A VERY Successful Highbanker Recovery Test on Fine Gold.

Take a deep breath and enjoy the first two minutes as we wake up on the rivers edge... then we dive straight into a full recovery test of 3/4" expanded metal over miners moss at a 1" per foot slope. The sluice tapers out from 16" wide to 24" wide using a double level setup. I ran the box at about 40GPM to hit a target of 20GPM per foot of sluice width at the widest point. Scour out retention was phenomenal running empty for 5 minutes, and my shovel to shovel test showed great results in a location where every shovel was adding another 300+ colors of gold to the box. This test was performed after 1.5 hours of two guys digging into the box, and the matting was full of black sand a long time ago. I am very please with how miners moss works, especially in this entire highbanker system. The hopper and "goldfinger" collect about 50% of the gold leaving only 50% that actually makes it to the main sluice run. Material is fed evenly thanks to heavies being retained in the hopper moss, and the screened material is very fine for optimal recovery. The entire sluice is only 36" long, which really shows just how well this system works on my local type of fine and flat gold. I'm sure areas like cape disappointment or Nome beach may have more black sand, and thus require a slower feed rate, but I assume the gold is just as fine. I hope you enjoyed this odd mix of a peaceful morning and a full and unedited recovery test. It is my goal to show you things as I see them in the hopes of helping others with their recovery and design. I'm not suggesting miners moss is the only way to go, I'm just sharing my use case for those who would like to try for similar results. Thanks for watching!
Thanks for watching!
My Patreon: / utmostoutdoors
My Website: www.utmostoutdoors.com/

[@timberlinegoldprospecting2358]

I have been following for a while now, and each time I see your high banker in action, I am more impressed than before. With the size of gold you have to work with makes it even more impressive. Thank you for your great content!

[@UtmostOutdoors]

I appreciate that! Glad you're enjoying the videos!

[@shanewilliams7742]

I love the proof of work technical break downs you do during the execution.. Not many do this, a carful component for getting your desired level of success! Looking forward to the next episode 👏

[@inquisitivealbertan1712]

Another great video, Kyle and Chris. Very nice results on your field testing the scour action. Thank you both for sharing.

[@FlourgoldWizards]

Serenity of it all …. Exactly ✅✌️

[@bartbley1269]

Kyle I can send you a picture of the Saskatchewan river gold in concentrate magnified 70 times to show your viewers the shapes of the gold verses the blonds and blacks. The specific gravity and the rounded shapes of the blonds and blacks lend themselves to move further down the box . also that shape exposes more surface area to the hydraulic pressure of the water as apposed to the flat laying heavier gold . Again Kyle you have proven you have a monster machine for getting very hard to get GOLD. I have seen none bettter

[@UtmostOutdoors]

Thanks Bart!

[@sportsbettorKD]

Echoing the room, LETS F’GOOOO!! Hahah, peace love and happiness, and lots of GOLD!! 😂🤙

[@Greenandgold888]

Good job! Stoked for you. Looks beautiful!

[@UtmostOutdoors]

Thanks so much!

[@RustedPioneering]

Your an inspiration brother! Certainly have a keen eye and true nature lover! Chewy is his name.!

[@UtmostOutdoors]

I've never met a beaver that wasn't named chewy! 😀

[@markstahl1638]

Beautiful area you are in. Always nice to see what you are seeing. Good job as always with the recovery.

[@UtmostOutdoors]

Thanks 👍

[@s.d.iprospecting4359]

Id take that recovery rate all day long,great video Kyle. The Popnson Sluice is a tried and true recovery system and it has multiple applications.

[@UtmostOutdoors]

Thanks! Yeah, the whole highbanker is just about repackaging an existing proven system with a few small tweaks. Loving the recovery results so far... especially considering its size and weight!

[@TheJohnEdmonton]

Great video Kyle! All that discussion with video and so much data on various aspects of the highbanker, water flow, time, angle etc. says a lot about your design and gives good reliability on your final results. Should you ever want to mass produce a highbanker similar to this, all that data would give a lot of reliability of it's function.

[@UtmostOutdoors]

Thanks John!

[@jamesolson4420]

Great video bud

[@UtmostOutdoors]

Thanks 👍

[@jamesolson4420]

Nice

[@MohammedNovalija]

In your experience , is there a point where an increase in waterflow has no effect either detrimental or assisting ? I am figuring that any further increase would simply increase the depth of current in the sluice , which may help move larger rocks , had they been in the sluice. Do you think it would assist to counter overfeeding or would there be negative consequences Watching "Gold Rush" and stuff , their water is absolutely hammering.

[@UtmostOutdoors]

If you think about it in terms of "sluice energy" rather than flow, then you could run twice the flow in a shallower sluice and get similar recovery rates. That would allow larger rocks to get pushed out, but as a large rock slowly rolls down the sluice, there is a scour zone below it that can pull caught gold back up into the flow. That's one of the problems a dredge sluice has to contend with. Personally, I have not done as much testing as you might think. I've just copied as close as I can what's been shown by the "pop and son" sluice, then re-packaged into this double level design. I like what I'm seeing at these settings, but I could change things up a bit as I experiment.

[@archananagarajan4540]

Where can i find such machine ? I dont want for gold digging purpose but for some other objects. Please provide me the name of the company atleast

[@MohammedNovalija]

Do you think the Gold you are catching has come out from the bank or from way up river ? You seem to have run the exposed gravel bar - did you test pan the gravel that was covered by water ?

[@UtmostOutdoors]

The water level rises and falls a bit each day due to a dam upriver, but the paystreak stops at the low water mark. I think gold is pulled from the bank that's right above the paystreak. The bank has low grade pay spread deep into a gravel seam left by an old run of the river. Today's river just peels that away locally and concentrates it right along the rivers edge. Once that pay is dragged further downstream by a flood, it just mixes in with the rest of the gravel and looses it's concentration. Maybe it's good down deep, but I would have to dig way down to find out.

[@MohammedNovalija]

@@UtmostOutdoors Aha - I have concluded that a similar situation has occurred at the site I am currently working. Too close to the bank and not enough of the bank has been concentrated - Too far away from the bank and the concentration may have been washed downstream , may have been previously worked or may be down deeper. It's a Goldilocks paystreak.

[@MohammedNovalija]

I'm not so sure if the moss actually "works" - I think it is the extruded that does the "work"

[@bartbley1269]

Miners moss works I have a video of a miner that used it exclusively . The combo of the expanded and miners moss makes the retention of gold better because the gold sinks into the moss and stay out of the vortex caused by the expanded

[@UtmostOutdoors]

Yeah, the bare moss works as well. It sort of sorts the active layer deeper down as the energy of flow increases. So only a thin surface layer is actually actively working. About 5/16th of an inch at this flow with the expanded driving some action deeper. If I use thicker moss, the bottom of the moss is not active at this slope and flow and just holds onto lighter material. I think the expanded allows more feed rate than bar moss, but that's just a hunch at this point. I have not tested yet.

[@MohammedNovalija]

@@UtmostOutdoors Simple to test by running one of your tiers with expanded and one without. If there is no dramatic difference in the amount and makeup of the cons from each mat , then some sort of conclusion could be drawn. Is what you mean by "works" the same as "active" ? - That's what I meant.

[@UtmostOutdoors]

That would be a good test. I guess "active" is a better term, as "work" could be misconstrued as catching gold or not.

[@alancadieux2984]

I think we know that gold, PURE gold, isn't considered to be magnetic. However, river run gold is not 24K or 99.999% pure, it is alloyed with small amounts of silver, copper, lead, ect. When it is alloyed it is magnetic...a bit, but is it alloyed in the form of the dust sized particles we recover, or only after melting it down? If it is before, during recovery, could a strong magnet be used to help reduce losses? I havnt tested this out, but I might. I know the inventor of the gold drop uses a bare stainless clean up sluice, he magnetizes it specifically so that he can cover the bottom with black sand, and uses that as his sluice matting, after running it, he demagnetizes the sluice, and separates very fine gold from the black sand that he used to capture it. Gotta go capture some of that stuff, and experiment...

[@UtmostOutdoors]

Gold, silver, copper, and lead are all non magnetic, even when alloyed with each other. Most alloys of stainless steel are also not magnetic, and aluminum is not magnetic either.. But an interesting interaction does occur between these metals and a magnet. Basically because these materials are conductive, when a magnet is moved near them an electrical current is produced and due to electromagnetism you can actually feel the resistance when you move a magnet over a large piece of nonmagnetic metal. I have an aluminum welding surface I use that you can really feel the resistance when you wave a magnet near it. I've heard of people using magnets to try and slow gold particles as they move past. It's an interesting theory, but I think the rough surface formed by captured black sand acting as a riffle surface is probably a more effective use of magnetism. I also think removing black sand from the feed may increase the acceptable feed rate as well, so that's another good place to look for improvements. Definitely cool stuff.

[@alancadieux2984]

@@UtmostOutdoors interesting article: Stanford magnets, does gold magnetize? Quote,"but when gold is alloyed with metals like zinc, copper, nickle, iron, cadmium, aluminum, silver, platinum, and palladium, it may display magnetic properties." Certainly seems a bit odd that gold is not only not magnetic, it actually displays a weak force called (diamagnetism) that causes it to repel a magnet. Silver is also nonmagnetic, but combined act the opposite, this is splitting hairs because even temperature affects how this works. As before, a STRONG magnet 🧲, not a weak one...

[@UtmostOutdoors]

Cool, I'll check it out!