DESERDOG'S
ORIGINAL GOLD SUCKER HAND DREDGE

   When I go out gold prospecting, be it panning or sluicing, my basic stategy is to move as much material as possible while I am at the creek.

   The first thing I will do when I arrive at the crrek is to sample to find a spot that holds enough gold to justify moving larger amounts. When I find the spot, then I set up my sluices, or just start panning.

  If I am panning, I use a la trap pan as it is much faster and easier to use than any round pan that I have ever used.

   If I am sluicing, I will either use a la trap sluice, or a conventional sluice.

   If the material to be processed is above the water line, I just use a shovel. If the material is below the water line, I use either my 2 inch super gold sucker or my 3 inch super gold sucker. Either of these work much better than trying to use a shovel underwater. If you are using a shovel underwater, you lose a lot of your heavies when you lift the shovel out of the water.

   When I am using my la trap pan, I will work it down to black sand and then just dump it in a bucket until I am ready to do a clean-up before I take off. If I am sluicing, I try to run at least a 100 shovels or 100 suction strokes from my 2 inch super gold sucker or 3 inch super gold sucker. Most gold prospectors clean-up way too often.

   When I am cleaning up, I will first use my la trap pan to et rid of most of the blond sand. Then I will use a magnet in a pipe to get rid of the magnetic black sand. I stir the magnet in the water above the black sand, making the black sand jump up to the magnet. And I save the black san collected by the magent as a small amount of gold always gets trapped.

   Then I will further pan the remaining black sand, usually in a round pan. And I will suck up the larger gold with a snuffer bottle.  I don't try to get all the fine gold, I pour the remaining black sand in a bucket and work it at home.

TESTING NOZZLES TO SEE THE AMOUNT OF MATERIAL EACH SIZE CAN SUCTION UP.

Today, 02-08-2010,  I went out to Cajon Creek to test the amount of material different sized nozzles could suction up. I loosened up the material first with my 5 foot iron digging bar. I took for the test my 2 inch super gold sucker and adaptor and 3 nozzles, and my 3  inch super gold sucker. I suctioned up the loosened material, and then emptied it into my 14 inch blue proline gold pan, and then took a picture of the material collected. I also had a 3.5 gallon bucket and my 5 foot iron digging bar.

1/2 INCH NOZZLE

I first tried the 1/2 inch nozzle. Each stroke I could only suck up a small amount of material. Also I noticed htat it is much easier to get a plug up, and it is much harder to draw the handle when you use the 1/2 inch nozzle. Here is the amount of material suctioned up in one stroke with the 1/2 inch nozzle.

3/4 INCH NOZZLE

When using the 3/4 inch nozzle, you still can't suction up a lot of material and you get plugs pretty easy still. It is a little easier to draw the handle when using the 3/4 inch nozzle as compared to the 1/2 inch nozzle. Here is the amount of material suctioned up in one stroke with the 3/4 inch nozzle.

1 INCH NOZZLE

With the 1 inch nozzle, you can suction up more material than either the 1/2 inch or the 3/4 inch nozzle. And it is easier to draw the handle. Here is the amount of material suctioned up in one stroke with the 1 inch nozzle.

2 INCH NOZZLE

You can suction up a lot of material with the 2 inch nozzle! And the draw is much easier than than when using any of the smaller nozzles. Here is the amount of material suctioned up in one stroke with the 2 inch nozzle.

3 INCH NOZZLE

You can suction up lots and lots of material with the 3 inch nozzle! And the draw on the handle is very easy! Here is the amount of material suctioned up in one stroke with the 3 inch nozzle.

RESULT OF 10 SUCTION STROKES USING THE 3 INCH SUPER SUCKER

This is the result of 10 suction strokes using the 3 inch super gold sucker. I placed my 1/2 inch classifier on top of the bucket. Loosening up the material, pulling out the bigger rocks and sucking up the material took about 7 minutes.

The rocks and gravel you see in front of the bucket and 3 inch super gold sucker came out of the hole I was working on.

CONCLUSSIONS

The results of the test show that larger nozzles suction up much more material.  And it also shows that reducing the size of your nozzle just makes you work harder to suck up smaller amounts of material. Much larger amounts of material can be moved with less effort with a larger nozzle.

If you use a set up test, using just small gravel and sand in an aquarium, larger amounts of material can be moved with a smaller nozzle. But in the field, you just cannot move much material with a small nozzle. Regular motorized dredges are rated by their manufacturers by the amount of small gravel they can move, but they never come close to that in the field. If you were to use a 3 inch super sucker in an aquarium test, you would soon see what a difference there would be in a set up test and an actual field test will . I invite any gold prospector to come on out to who wants to to come on out to Cajon Creek, and do the test themselves. Or if someone would like to shoot a video of the test to come on out.