made diy bazooka mini trap sluice plans for laser cutter

Goldwasher

Gold Member
May 26, 2009
6,077
13,222
Sailor Flat, Ca.
🥇 Banner finds
1
Detector(s) used
SDC2300, Gold Bug 2 Burlap, fish oil, .35 gallons of water per minute.
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Goldwasher, is the size of the fluidizing tubes, and the diameter and pattern/number of holes in them 'proprietary' info?

Would you be willing to share that info?

:wink:

no there is no patent and that wasn't part of the patent anyway.

Twelve holes per tube. Six were like 3/16 six were bigger brain fart on actual size.. like 5/16

Bigger holes closer to the output end.

My opinion is that there is a range that will work. It will be hard to get organic creek/river flow to be too much in most situations.

Water through holes in tubes that are not too close to far from the floor of the trap.

It takes a lot of exchange to get gold out of the trap once its in. It's the gangue your trying to keep active and exchanging. The gold takes care of itself.
 

KevinInColorado

Gold Member
Jan 9, 2012
7,037
11,369
Summit County, Colorado
Detector(s) used
Grizzly Goldtrap Explorer & Motherlode, Gold Cube with trommel or Banker on top, Angus Mackirk Expedition, Gold-n-Sand Xtream Hand pump
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
Pretty hard to label that a viable business. Thanks for proving my point Kevin

Whatever. You remain consistent in your negative attitude toward me. Puzzling considering how much I personally helped promote the Bazooka here in its early days.

My only point is to help folks by highlighting that you can still buy a well designed fluidbed if you want to. Peace.
 

Goldwasher

Gold Member
May 26, 2009
6,077
13,222
Sailor Flat, Ca.
🥇 Banner finds
1
Detector(s) used
SDC2300, Gold Bug 2 Burlap, fish oil, .35 gallons of water per minute.
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Whatever. You remain consistent in your negative attitude toward me. Puzzling considering how much I personally helped promote the Bazooka here in its early days.

My only point is to help folks by highlighting that you can still buy a well designed fluidbed if you want to. Peace.

I wasn't being negative towards you Kevin. You really did prove my point. If GGT was viable. it wouldn't have been sidelined due to the issues you mentioned.

With parts. cut one guy can make multiple boxes a day..

The situation as is . Is due to lack of demand. Not you, not Dennis not me.

Neither the website or the FB page say you can contact GGT to place an order.

GGT has 771 likes. On fb. Bazooka never hi 1K Gold rush nugget bucket has 18k

Shows that the lazy..give me easy gold widget is what people really want.

Not to shovel more. We all know they don't want to wait months for sluice boxes.

As far as my time at bazooka that was not during the early days . I was out using and promoting at that point too.

I came on board when Todd needed help. You never personally helped me do anything:tongue3:
 

KevinInColorado

Gold Member
Jan 9, 2012
7,037
11,369
Summit County, Colorado
Detector(s) used
Grizzly Goldtrap Explorer & Motherlode, Gold Cube with trommel or Banker on top, Angus Mackirk Expedition, Gold-n-Sand Xtream Hand pump
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
I wasn't being negative towards you Kevin. You really did prove my point. If GGT was viable. it wouldn't have been sidelined due to the issues you mentioned.

With parts. cut one guy can make multiple boxes a day..

The situation as is . Is due to lack of demand. Not you, not Dennis not me.

Neither the website or the FB page say you can contact GGT to place an order.

GGT has 771 likes. On fb. Bazooka never hi 1K Gold rush nugget bucket has 18k

Shows that the lazy..give me easy gold widget is what people really want.

Not to shovel more. We all know they don't want to wait months for sluice boxes.

As far as my time at bazooka that was not during the early days . I was out using and promoting at that point too.

I came on board when Todd needed help. You never personally helped me do anything:tongue3:

Nope. GGT has always had more demand than he could serve, even now. I won’t go into the finances but it’s enough to say his other business pays much better than building sluices. He continues to build some out of a sense of service to the prospecting community from what I can tell.

In the early days, Todd sent me two free sluices to say thanks for all of my unsolicited advocacy of his products. That should be proof enough of where I was in all this.

Not sure how I can help you from Colorado but I’ll happily step up if you see something I can do!
 

Apr 17, 2014
1,996
1,286
Tartarus Dorsa mountains
Primary Interest:
Other
Nope. GGT has always had more demand than he could serve, even now. I won’t go into the finances but it’s enough to say his other business pays much better than building sluices. He continues to build some out of a sense of service to the prospecting community from what I can tell.

In the early days, Todd sent me two free sluices to say thanks for all of my unsolicited advocacy of his products. That should be proof enough of where I was in all this.

Not sure how I can help you from Colorado but I’ll happily step up if you see something I can do!

write me a check?
 

N-Lionberger

Bronze Member
Dec 1, 2013
1,361
1,950
Arcata, California
Detector(s) used
Fisher 1212-x
Fisher Gold Bug 2
Whites 4900/SP3
Dowsing rods
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
Its weird that both big gold trap companies went outta business. I still have my bazooka sniper but I havent used it in ages. Maybe this summer I'll dust it off.

Last few times I was having problems with it. I had dirty water flow from people digging upstream, pieces of leaves clogging the tubes and blocking stuff. Next thing you know the tubes are jam packed with silt from the water and chunks of crap and your gold is washing straight out the sluice.
It must have clogged up 6 or 7 times that day and I was cursing it. Since then I've only used my Angus sluices and never had one problem.
It's a good system as long as the water is clean, deep and fast.

Guy in my old prospecting club drilled out the ends of the tubes and stoppered them up so he could quickly clear them, I don't think I am supposed to link to another forum on here.
 

lauchon03

Newbie
Jul 24, 2020
1
0
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Hi everyone, does anyone have the link to download the cut file? apparently the link fell
 

bubby-joe

Greenie
Apr 5, 2008
10
2
Well I couldn't get any dimensions so I guessed at the box I made this week, a small look alike of a bazooka with my own idea, I will include a few pictures and some dimensions that I used. The length is 18 inches, inlet end is 9.5 inches and the bottom end is 6 inches, the side height is 5.5 inches, lower chamber is 2.5 inches and the top water tray is 2 inches. My cost to build this was close to $4.00 CDN for the 2 small pieces of tubing every thing else was recycled materials. The next one will be larger.
DSC_0048.JPG DSC_0049.JPG DSC_0050.JPG DSC_0047.JPG
 

Last edited:

DizzyDigger

Gold Member
Dec 9, 2012
5,787
11,447
Concrete, WA
Detector(s) used
Nokta FoRs Gold, a Gold Cube, 2 Keene Sluices and Lord only knows how many pans....not to mention a load of other gear my wife still doesn't know about!
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
Well I couldn't get any dimensions so I guessed at the box I made this week, a small look alike of a bazooka with my own idea, I will include a few pictures and some dimensions that I used. The length is 18 inches, inlet end is 9.5 inches and the bottom end is 6 inches, the side height is 5.5 inches, lower chamber is 2.5 inches and the top water tray is 2 inches. My cost to build this was close to $4.00 CDN for the 2 small pieces of tubing every thing else was recycled materials. The next one will be larger.

I'd be interested to see how it performs. Have you considered
coating the plywood with anything?
 

bubby-joe

Greenie
Apr 5, 2008
10
2
Yes I did consider painting the plywood but at the cost to make if it lasts 3 to 5 years and finds gold would it really matter, the other thing is sluice boxes from the early 1900's were raw wood and still viable in the mid 70's so as a test bed maybe not. If or when i make a larger one then maybe but the cover could include watered down tightbond 3 or poor man's fiberglass, paint and canvas I will think about it but hope to not loose to much sleep over it. I also have an excess of recycled 6mm ply just for small projects like this. As a stress test I stood in the box on the top tray and it survived 200+ pounds. The weight came in at 3lb 6.6 oz fair by my book.
 

mofugly13

Full Member
Jan 30, 2015
198
184
San Francisco, Ca
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
I made a BGT prospector clone. At the time I created a Sketchup file with all the dimensions. Sketchup was free from Google at the time but was bought by Autodesk IIRC, and now you have to pay for it. I'd be happy to share that file, and you could try to figure out what to use to open it up.
 

mofugly13

Full Member
Jan 30, 2015
198
184
San Francisco, Ca
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
Turns out Trimble offers a free SketchUp viewer. Enjoy. Sorry I don’t have any real info on the perforations in the tubes. I believe that I calculated the cross sectional area of a 1/2” pvc schedule 40 pipe, then figured out how many 1/8” holes would equal just less than that area measurement, and drilled that many holes, staggered, left of center, center, right of center in each tube. In the end I think I ended up putting the over one of the holes.... still experimenting, but it catches gold.... I cut up a bbq grill to use as grizzly bars.

Edit.... I guess I can’t attach an .skp file here. Email me if you would like a copy.

Mofugy13 @ Gmail

Take out the spaces and add the dotcom at the end....

IMG_2178.png
 

bubby-joe

Greenie
Apr 5, 2008
10
2
You are the man, I actually have that file and for the life of me couldn't figure out where I got it from the one question I have is why the 1/16th inch on the upper plate in the original file, so shout out to you for that. it also shows up with free cad and imports into same and the jpeg printed a legible version on a very old laser printer. The file inspired me to just wing it for myself.
 

mofugly13

Full Member
Jan 30, 2015
198
184
San Francisco, Ca
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
What 1/16" are you talking about? I'm not seeing it on the file. Are you talking about a strip that affixed to the bottom of the back edge of the top plate?

I read every BGT thread I could find on this site, and goldwasher was a wealth of information on the construction of them. That lip is there to disrupt the laminar flow of the water as it enters the trap, causing a bit of turbulence to help the gold drop out into the trap, is my understanding.
 

bubby-joe

Greenie
Apr 5, 2008
10
2
The file I have is labeled BGT Prospector 2 and the dimension for the top inlet section was listed as 25-1/16th the png file you posted with your post doesn't show any values for the dimensions, if possible could you post the file here as well.
 

mofugly13

Full Member
Jan 30, 2015
198
184
San Francisco, Ca
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
I had to dig the sky file out of a long ago sent email. On my viewer, the dimensions show up too small for me to read...
I dont think the 1/16 is critical... its actually 2' 5 1/16".... plus 7" for the top plate creates an OAL of 36". I was learning sketchpad as I drew this out. Looks like you found a little flaw. Im pretty sure I had the original in inches only, not feet and inches.
 

bubby-joe

Greenie
Apr 5, 2008
10
2
Flaw or not thanks inspiration helps get stuff done, I'll be testing my mini version on beach deposits of black sand later today. I went with the mini version to take out on the motorcycle or the kayak. Your e-mail did not work as is returned by gmail. email went through to you an" l" missing in what you posted earlier.
 

Last edited:

bubby-joe

Greenie
Apr 5, 2008
10
2
I sent an email to you at Mofugly 13 @ Gmail. com not sure if its right but it went some where, mine is jbsab9 @ Gmail. com same thing just remove spacing, yes I'd like a copy of your file please.
 

mofugly13

Full Member
Jan 30, 2015
198
184
San Francisco, Ca
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
Sent...
If you look at the opened drawing from a birds eye view, you'll notice that the line extension on the portion that reads 2' 5 1/16" is not in line with the actual edge of the top plate. I think that might be where that extra 1/16" came from.
 

Last edited:

Top Member Reactions

Users who are viewing this thread

Top