Sluice Box Design

Sluice boxes have been designed in just about every configuration which can be conceived. They have been constructed from hollow logs of wood; from boulders which were piled in stream beds; from wood, tin, plastic, you name it. They all have the same design motivation: catch the gold as easily and as speedily as you possibly can. The use of plastic does not cause the gold to be caught more quickly; it only reduces the weight of the sluice, with the ease of transpiration the prime objective.
On the other hand, the riffle design has remained standard for more than two thousand years, even though, on the whole, the slant of the riffle had not been paid too much attention to. Some miners noticed this and dedicated themselves to experimenting with different degrees of slant of the riffles. It has been discovered that a solid perpendicular wall of a true 90 -degree slant stops the weighty solid objects in a much more efficient way than a wall which is slanted at only 85 - 89 degrees, for this reason was the Gravity Trap gold pan patented.
When the riffles are reversed, the same idea holds true. The upward slant of the water when it is directed over the reversed riffle creates a vacuum or centrifugal effect on the side which is on the downstream. The plastic riffles which are of a true, sharp 90-degree slope produce the same effect as with the patented "Gravity Trap" gold pan. The fine gold traps which are on the downstream side of the sluice that do not have the benefit of porous matting. Such matting in point of fact is of no other purpose other than to seal the wood or tin riffle to the bottom of the sluice box; as a consequence this prevents any underflow of current from dislodging the gold which is trapped there. For a long time it has been rightfully argued that the gunny bag or the carpet matting in the box catches a certain quantity of fine gold. Nonetheless, at the time of considering the minute quantity of the gold which has the possibility of being caught, in opposition to the weight which the matting adds when back-packing the dredge and the more extensive clean-up time which is required, one can make a good case for the use of plastic sluice boxes. There is no question but that they have turn out to be the most popular and productive categories of dredges for the weekend miner and prospector.