Bazooka Super Duper Prospector

FFFPatriot · Mar 4, 2017

Howdy fellers. Thought I'd share a few modifications that I made to my Bazooka Prospector. She's been very faithful to me for the past few years, but I always felt she was a bit "horizontally challenged" . I was gonna get the 48" Prospector in addition to the 36" that I've got, in order to increase travel/ break-apart of material a little better. Then I thought, hell, that's only 12" more, which would give drier material a little more time to travel and break apart, and thought something a few feet longer would really increase my chances of breaking material apart, which would yield me more gold. I was gonna buy a sheet of 1/4" ABS plastic and buy me a plastic welder, but that doggone sheet of ABS costed the same to ship as the plastic itself ($300.00 plus total), I'd be fine with a plastic weld gun, for future projects. I decided to build it out of 3/8" birch plywood instead and coat everything with a couple coats of kevlar bedliner. I welded a frame for the whole deal. I was a bit hung up on the fluidizing chamber intake when I first got my Bazooka. The intake tubes protrude about 2" towards the rear that are mounted to a flat backwall that I was thinking would create negative back pressure from the flowing creek/ river water, against the water flow that needs to enter the 3 intake tubes, so that's why I made the 3 into 1 half inch tubes that are connected to the single pvc piece that has the shut off valve on the rear. I clamped and heat shaped an oil funnel that connects to the fluidizing chamber that sits at the rear of the thing that should increase the pressure in the tubes. The valve will restrict the flow, in case I'm at a very fast moving creek, that has the possibility of being too much pressure and blowing fine gold out of the chamber. I guess a few test runs with my eyes goggled under some cold creek water will tell me how much, if any, I should turn that valve. The idea I have, is to assemble the whole thing at the water's edge, and set it down in the drink, adjust the legs, and dig my ass off!
So what do you fellers think? Here's a few pictures I took for a better look at her. Jd.