Older Sluice Boxes

Many of the sluice boxes in the past are much longer than today and very often would employ more than one type of riffles in the same box. The idea was that if a particular type of riffle could not trap the gold, the other would. Civilization followed the gold rush and with it came more types of tools and provisions. So recovering systems were improved in time, paying special attention to trapping a considerable amount of fine gold particles, which was more difficult to recover.

The rail riffles were used so much in long as crossed in the sluice boxes. They were also used so much in its normal position as downwards to better the effect. Rail riffles are still used in the heavier equipment for surface bench operations in the Yukon territory. Block riffles were popular among many of the early miners as a good recovery system and they are also still used in the field with home-made sluice boxes.

Another version of the block riffles was the zigzag riffles. These riffles would extend approximately, a half and two thirds respectively, across the box (depending on the user), which caused water and materials to flow round the riffles instead of over them. Many early miners agreed in that zigzag riffles were one of the best systems ever developed for recovering fine gold.

At present, there are three main types of riffles being used, all of which work very well when located properly within the sluice box. The firs type and probably the most used of them three is called Hungarian riffle.

Hungarian riffles (sometimes called the “lazy riffles”) are generally made of steel. They are designed to recover large volumes of gold from the material washed on the riffles. For this reason Hungarians are found most of the times in sluice boxes in dredging areas. Hungarian riffles do more than just trapping gold, they concentrate the heavier materials passed over them. The configuration of a riffle is designed to cause a “black eddy” just behind the upper border of the riffle. The back eddy hat is just behind the riffle sucks materials into it and causes it to vibrate and a continuous distribution action, keeping the heavier materials, and leaving the lighter materials to be dragged out while the new material is suck inside. Light materials are then washed downwards and out of the box by the main stream of water. It is this concentrated action of fluids that makes Hungarian riffle be recovered so well. The second type of riffle, which is shown nowadays in the large dredges and sluice boxes is the one called “right-angle riffle.”