A Homemade Gold Sluice Box, Dummies Style

The original sluice box as botched by Gomez (and Fleury)

We're told that the "rules" of Demand Media Studios (aka DMS¹) precluded the use of Wikipedia articles as references; not that most of the self-appointed "freelance writers" didn't immediately go straight to the site when "researching" a topic. It's interesting that, somewhere about 2012, DMS prohibited using its own content as a reference. That message apparently didn't get to eHowian Vivian Gomez, however, since Gomez seems to have merely reworded an older eHow.com article for her post titled "How to Build a Wooden Sluice Box," now firmly ensconced at OurPastimes.com.

In reality, it's difficult to determine which of the two freelancers cribbed off the other: the article written by Melanie Fleury was published in 2010, but the Gomez version isn't in the Wayback Machine until 2011. Suffice it to say, both get the dimensions wrong; although Gomez, at least, doesn't think she's building a "dredge." Both freelancers refer to the same blog; Gomez has more references but none of them has actual plans.
The original publication contained plans for a wooden sluice box made of 1-by-4 and 1-by-6 pine, with ¼"x¼" square dowels spaced 1½" apart in the floor.  Both Gomez and Fleury changed the dowels to 1" and the spacing to six inches, while Gomez didn't even seem to notice that the dowels are supposed to be square. That leaves Vivian in a bit of a quandary, when she "explains" how to attach the riffles...

"Use two screws to attach the first dowel at one end of this piece, width-wise. Make sure that each end of the dowel, or riffle, is flush against the baseboard's side edges and is aligned with the opposite end of the board."

Yeah, sure: screw round dowels to a hunk of plywood... we suspect that "aligned with the opposite end of the board" is supposed to mean "parallel to," but aren't certain. Fleury didn't say either way...

Gomez finished with the "warning,"

"Make sure gold prospecting is not illegal in your state"...

We're pretty sure prospecting is allowed on public land no matter what state you're in.² Gomez, however, probably didn't study such boring STEM-y stuff while getting that English Lit BA... perhaps if she had, she wouldn't be picking up a Dumbass of the Day award!

¹ You can't spell "dumbass" without "DMS"!
² Although we understand that anything you find in New York state belongs to the state...

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