I discovered that even with a buddy tending the box, to keep the rocks from slowing down and piling up and trying to sink the dredge from the rear of the sluice box, the enormous amounts of heavy black sand in this gold bearing material would 'crawl' so slowly towards the back I'd have to just let the dredge run, sucking nothing but water, to try and keep the matting open, clean. Where I normally ran about 3/4 throttle on my 6.5 HP engine to comfortably keep the rocks tumbling thru and out the back of the sluice box, here with the extra 2 feet I had to run FULL throttle to try and get enough water flow. BUT, in practice on the Ark I discovered the following:ġ). Pics of the Monster 'Long Tom' box I created are here: So, I got a new piece of aluminum sheet, had it bent, got an 8 foot section of Vortex matting, reworked the sluice box again. This would give me just over 7 feet of sluice box. I figured that if a 2 foot extension was good, a new 4 foot extension would be BETTER. Mod 2 was to prep for John's return in late August and we'd dredge for about 10 days together on his claim. So, after John & I running it on his claim 5 & 6 April.and having GREAT success, I decided to do a Mod 2. I run it for 1 hour clean up to keep the matting clean. This gave me 64 inches or 5.3 feet total length. Added 2 feet, nothing but Vortex-type conveyor belt matting with 1 foot of GH UR mat under the flair. Well.totally reconfiguring my Keene ultra mini 4 incher's sluice box has worked out EXCEEDINGLY well. John & I ended up with 8.65 grams, including 1 nice picker, in 8 hours of nozzle time.one cleanup every hour: Works absolutely GREAT separating the flood gold from all the heavy black sand! I made a rock screen full length to keep all the rocks bigger than 1/2 inch tumbling out the back, off the matting. Then extended the box, installed nothing but Vortex-type matting with a 1 foot section of Gold Hog UR mat under the flair. I took out the factory everything.riffles, mats, screens. To better catch the gold here in Kolorado, I have completely modified the sluice box for the fine, fine flood gold we have here on the Arkansas River. Trouble is the sluice box is designed for big gold, is only 40 inches long and single stage.

Now have a Keene 4 inch Ultra Mini dredge with air.smaller, easier for 1 man to operate, move.

Sold it when I moved from Georgia to Colorado. I used to own the standard, big Keene 4 inch dredge with 4 pontoons and big 48 inch triple stage sluice box.

Ultra budget dredge