What Makes a Beach Box Different?

A beach box and a highbanker are essentially the same thing, with the primary difference being the intended ground that will be dug through the unit. A highbanker consists of a hopper to shovel material into, a screen to classify that material, and a sluice to process and concentrate that material. The beach box hopper is designed to deal with primarily sand and small gravel, while a highbanker should be designed to handle larger rocks and clay. A beach box should have a screen to classify material typically to 1/4" or smaller. The sluice is designed specifically for fine “flour gold” recovery and is typically twice as wide as a typical highbanker sluice box. The water flow and slope are also lowered to help capture fine gold.

The recovery media must be specific to running super fine flat flakes of flour gold. (This is typical of rivers meandering through glacial till.) Whether you use miners moss, rubber mats, or the surprisingly effective indoor/outdoor carpet, the key is running a low slope and minimal water flow. This reduced slope and flow means that it is MUCH easier to over feed your sluice box as the material is washed away much more slowly. Another factor is that when feeding a higher percentage of sand, less of each shovel is rejected by the screen and the sluice winds up having to deal with a larger percentage of the bank run material. To counteract this, a sluice that is twice as wide is typically used in a “beach box”.