Is This Illegal Gold Mining? 

My latest video copped a copy right for a song that has some seriously complex usage rights. Because of this I have removed it from viewing, re-edited it and now have re released it with updated music. It's probably going to absolutely destroy the views on it. Making this video cost more than it'll make back. If you could drop a comment and a like if you've already seen it. And a share to outside social media goes A LONG WAY. I'd really appreciate it! That will help increase its reach. Trying to salvage my days work here.

Kris what if I tell you that a gravity water line can be made to supply that little unit. You just need for the drop of the water to be higher than the top of the unit. This is used by Moonshiners in the hills to supply running water to the Stil sites and power small water wheels. Natural drop in the Creek or making a small rock dam with a plastic liner to feed water to the top of a pipeline that will then gain water to feed your low banker set up. No Electric, no Petro pumps running just the power of gravity.

Jason, at Flour Gold Wizard, had same problem. He put a hole in the bottom of one bucket (suspended over his sluice) and fill that one from another bucket to deliver a constant, equal water flow. Worked well for him.

That is a most perverse interpretation of law. Typical, they want you to be able to do nothing.

Ridiculous to even consider this in America. Our rights have been trampled on. Check out public lands for the people. Support them. This is the only way to go. They have miners rights and laws figured out!!

GoldRat Highbankers have a twin bilge pump set-up that is foot operated to supply constant flow as long as you pump it. My thought was to get two pump sets and make it into a "stepper machine" There would be no over weight miners for sure.

You can channel the water from a higher elevation point using gutters. Or you could make/use a Hydraulic Ram Pump since its powered only by gravity. Let it run overnight to fill a water tank and use the stored water during the working hours.

It's been years since I wielded a gold pan. As a hobbyist like you, I valued getting out into the woods more than I did finding gold. I love your attitude and your experimental approaches!

It would be interesting to see this modified to use a gravity feed system that you could fill using a hand pump or bucket before sluicing the gravel. This way you could control the flow of water still to try and make use of the spray bar/ a modified spray bar. This could allow you to sluice more gravel with less surging.

I tried this myself and found a LOT of gold in the tailings. I feel like the water flow needs to be consistent to hold the gold in place.

Love how informative and entertaining your channel is. Thanks for all the hard work!

Any small pump can do the work of a big pump if you use it to fill a reservoir uphill. I use a 12v aquarium pump to send water droplets up to a tank with a full size hose outlet. Still electric and not conducive to the field, but you could do the work of an aquarium pump with a handheld bicycle pump. Connect it to a basic aeroponic bivalve that allows water to leak into an air hose and you can use the air pressure to push that water where the pressure is lowest. Once you have some water uphill you can even use its weight to push air out of a second hose into the first one, reducing the amount of work you have to do with the hand pump. This method was originally popularized for aeroponic vertical gardens but the principles work for moving water anywhere. Once it's in a tank it's the same kind of gravity pressure in any water tower.

Use a water hopper to work the spray bar Chris.. (A bucket connecting straight to the pipe). Just fill the hopper with another bucket to continue the flow.

Chris, thanks for the explanation. Since you did such a good job, I just let the whole thing run again without skipping the ads while I went outside for a smoke. Hope that helps and counts as a full view on this new version and a few cents for not skipping the ads. Best I can do for you mate.

I find these little experiments absolutely fascinating, great fun and cool to watch and wonder about what I can do.

I really enjoy you content chris. You are the reason I picked up this hobby. It’s the perfect hobby for relaxation and it clears your mind because it gives you something to focus on. So thank you Chris.

All you would have to do is set up a tiny water tower. So instead of dipping that bucket and dumping it directly into the sluice, what you should do is hook up a 5-liter reservoir directly to the sprayers but narrow in high so it has decent head pressure and keep filling up the bucket that's hooked to the sluice so it keeps a constant stream running through the sprayers

Here in B.C. Canada it's illegal to use sluice boxes in creeks and rivers. That was brought a couple of years ago. High bankers are not allowed to discharge back into any body of water. Panning is still o.k. You may want to consider yourself fortunate...... for now.

if you take a garden watering can next time the holes might be perfect to wash the dirt better, been enjoying the experimenting and exploring other ways to find gold a lot great videos

Great video. I have been thinking about this problem for some time. Your video answered some things and raised more questions. Thanks for doing the experiment.

We love your content! I especially liked reading through some of the suggestions on this one. 😊

Hey mate, great idea. Could be improvised/improved by using a waterfall/trickle set up. Using a valved spout in bottom of a larger bucket to give you a steady flow of water into your washer section. Idea being fill the bucket with water and should allow a few scoops through before having to top up the water in your bucket/tank. Just a thought. Awsome video as always amigo 👍🏻

Rig up a big bucket with a valve on it to constantly flow water into the box. You can alternate between refilling the bucket and feeding the material. Plus I'm pretty sure the constant Even flow would increase recovery. Thanks again! Hippie Steve from the motherlode in California.

On a river system you can use pip put under the current further upstream and have a reducer to create a higher pressure, the longer the pipe the higher the flowrate

Hi Chris, this may not always be practical but if you have enough of a height drop in the water course a length of garden hose feeding from higher up may give enough flow to operate the high banker, could be worth experimenting with this, regards Doc Cox.

Awesome vid. It makes me glad I can probably run my 6in highbanker like this if the laws change to stop the use of pumps. Have you looked at gravity water feed for the highbanker as an other option?

I would wonder if you could get around the new restrictions by setting up your high-banker to drain into a large container (instead of into the river) and then set up a recirculating pump out of the container to feed water into the top (then fill up the container with water at the beginning of things using a bucket or a hand pump). That way, the motorized pump is not being used to take anything from anywhere (therefore cannot be called "excavation" in any sense), everything (both dirt and water) was removed and placed into the high-banker setup manually. The pump is purely moving the water around and around internally to the device. Arguably, might not be that much more convenient than what you're doing here, I suppose (though if you used a manual pump to pump the water up to a location higher up the bank, and then recirculated it all there, you also wouldn't have to walk as far from your excavation location to the high-banker setup...)

The stupidest part is a high banker into a settling pool is FAR better for the waterway than a river sluice. But the same law makers who want us to blow material down river also want us to smash rocks to bits rather than yabby pump under them.

You could also rig a bucket on top of the hopper with some plumbing attachments to better control water flow. Just a thought. Sorry to hear they copyright slapped you. I have liked, shared to my Facebook, and here is my comment 😊

Love the vids man! cheers from Las Vegas!

Your ingenuity and diligence is inspiring!

Hello, I tell you: I use a 25 liter bucket with a 1 inch hole in the bottom and made a stand for it to sit on top of the high bench. It works wonderfully and if there are two people or more, one can take care of filling the bucket and thus the stream of water is continuous. This support is 30cm above the high bench

You have no idea how much this vid just helped me solve my latest gold dilemma.. I won't make to much public, I too am on reedy creek and my spot would get pillaged if I gave to much up.. but the inconsistent pulsy flow and distribution of black Sand vs gold in that situation just inadvertently cracked my latest creek dilemma.. I'll be out tomorrow to confirm, huge thanks mate. Love your vids and the stuff you and gadsy do.

Where I live in the US it’s illegal to use pumps on the river, but this gives me inspiration to get around those rules.

Dude love the way you classify with your screen.also pan looks cool

I think this video is an indication of the future of small scale prospecting---technology for gold prospecting may starting to get simpler due to laws and environmental regulations. Things such as raised bucket reservoirs with a ball valve and hose coming off the end to regulate flow and prevent surging will become more commonplace. It might be a great opportunity for RU-vid content for the creators willing to do the work. I like where you are going with this Chris, and can't wait to see what you come up with!

You could use a hand pump and a 20 gallon barrel at the top of the hill. Let the barrel feed the high banker by gravity

Excellent video. Thoroughly enjoyed

When the laws are to opress you, its your duty to disobey that law

Thanks for sharing Chris.

I can see a system where you can "plug in" a yabby pump to a water system that can bring the river water to the sluice box. It might take awhile to work out the kinks but the mechanics can work.

A large water blivet (rubber bag) uphill would allow for constant flow without any power. Fill with a bucket, run a hose down to high bank, go down and run till the water runs out.

you could install a water tank at the top you bucket into, that feeds through a restricted nozzle and thus provides a more consistant flow of water to the top of the device.

If you're looking for an effective pump that you can make yourself that requires no power, check out spiral pumps! Whether you put paddles to allow the flow of the stream to turn it or rig it up to turn it manually, you may be able to get an effective amount of water through without the need of an electrical/combustion pump

Excavation is the part with a shovel before the sluicing. Sluicing with a motorised pump has nothing to due with ore excavation. Sluicing is not excavation. Its an ore refinery process, rather.

I am totally loving the new man playing style we are in atm seeing stuff made is and has gave me so much encouragement to give it ago myself next years season me and my son plan to build a sluice and make a pan or two

it's really wild that they consider a little highbanker pump as some huge mechanical advantage. Next they won't let you drive your car to the spot because it has a motor!

You should consider using a Ram pump, I use one for my mountain cabin and it pumps water 300 ft uphill with a water flow rate from my pond at about 3 gallons a minute. That file of water in the river should be more than adequate to power a pump that only uses 2 one way valves and isn’t considered as a powered tool

Foot bilge pump would work a charm and placing an old bed sheet under the wire mesh would make it easier to capture the sized material vs. a bucket mouth. Cheers

gravity high-bankers are a known thing... people use hard and flex pipes to feed water from up stream, they have been doing this sense the OG gold rushes...

Great video chris one of many ways to get around the rules top stuff

That screening system is possibly the most lossy system I've ever seen.

I know absolutely nothing about any of this, this just popped up in my timeline, but this is fascinating

I've seen a "bucket pump" setup for a highbanker where the bucket had holes in it and would be placed over the headerbox to trickle water into, and would be regularly refilled with another bucket. Provided you can get the holeage right in the bucket to still have enough flow for some reasonable amount of time to keep constant flow, it should allow you to get by the ecofreaks.

Put a small rain water tank on a stand above the sift thingy, use powered pump to fill rain water tank, turn on tap. Every holes a goal, my favourite is the loop hole.

I would recommend a foot pump for a manual pump. Just like the kind we use on a boat for the sink. That will free up your hands to do the work you need to do. A foot pump will build enough pressure to you through your spray jets.

That was a fun sidestep from the usual and useful, to boot!

G'day mate, just as some of the previous commenters have mentioned place a bucket with a hose and valve to control water flow to the spray bar but use the bilge pump to fill the bucket instead, technically your suppling water to the high banker via a bucket not a mechanical pump. Cheers mate.

Flour Gold Wizard in USA runs a pail above highbanker, with a hose, then fills bucket with a second bucket

You have to do a lot of experimenting to find the best water flow for whatever type of matting/vortex/whatever you are using to catch the gold. Every mat has a sweet spot. Too slow and you get crap built up in the riffles and the gold just flows right over them and out the bottom. Too fast, and the gold blows right over the riffles and out the bottom. The right speed/attitude/side angle will create the vortices necessary to catch gold. If you are only going to rely on native water flow, you should get underlayment that closely matches that water speed. The best sluice I have ever seen for fine gold is the "Gold Well Vortex Sluice". The big five footers, we run 4400gph pumps at full tilt and not lose a bit of gold (and thats dumping twenty-five five gal buckets classified to 1/2" in a few minutes time!!!!!). The smaller three foot Gold Well backpack sluices we run with 2200gph pumps. Its all in the setup.

You're gonna figure it out Chris. Look into the water hopper idea, sounds plausible, two people should be able to keep it moving along and find lots of gold 😀

Thanks for the update because i missed this at first.

This is an awesome way to innovate the thought process and come up with new Ideas to solve the problems for Many

Mechanical excavation and water pumps, does it state specifically gas and or electrical pumps? A ram pump doesn't use either. You could setup a ram pump, if you had the correct conditions, to fill a a large barrel or two. Then use that water to run the high banker. The barrels can be filled days ahead of when you would need it. Ram pumps are slow, but only require a short fall in water to work. The ram pump will have a 1:7 ratio of feet of head to lift. 1 foot of fall at the inlet will lift the water 7 feet high. How high would you need a gravity tank of water to run the high banker? How much water would you need to run the high banker for an hour? Just a random thought.

Like others say - gravity water line or siphone from into high banker won't be high volume however not mechanical. Keep up the good work!

if you knew in advance you were going to be in one spot for a while you could set up a plastic water reservoir (say 20 gallons) above you rig and run a hose with a valve in it to your rig's sprayer. Fill up the reservoir above and when your ready to feed the rig turn on the valve and off you go. This way you can use your sprayers. Just be sure to manually fill your reservoir.

In the mainland USA the restrictions are worsening by each edition of the fish and minerals guidebook. A member in my prospecting club uses a 1 liter stainless kitchen ladle for bailing water into his handmade rocker box. He switches between miners moss and burlap for authenticity.

You could try fitting a pipe with sprayers and a large funnel with a wide discharge spout in place of the pump to feed into the sprayer tubes...so, at least you could control the rate of flow. You'd need someone feeding the large funnel and a way of supporting it in the right position though. Hmm, perhaps you could get one of the large silicon/rubber buckets from a garden centre, put a hole in the base, get yourself a bath plug-hole plumbing fitting and use a piece of thin plywood or a couple of squares of neoprene rubber with a hole cut into it to accept the bath plug-hole fitting and then use some silicone glue to secure the plug fitting + plywood or neoprene rubber squares to the hole in the base of the bucket. Then tighten up the fitting to apply pressure to it and attach an appropriate width of pipe to the drainage part of the plug-hole fitting. Then, build a frame which will allow you to suspend the the bucket beneath it and then use the plug fitting + drainage pipe to pull it down in the centre to make a funnel shape using your sprayer pipe to attach it into and maintain the stretch in the bucket created by pulling it downwars. If only you have some mug who'd be cool filling the bucket over and over as you shovelled dirt into the bottom. Hmmmm 🤔

I could see this also being useful for areas without good flowing water for a sluice box.

As I was going to say\type\comment on the video that I previously watched 😁earlier today, could you try a 'Stirrup' pump ? the type of pump that has a leg that hooks over the side of a bucket and has a 'D' handle to pull\push up and down to operate the pump. It operates on the Up and the Down strokes and the good ones were made of brass. Glad I was too lazy to comment 😁on the first go around ! Keep up the great work Chris and thanks for your effort, that's from an ' Ole 55 ' model Nth Queenslander.

Guess I'm not the first but will also suggest rigging a bucket with ball valve and some vinyl hose. Youd be able to adjust the water flow to suit a consistent even flow so you eliminate the surging and can keep a good pattern from the spray bar. Depending on height above the sluice that you set up the water reservior you could manage the water pressure, half a pound per foot of elevation so you could again have an even flow and pressure to suit your needs in any given soil/gravel conditions.

Dude! I love your work!

Water Ram pump. It's not a mechanical pump, it's powered by water pressure where you're already getting it from, so setup a tube upstream a bit. It won't be fast, but it's powered by the stream's flow, not a motor.

Use the pump to deliver water to a bucket. Use the bucket to dump water to a metering bag and use that to fill a bucket right next to the high banker and then pour the bucket into another bucket that feeds the high banker.

If you try a 50 gallon drum used to gravity feed your high-banker, you should get through a bucket of concentrates with no problem. Good luck with all the changing laws!

Put your hose intake far upstream, steeper incline the better, and let gravity pump the water into the highbanker

Bud, get one of those cheap a$$ office trashcans. Usually made with holes or out of mesh wiring. Put it in the bucket, fill bucket with water, put your shovel fulls directly into the bucket. When filled with gravel swish the trashcan arournd inside the bucket, pull the trashcan with rocks out, dump and repeat...

uk has very similar rules Thanks for this video keep up the great work

Just prime a hose with water, and then as the water comes out into the washer, it will suck up more water from the river. Just need to have the washer lower than the input of the water. Even if there’s an incline in the hose. The lower the output of the water is to the input, the more flow you will have. No mechanization required.

possible improvement. attach a portable water tank above that you can quickly dump 2-3, 5 gallon buckets full of water (with a spigot) that gravity feeds the high bank.

Sounds like I should ask my question again then. Can you use a pump to fill a water tank up the bank a bit? Can you then use that water to gravity feed your high-banker?

Awesome work!

I think maybe the Government must go back to its roots and be FOR THE PEOPLE and BY THE PEOPLE. We tell THEM what to do, and they keep quiet.

set up a water reservoir above the sluice with a valve so that you can use the the proper flow to clean your material.

Could always rig up a system where you pedal it and you can chuck a bucket of dirt in a hopper and water in a pump and water container all connected to chain drive where you just chill and pedal it or something. And also for the separation screen put a tarp under it so you don't miss as much dirt?

I have a suggestion, try making a water hopper to gravity feed the water to your spray bars. Love your videos bro, keep up the good work

Cool looking system, would be interesting to see a hand powered pump setup or maybe something with a bike.

@1:40 just use a Ram Pump its operated from water flow ... and you could use a funnel and spray bar to stop the surges (funnel to restrict the flow rate and bar to spread it out )

What size hose runs between your pump and the highbanker? I have a good idea for a gravity feeder

ever thought of putting a tarp or some extra collection mat under your horizontal/ tilted screen classifier to help collect your sieved dirt, just so you don't have to scrape it off the ground that missed the bucket. meat scoops are good but work smarter not harder. ;)

A couple ideas Chris. A stationary bucket above the hopper with holes drilled in it, then just fill the bucket. Or a pressure tank sort of using compressed air to push the water. That should hurt your brain for about 20 minutes. Thanks for the videos.

We can use whatever. Here in Czech Republic is gold mining forbiden, but unles you have excavator it is not mining. So, any small scale motor pumps are allowed. General rules are, do not destroy river banks, if using pumps, use electric, (benzine pumps are seen as dirty and noisy). No prospecting in national parks and protected areas... So, no special law in play, just don't be stupid or reckless, take care about nature, clean after prospecting, good luck, have fun...

think of the water as dirt the "pump" is excavating the water. but something to consider is nothing is stopping you from setting up a water reserve higher than your "highbanker" and using gravity to feed the water into the plumbing via a siphon or gravity fed tank

What if you had a BIGGER UPPER WATER TANK of sort, that sits above and has a flow control, where you can load the tank with water and adjust water flow...

I’m guessing the “marry an Orange” part of the prospectors proverb relates to not wanting a lemon 🍋 . A “lemon” is something that’s very flawed.

The place I live is so mountainous that I cannot comprehend a creek slow-moving enough that you wouldn’t just put the sluice in the creek. Just put the sluice in the creek! What’s going on here?

I think a loophole may be to bring a couple of five gallon buckets of your own water and only circulate the water between the buckets that you have not using the natural resource.

Get a half barrel with a shutoff valve and a hose, fill with water with a 5 gallon bucket, can run for 10 minutes before tou need to refill the barrel. Just a thought.

If a shovel isn't mechanical (it is) then a hand pump shouldn't be mechanical either.

OR... Have a battery or petrol pump filling a large two handled bucket or baby bath [ probably better ] which is next to BUT not connect to or part of the sluice. Now use your ten or twenty litre bucket to simply take water from the large fed bucket/bath and run it through the sluice/highbanker. It saves your back [ put it on a milk crate ] and time. Thoughts....