Gold Prospecting Forum

I ordered 2 mats recently and am anxiously waiting. I'm building a 9" stream sluice and hoping to get 4-9" pieces per mat. How long are these mats, is there any "extra" lenbth? Are some of the styles known to be longer than others? Can these mats be cut tight enough that the side-tape is unnecessary? Thanks!

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Hey John, The mats are actually a bit longer than 36 inches, you will be able to get 4 peices at 9 inches easially. Dont forget to watch the videos on making mats. Cut them exactly the way Doc says in the video. The reason for the side tape is to compensate for any slight mistake in cutting. The tape ensures a tight seal to the box. I would recommend using the side tape. I make several measurements down the box and I cut my mats 1/16 less than each measurement, taking care to mark each mats position.
Here is the detailed video on making mats. Its long but worth watching.
http://goldhog.com/how_to_install_sluice_mat.htm

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WAR HORSE DREDGER - Member #7 (SILVER)

Yes, I've watched most, if not all, of the mat install vids. Cut 1/16 less than tight, got it! I'll use the tape. Thanks.

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I have always had a hard time with the terminology associated with the mats since I guess I'm a dinosaur in my ways of looking at things.

I have always used the word "Wide" to denote the side to side axis in, for example, a sluice box. The other orientation axis (the way the water flows through the box) I have always called "Long".

That would make the factory extruded mat's side to side measurement (Width) to be 36"+, and the measurement of the "Length" as 6". "Long" and "Wide" with the corresponding "Length" and "Width".

If you have a 9" Wide sluice box you will have enough extra width to have four pieces with a small amount of excess left over. Not much, but some.

Now, the Length (the way the water flows) can be a little deceiving until you actually have a mat in your hands. The Length is a nominal six inches, but the design of the mat means that the maximum Length has to take into account that the mat segments fit together as would tongue and groove style wood flooring. Yes, a single cut piece in your hands is 6" long - but the next piece ""uses"" one tongue projection into a groove, meaning that 1 piece is 6 " long, 2 pieces fitted together is only 11.5" (because .5" is overlapped in the area that the two pieces join together. It sounds complicated until you actually fit and see the two pieces together and then measure them.

This condition is most noticeable in something like the small 6" wide sluice box I fitted with mats this past fall. The width was a no-brainer as far as measuring the cut --- 6" minus 1/16" or 5 15/16".

The 8 pieces that I cut to carpet this 48" long sluice box would have come out exactly if the 8 mats didn't have to use some of their length for tongue in groove overlapping connection. That's just the way they are joined. The actual overall length of the mat is also compounded by the unused one tongue and unused one groove at the head and tail of the assembled mat.

When the 8 segment mat assembly was complete, the mats, as a unit, were 2 3/8" shorter than the 48" length of the sluice box. Now for me that is not the slightest problem, but to someone who designs a specific run dimension in the box it just means that you might have to cut an extra piece of mat to have the length (to cut a short, as needed, length) to come out with an, exactly as engineered, total length of mat.

So, as I said:

W I D E

and

H
I
G
H

Joe

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WAR HORSE DREDGER - Member #5 (GOLD)

Dang Joe, all that made my head hurt. You need to go Prospecting for a while.

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Maverick

WAR HORSE DREDGER - Member #2 (GOLD)

Thanks Joe,
that's an excellent explanation of what happens during mat assembly. So I'm losing roughly 1/2" per mat-joint, ok, I can deal with that. I'm building my own sluice box and I can now see that it will be too long by roughly 2". No problem, after the mats are joined (taped only at first) I'll cut the box to fit the mat, no sense in having more length than is necessary. I wish I had joined this forum last year when I first started prospecting, I'd be wealthy but now. LoL. Thanks!

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