best hand dredges?

[koda60]

Hey fellers, Would like to buy or build a hand dredge,any Ideas or ratings ? Thanks,Koda or ratings

 

[steve herschbach]

What do you mean by "hand dredge"? Like a crevice sucker?

[attachment 254837 kea23lg.jpg]

Steve Herschbach

 

[koda60]

Hi,to use for sucking mountain creek bottoms in Smokey Mtns. Thanks Koda

 

[panama rich]

Here is a hand dredge that I like.

http://www.gold-n-sand.com/

Rich

 

[steve herschbach]

[attachment 255161 kea23lg.jpg]

The Keene A23 crevice sucker that I use has a 26" x 2" vacuum chamber with a 1/2" round crevice tip. The overall length is 37". It is a very good crevice sucker but you can also take the nozzle off and use it as a gravel sucker. It takes a bit of dexterity as you have to put the tube in the gravel, pull the plunger, then at last second flip the tube up to keep material from sliding back out. You then dump directly into a bucket or sluice box. Anyway, except for larger rocks plugging the nozzle they work just fine, with many variations on the market.

They can be built out of PVC by anyone with a little effort.

Steve Herschbach

 

[Hoser John]

There are quite a few configurations out that utilize a flapper to prevent that fall right back out problem. DIY forums on GPAA/GoldDredger and misc others-John

 

[Ken/CO]

Used a Gold-N-Sand recently for a few hours and it lacked the suction to pull a good amount of gravel.
It finally jammed with gravel inside the tube, which I could not open and had to quit.
The Keene sucker is still the best I've used so far.

 

[undersc0re]

Is this tool easy to modify? Could I just unscrew the tip and screw on another longer nozzle to get deeper in the cracks? Just wondering if there is some built in valve or special locking fitting that makes it hard to find fittings to replace the nozzle piece with a longer one. Thanks.

 

[steve herschbach]

If you are talking the Keene unit there is nothing special about it. The end is just a slip on PVC cap with a tube. You could get another cap and put a longer tube on it to use instead of the one that comes with it.

Steve Herschbach

 

[fredm]

Before they made those commercially, we used to make our own...one thing I tried was a T piece just past the intake...so, hopefully, the gold would fall in. Good idea but the threads would clog and make it impossible to unscrew...but a large cork on the bottom might work better...
fred