home made bazooka

[Trinity_miner]

Hey guys, I just got done doin a thorough testing of my home made bazooka. I built it 30 in wide by 8 inches narrowing to six at the trap end. The trap is 6"x4"x2.5" deep. I'm pretty impressed with how these things eat the dirt, but I'm wondering just how the trap should look/act when set up properly. I just wanna make sure I'm not blowin gold out the end. Any tips would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

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[Underburden]

Pics

 

[Trinity_miner]

I'll get some posted here in a bit

 

[Jeff95531]

For initial testing, I would put a pan at the outlet. If gold bearing dirt is used, no gold should be in the pan if set up/working properly.

 

[Jimmydolittle]

Goddyguy has pictures of the one he built, but I don't know exactly how to search for them.

 

[Trinity_miner]

Well I put a test sluice at the end of the bazooka yesterday for 5 or so buckets and found I lost the better part of a hundred some odd dollars yesterday running a half yard through it. I'm not real happy . The trap stayed fluid yet I pulled 10 mesh gold and lots of smaller out of the test slice. I can't imagine what went back in the creek!

 

[Jeff95531]

Well I can't imagine that it would be an easy task to duplicate near perfection. What do you suspect is happening?

 

[meMiner]

The Bazooka concept is fairly straight forward. If you are losing most of the gold, I would suggest the culprit is either overloading or poor fluid action in the trap. Did you have adequate water flow? Or perhaps was the material dry (so the gold floated out)? Online you can Google some other builds, including one guy who built his out of plexi so you could see the action. Good luck with sorting it out and tell us what you learn. If you are testing in a stream, you might want to try running something cheaper than real gold until you are confident it is working well...

 

[Trinity_miner]

I will do some more research and modification on it. For now though I'm goin to stick with my tried and true sluice. I'm not sure if it's the holes in the spray bar tubes or what.
I

 

[Trinity_miner]

The sluice seemed to have plenty of water and the bed was staying agitated and could see sand being blown around and what not. Maybe I fed it to fast.
Fast but I'm not sure. S

 

[Jeff95531]

Well, like was said...pictures, video, drawings? Would help a great deal

 

[mike(swWash)]

Hard to imagine , but could there be to much agitation in the bed...lifting everything up and around too high. I think it's just supposed to be loose and moving about some....

 

[Rdg Sluicer]

If your losing $100 in 5 buckets it sounds like you could just buy one and it will pay for itself in 10 buckets...?

 

[Trinity_miner]

I I figured it to be around a hundred out of half yard total. Not in 5 buckets. And I'll go out and take some pics of it here shortly. I could buy one but I enjoy building and recovering gold with my own equipment.

 

[mike(swWash)]

I I figured it to be around a hundred out of half yard total. Not in 5 buckets. And I'll go out and take some pics of it here shortly. I could buy one but I enjoy building and recovering gold with my own equipment.

Yep, me too. No one ever said education was cheap....or easy.

 

[Oregon Viking]

I'am also looking forward to pictures. I would like to make a few out of wood. Heavy? sure but I plan to leave them on site.

 

[Jimmydolittle]

Finally found this from Goodyguy: http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/goodyguy/135031-gold-prospecting-equipment-3.html

 

[ebuyc]

So what have you tried so far to tune this DIY sluice?

1. Do you have your fluid bed holes pointed straight down? I like two rows at 4 and 8 o' clock. Maybe more holes of a smaller size would help too.
2. Do you have a 'deflector' pointing down at the entrance to your fluid bed? This is important, it helps knock the float gold out of suspension when it hits it. Maybe someone can take a picture of the BGT - notice the 1/2" strip of plastic glued to the top inside of the fluid bed.
3. A 30" wide mouth maybe intaking too much water for you fluid bed size; I would plumb the sluice at home to a water supply and see what the trap holds (test gold and black sands) at different pressures. If you are producing too much fluid bed pressure then make the pipes longer and extend the fluid bed length some.
4. What kind of grizzly are you using; too much big material will quickly fill your fluid bed and start displacing gold.
5. The nice thing about the fluid bed design is you can feed it fairly fast when tuned right. Not turbo mode, just a nice pace...

We need pictures to really help you out...

 

[Trinity_miner]

sorry for the delay guys heres some pics.
the classification is done by 1/4'' hardware cloth. holes in spray bars are 1/8'' and spaced every 1/2'' staggered up and down.

 

[Reed Lukens]

Looks like you have some holes drill a lot higher up than usual. It looks like it might blast water up when you want to blast down.