Highbankers & power sluices: where to buy
A highbanker is a sluice box on legs with a hopper on top, fed by a pump, and its real strength is the hopper: you throw raw dirt into it a shovelful at a time, without screening it first. A spray bar blasts water over each load, washing the clay off the rocks, and a grizzly or classifier screen at the bottom of the hopper lets only the fine material, usually around half an inch and smaller, drop into the sluice, while the cobbles stay on top to be cleared off now and then. Washing and classifying happen in one step, so you skip the slowest part of the job; Keene, one of the main makers, puts a highbanker at nearly twice the material of a medium-size sluice. That advantage belongs to machines with a grizzly: some small 12-volt recirculating highbankers have a hopper and spray bar but no grizzly, and their sellers advise feeding them screened material, so check before you buy.
The pump also frees you from the creek. It pushes water up a hose to the hopper, so you can set up on dry benches and banks the stream no longer reaches, and run the muddy water into a settling pond. A power sluice is the simpler version: the pump feeds water into a header box at the top of a sluice, with no hopper and no grizzly, so the material you shovel in has to be screened beforehand. Many machines are combos that switch between highbanker and suction dredge.
When comparing machines, look at the hopper size, the grizzly spacing, the spray bars and the pump, which has to lift water from the creek up to the hopper. Because they run a motorized pump, highbankers and power sluices fall under different rules from a hand sluice: in California they need a permit from the State Water Resources Control Board, and elsewhere the rules depend on the state and the land agency, so ask before you go.
4 shops across the US that sell highbankers & power sluices, 1 of them building their own. Each one links to its own website, so you can compare them one by one.
RDH Prospecting
Builder · Online or by order · Mesa, Arizona · Ships nationwide
Makes: 58 Highbanker; 6-inch and 10-inch power sluice setups
Family business building highbankers and 6- and 10-inch power sluices
Family business in the Mesa area that builds highbankers and power sluices in the USA, sold directly and through Arizona prospecting stores such as A & B Prospecting.
Also sells: Sluice boxes · Dredges & parts
A & B Prospecting Supplies (Mesa)
Dealer · Storefront · Mesa, Arizona · Ships nationwide
Prospecting store since 1979: Minelab, Garrett, Fisher, Keene, Falcon
Prospecting supply store in Mesa and one of the best known in Arizona, listed by ICMJ as a trusted vendor. It sells Minelab, Garrett, Fisher and Falcon metal detectors; drywashers, sluices, highbankers and recirculating units; dredges, pumps and parts; pans, classifiers and fine-gold concentrators; hand tools, rock crushers, books and beginner kits; and assay and refining supplies such as furnaces, chemicals and labware. A second store is in Prescott Valley.
Also sells: Metal detectors · Gold pans & classifiers · Sluice boxes · Dredges & parts · Drywashers · Picks, shovels & hand tools · Fine gold recovery · Assay & refining supplies
A & B Prospecting Supplies (Prescott Valley)
Dealer · Storefront · Prescott Valley, Arizona · Ships nationwide
A&B's second store, a short drive from Lynx Creek
Second store of A & B Prospecting Supplies, in Prescott Valley in the gold country of central Arizona, with the same range as the Mesa store: metal detectors, drywashers, sluices, highbankers, dredge parts, pans and classifiers, fine-gold concentrators, hand tools and assay supplies.
Also sells: Metal detectors · Gold pans & classifiers · Sluice boxes · Dredges & parts · Drywashers · Picks, shovels & hand tools · Fine gold recovery · Assay & refining supplies
Miners Depot
Dealer · Storefront · Quartzsite, Arizona
Quartzsite dealer: Minelab, Camel, Falcon, Keene, Gold Cube; seasonal
Prospecting store in Quartzsite and full-line dealer for Minelab, Camel Mining Products, Falcon, Keene and Gold Cube: metal detectors, drywashers, dredges, sluices, highbankers, rock crushers, fine-gold concentrators, hand tools, books and paydirt.
Also sells: Metal detectors · Gold pans & classifiers · Sluice boxes · Dredges & parts · Drywashers · Picks, shovels & hand tools · Fine gold recovery · Paydirt
Other gear
Metal detectors · Gold pans & classifiers · Sluice boxes · Dredges & parts · Drywashers · Sniping & crevice tools · Rocker boxes · Trommels · Picks, shovels & hand tools · Fine gold recovery · Assay & refining supplies · Paydirt · Mineral specimens · Rough & slabs · Lapidary equipment · Fossils · Meteorites · Petrified wood · Classes & training
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