Gold Highbanker Tips page.

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Always do a DRY RUN before heading to the field. ALWAYS…
We’re NOT talking about starting / running your pump dry, we’re talking about setting everything up, hooking it up, just like you’re at the creek. You NEVER know what is not going to work.  Maybe a thread is wrong… maybe you have a female vs. a male connector. Who knows….  You will once you do this.

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Bring along some duct tape or Gorilla tape. It can be used for patching hoses but also used if your SLIP joints on the plumbing keep coming undone.  They are left unglued for cleaning and replacement if needed. But they can pop off and you’ll get a shower.

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Get an angle indicator app for your phone.  Then set your upper box at 9 – 11 degrees and your lower box at 6 degrees.  That’s a good “starting point”. These pitches will vary with each operator based on water flow and material being run.  Read this article (twice)  Tuning Your Sluice it will REALLY help you.   Make sure that you see a little bit of black sand in all the mats.  If they are totally clean, tone the pitch down some.

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GPH… if you’re using a 2″ semi-trash pump you’ll find that most work well around 25% throttle.  That will give you roughly 5000 – 6000 gph.  If the water is too strong off the header box, decrease the pump speed slightly until roughly 95% of the water makes it through the grating and into the sluice.

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Header box pitch.  Again this will vary greatly with each user and the gph they are running.  You’ll want to make sure rocks are moving freely over the grizzly bars.  Yes, once in a while you’ll get a hang up, but for the most part rocks should flow nicely.  Watch the grizzly bar treatment video.

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Run times?  We have commercial ops that run 12 hours shifts running our bare mats.  Most miners and prospectors like to do a clean out when they shut down to refuel.  It only takes minutes and shows you some results as well.  MAKE SURE you see the Cleaning Your Mats Video