will create a vortex and thus will try to suck in air from there as well, to solve this simply keep the input at least a foot below the surface of the water surface. And as if you need more instruction . . . watch the output carefully once you've started the pipe flow to see if air is gradually being pulled from the pipe, this is normal and you should wait until all the air has escaped from the pipe in order to get your best stable flow rate.
In general, never lift your suction end out of the water, I know that seems obvious but honestly, we all accidently do it and it will stop your pipe from working properly. Finally, it is also recommended that you extract pay gravels at a modest rate, which all depends on how much head (drop) you have on your system. If you pull too much gravel too quickly you will create blockages in your pipe in the forms of gravel and sand bars, you could also create a large enough pile of waste gravel at the end of your pipe that it too will stop your pipe because it blocks the exit.
Again, the system is really simple it really only uses a 4 inch non perferated Big-O pipe, and a 4 inch end cap and some duct tape for the above mentioned applications. I use about 20 feet of pipe in most cases and usually never more than 50 feet unless I'm shooting a video like this. It's really a cheap idea, less than $25 in most cases but it has it's down sides, like always avoiding air intake. The art of the whole thing is to also be able to judge an exceptible location for the lay of your pipe that allows for enough drop to create a good flow of pay gravels but not so much that ALL of the gravels are washed straight through, and out of the end of your pipe. You should end up with a 5 gallon bucket full of material at the end which will work down to a couple gold pans worth of black sands and gold content if done right. Ohh and also, tha green thing in the intake of the hose is a 4 inch coupler, it's main purpose was to not allow any rock over 3 1/2 inches to enter the pipe and thus prevent blockages. I also use rope occasionally to tie the pipe to the creek just because it will gradually wiggle downstream, but a pile of rocks around the pipe can do the same thing. Whewww, lots of words ehh? - Навчання та стиль
That's awesome. I have one suggestion. I would buy ten couplers to join the hose together on the outside of the hose every 10 feet so you can break down the 100 foot of hose so it is very easy to clean the black sands and gold out with a garden hose at home. Great video. Thanks Brad
I was thinking the same thing and now that I know for a fact. Hands down brilliant. Thank you for testing that for me.
With 2 guys it's easy, you just put the upper end in the creek while the other fellow holds the lower end up as high as he can, then when the pipe is overflowing the fellow on the lower end drops the pipe quickly into the creek and you're good to go.
10 stars man, you just saved me a bunch of money! I mean, it's no pump-driven dredge, but it's 100% adequate for my needs. Awesome, many thanks!
WARNING: This is an effective gravity dredge. However be careful, because when removing material from next to or beneath a boulder, be aware that you are removing the boulder's support foundation and it could without warning move or dislodge and pin or crush you. If you desire to remove enough material that may cause the boulder to shift, attach the dredge hose to a long pole so that you are far clear of any possible shifting of the boulder. Now get that gold!
Clean out must be difficult. Perhaps smooth hose with a sluice box.
Homemade dredging, well Done. That technique in an area where gold is I’m sure will work just fine
Very smart way to find gold. Thanks for sharing it with us.
Nice idea, I hope to find a spot to try it out.
One thought I have is that you didn't have a washout, the gold is still in the pipe because it's very hard to get it all out.
The next time you run it you might get some of the current product in your clean-out.
You may have to have the pipe full of water by shaking it very near the water surface and use the water to splash around and knock some more of that stuff down.
That's a good idea, I had at one point used 2 Keen 10 inch wide A52 sluices duct taped side by side in order to deal with the flow rate on the output and still the pipe had more gold in it than the sluice, but it would vary based on gold type and flow rate. With that setup It probably would be best to place something like a quarter inch punch plate along the length of the sluices in order to seperate the large rocks from the fines.
That is the whole idea behind this system. The ridges are the gold traps. Also it's best to use a 4 inch nonperferated pipe with rounded ridges instead of squarish ones, you would have to shop around to find this slight variation but it seems to work better.
Well done! Very interesting, too!
Good job looks like that system works really good
Great video once again my friend. Hope to go up there with you soon. Perhaps next week.
Great idea mate, would be even better if the pipe was smooth and a sluice was set up at the end.
Listen to and watch this prospector as he is one of the BEST in British Columbia.
Good job.!!
I hope you were not trying to send all that material all the way through 100 ft of pipe. Any gold should have been trapped within the first foot or so of hose that was not being moved around. Just put the leading end in your bucket and rinse it out the opposite direction.
nice method and vid! you really seem to be getting a decent amount of suction from that, i was surprised.
Wow thats a really good idea
ingenious idea
I had good results with a 3" smooth bore dredging hose 20' long.and a good waterfall acts as a good suction boost, add a reducer smaller top 1.5"nozzle and you are in sucking heavin. and at the bottom of the 3"er, feeds a portable sluicebox. I didn't have to beat the tube/pipe/hose either. but, that hose you are using, makes for a great portable box instead of a riffled box. less gear 4sure. at the end there looks like you are wrestling a big ole creek snake!
This is something i need to try
could i use a large waterfall to get the suction i need?
you should have put a sluce box at the end to catch any gold. just filling the bucket with turbulent water would have just washed it down stream. still very good
you can use any pipe but bigger moveses more material more efficiently and is actually easier to get a good continuous flow. i would use a smooth type hose with a sluicebox at the end
As a civil eng with some sediment transport experience... I would also recommend a smooth pipe and a sluice box at the end. Use the water just to wash the material rather than transport it. Since gold is heavy, you will not likely find it in abundance just before a steep flowing river. So go to a low lying area (also with signs of glacial activity/depositing) and possibly a natural basin formed with bedrock.. then hand scoop the material into the sluice box (flow clean water with no material)
Hahaha hahaha
What if you had a shorter piece of pipe and less fall but had a traffic cone or some kind of flare on the downstream end on the pipe? would the extra drag of say a 4" hose expanded to 10" cause suction aswell?
do they make a smooth wall pipe like this?
very nice idea i will have to try that do you have to have a current in the creek for it do work or will it work in calm water? let me know! thank you
You wanna use a smooth flexible 4 inch hose and run a sluice box at the end,I was running a setup like it up on a River in ca, and we were sucking up all kinds for nuggets,,,can’t wait to go try it again,,,looking for the right prices on the stuff as I typ,,,lol Killer video
do you think it has the amount of suction power CLOSE to a regular four inch dredge?
So I know you forgot to video but how did you fill pipe with water? Getting the suction started was my challenge.
man that is neat!
Good idea.
@9DragonMaster I think the fire hose is to soft and would lie flat? But give it a try and see what happens? Plus the ripples is what you want with this thing.
been looking for this hose i cant seem to find it. i am in California.
Maybe if you start with a shorter length of tube, so there’s not such a long path for your material to pass through to empty into a 5 gallon bucket that is fitted with a hole in the bucket lid and weighted by rocks.
* Turn the lidded bucket on its’ side and angle it so the material slides towards the bottom of the bucket.
* Tie a flotation ballon to the bucket handle for identifying bucket location.
It would be a surprise to see how much material\ gold that would be deposited in the bucket after a storm. Remove bucket and dip material from bucket to sluice to see how much gold is accumulated.
Check after storm passes
So did you ever get back to try this again with a sluice box?
nice concept! think about attachin a sluice box to the bottom end? good video! cudo's
of course it's a smart idea to tape a rock onto the input end of the pipe before you even start this gravity suction dredge but also it is hard to start it with only one person. Read the informational below the video for more information. It's all fun.
No you did great..... I remember watching this years ago , my biggest concern is clean pipe out
Hi.
I like the idea of no noise dredge, No heavy engine/pump to move around and no fuel to pay for. I wonder if there is a 4" smooth pipe out there, so that cleaning the pipe at the end would be easier?
aspudkicker -I am watching the gravity dredge video, and have a suggestion for cleaning out your dredge tube.
I use this same process for UN-stopping and cleaning out my Gold-n-sand tube; flush water through the tube which will empty out into a tub. This works great for shorter lengths of tubing.
You can also use a deep water-filled tub and submerge an open end and pull it through swishing the water as you work the dislodged dirt from the ridges, and let this drain into a second tub - then process the dirt after the tubing is cleaned out.
I have never used 100ft. lengths of tubing as shown in the video, but it works well with shorter lengths.
Thank you for your thoughts.
@rycopath This is true. Those are both downsides to this technic, though overfeeding the nozzel shouldn't happen after enough experience has been acquired. Feeding the whole works into a sluice box is probably a good way to go if you want to get everything but originally I had designed the concept without using one. Also, I have since decided that round corrigations are best in these pipes, not overly square ones.
I had good results with a 3" smooth bore dredging hose 20' long.and a good waterfall acts as a good suction boost, add a reducer smaller top 1.5"nozzle and you are in sucking heavin. and at the bottom of the 3"er, feeds a portable sluicebox. I didn't have to beat the tube/pipe/hose either. but, that hose you are using, makes for a great portable box instead of a riffled box. less gear 4sure.
Up here in AK we call them slurpies. If you use a 6" hose with a 4" pc of pvc pinned inside so that the water can cause a greater vaccum you'll process 10X as much material per hr. Give it try and happy dredging
wonder if this would be legal in California?
Have you since had success with this? I'm considering trying this
he is smart man , he don't show as how he fill the pipe with water
that the hard part
the pipe must be long enough to get to the near low spot
i didn't think that would work but that's amazing! have you gotten very much gold with it? and also how long does the hose have to be? or thick? or does it not matter as long as there is drop?
put a guide stick on the tube so you don't have to reach down under boulders.
Looks like it has plenty of suction, is that 100 feet of hose?
That's pretty freakin cool. Talk about low teck! Great job. Who needs expensive gadgets to find gold. Isn't science cool.
I like your thinking ,but please be careful dredging under boulders that they don`t become undermined and move .
I saw a 🐟 get suck up not legal in wa. add a grate mite help getting it approved .fish eggs etc. Looks great 👌
@Badgerslayer777 I'm not familiar with Cal. laws but the fact that a fish can swim through this pipe should be a plus.
Great Idea, But isn't it illegal to dredge in B.C. in all creeks? or is it allowed due to being non motorised - I'm dying to try this too if it's okay.
gmakwa1
It is illegal to use anything more than pan and shovel, unless you have a mineral claim. You could then get permits for dredge or other work.
I didn't know this was in BC, maybe I'll run into you in the field :)
Actually that vid was f***in interesting and sowed a few good ideas into a fertile mind.
@mnbvczxc Did you find any gold?
@jaglasos Well said.
a 2" pipe lacks the material flow because of it's size, but yes it would work too.
Yea.. using ridges hose is a nightmare to clean. Short of slicing it open.. you'll never get the gold all out.
You need to find inner surface smooth hose.. but still has the ribbed or spiral wire supported integrity needs for vacuum applied hoses.. (keeps it from sucking/collapsing under vacuum pressure). for this application anyhow.
Dredges using venturi jet method, pump "pushing" water through the hose, doesn't need the support..
it's a good idia , bat i think it will work with 2" pipe
@ 2:02 who is the man watching you on the top rt 1/3 down amongst the rocks and the enormous one blacked-out above the log
Fish and game,they was a fish trapped in with the rocks use a grate . we can not use them in wa
Physics says yes.
would this be legal in califorrnai and isnt the hand held dredge legal so i would think this is. now your going to see a product on a mining site and theyll figure out a way to make you pay atleast three times what that plastice tubing is worth.just jokin.
Hello, how many meters is your hose ?
100 feet or 30 Meters. 100mm diameter. It must be Solid, no holes for irrigation. And really, don't try to tape 2 together for extra length, it never works. If you suck up too much material too fast it will plug up, well thats if your flow is too slow, so as to not clear the material going in fast enough. It really was an art.
Спасибо большое, я с Казахстана. Здоровья вам.
and you can build your own sluice box with this pipe
5:33 looks like you uncovered a bunch of gold to the rt
I actually prefer the more rounded riffled Big-O pipes, but this video is a good starter. Google "Gravity dredging for placer gold" and find the article from Oocities, it's fairly detailed compared to this video.
yeah, I think suction power is lost as you dredge deeper. If it is legal in your area, why not add a power jet from a gas powered dredge, any water/trash pump rated 100 GPM or more should give this setup gobs of suction power all the way to bedrock everytime.
OK 6 years ago what have you learned?
Yeah, it's the same technic that is used to syphon gas from a car when you're short on cash.
@3:40 man with head sticking up 1/4 over x 1/4 up lft side
Ploop hahaha
I bet your gold got stuck in the pipe
So.... You didn't get gold..
Pffft 20 ton jack, just stick a 2x4 in there LOL
cost saver for sure
Dude...you don't need to run the gravels THRU the pipe...set it up same as any dredge....use the pipe water pressure to blow the gravels thru a short pipe...do you know what a Y is....? Make a power jet/nozzle...jesus sakes.
I was thinking the same thing. Though I still haven't seen anyone do a gravity dredge like that yet. I guess one of us will be the first.
if you could explain what that means exactly I would greatly appreciate it.
I've seen a set up like this in action. The guy used a 6" main pipe and a 4" hose of of a Y. He doubled his suction and that thing was a gold magnet!!
Last time I talked to him he was trying to add a flusher hose/nozzle to the set up because he had run into a bedrock with some serious fractures in it.
Hmmm, what is this flusher nozzle you speak of? I find this interesting and may try it. I was thinking of running he tailings through a sluice box though rather than trusting the ribs to catch the gold. If I do, I would probably just use a smooth hose rather than ribbed. Cool concept, non-the-less.
It's like the pressure nozzle on your garden hose but it has a shutoff valve on it. On a gravity dredge it comes off of a Y. It is used to break up compacted gravels or to flush out a crack.
lol