check your box

[jimkeene4]

its common for a box on a dredge to develop a belly. this comes from people installing matting, v matting or what ever is thicker than what your box came with. the aluminum can become stressed or strecthed. your riffles needs to crush your carpet or miners moss evenly across. if not , you may blow gold out of the box. mine was 1/4" bellied in the middle about half way down with riffles locked down.  im  having to add aluminum reinforcements to the bottom of my box to straighten it out.  im just sayin, check your box. gold is hard enough to find as it is. we dont need to be losing any thing if we can help it. jim

[Deleted]

How was the belly formed by trying different mats out?

[goldgit'r]

Clamping down too tight on the riffle thingy hold downs when adding more or thicker matting than the sluice was set up for.Wes

[cabarrusgold]

Or maybe add a spreader bar across latch braces.

[Pickerking]

Not a good thing if riffles got a big gap in between em. Seen some really expensive dredges and or high bankers with the ailment.