The trommel

All loaded up and ready to go. It took two loads to safely transport the trommel to Williams Lake, and it was thankfully made without event except one flat tire on the trailer I was pulling (the smaller one with the hopper on it.) When fully assembled, the gravel from a placer claim is dumped with a backhoe or trackhoe into the hopper, water is sprayed into the hopper and the gravel self feeds into the trommel (the 3 foot casing which is turned by a gas motor.) From the trommel the water/gravel slurry dumps into the sluices and the water does the rest. Gold is 19 times heavier than water so there is no need to worry about it being carried out the end. It stays in the top foot or so of the carpets. Very rarely have we ever found any further down the sluice - it has happened on occasion when a surge of gravels comes through though. If the trommel being fed properly, there is no risk of this happening. The bottom picture shows the "nugget traps" on the top end of the sluice where all the big gold will stay. It will be a happy day for the new owner of this trommel when he looks in there and sees an abundance of yellow! We could not (OK, I say WE - but I mean Tim - I didn't do much, if anything!) have done this as easily as we did without the help of some friends and truly wonderful people who let us build this in their yard. When Tim started building this we were still snowmobiling in and out so it worked best to have it somewhere that he could easily get the trailer into to drop off the steel, etc. Thank you guys!!