Home made fluid bed gold trap sluice

Hi, I am fairly new to looking for gold and set myself a bit of a goal this week. The idea was to find 1 gram of flakes, I didn't get there but I did learn a bit and also tried a home made sluice to speed things up a bit.

A few google searches and a little time watching videos led me to the Bazooka Gold Trap sluice concept. Basically the sluice has no riffles, but uses a lower section (trap) to hold on to the heavies. Intrigued, I built up a basic prototype to see if the idea worked before spending the money on unknown technology.

Basically, material is washed over a classifier which allows heavies to drop into the trap, while larger material just moves off the end of the sluice. The heavies are then kept in suspension so that black sand, etc moves down, while blonde sand, etc exits the trap.

This is what I can up with, unfortunately I only had 19mm pine at home, so it is heavier than it needs to be and there is lots of wasted space, however it is good enough to test the concept.





The original idea is at
http://www.bazookagoldtrap.com/

Here is a video of how the concept works, showing the larger items washing off and the feed rate



And this one shows me panning the concentrates from one bucket.



I am really impressed with this system and will buy the original version shortly. A fast feed rate, no classifying, easy/ quick clean up and portability make this a great solution for me.

I didn't get the gram, but did have fun

awesome vids and well done that works well
cheers
stoppsy

Shaun

Nice job there mate, well done, i used to run a 2 mtr long sluice at that spot and the one thing that used
to do my head in was having to pre classify all the gravel before putting it through, my son actualy used
to beat me on the returns sometimes by just pulling up the weeds and shaking the roots out into a short
1mtr sluice for the flood gold...

Thanks for showing us the setup, good luck out there.


Pete in WA

Great post and a great build for a test !!

Good work. Thats a top project to play with. Any chance of a pic or drawing of the inside? It would be a great mod for a highbanker with a pump running the water flow...

A great post full of information, thanks. cheers

Hey Parsec,

Excellent workmanship there and a great concept will definitely be checking this one out.
I will start googling for it right away.

Where can we get the plans to build it?

Regards,

Grant

maka wrote:Good work. Thats a top project to play with. Any chance of a pic or drawing of the inside? It would be a great mod for a highbanker with a pump running the water flow...

Howdy, unfortunately I didn't take any photos of the inside before sealing it all together, but it is pretty simple. Basically water moves both across the top and also under the top plate. That water enters the trap at the end through 3 pvc pipes which have been drilled along the bottom and the sides. This page http://gpex.ca/smf/index.php?topic=5434.0 shows the concept fairly well, but if you do some searches for bazooka gold trap you will no doubt find some more info.

cheers

gcause wrote:Hey Parsec,

Excellent workmanship there and a great concept will definitely be checking this one out.
I will start googling for it right away.

Where can we get the plans to build it?

Regards,

Grant

Hi, I didn't work off plans, just the concept. Just design something that washes water across the top over a grizzly and also uses water to stir up the contents of the trap so that heavies sink and lighter stuff washes out. If you search for bazooka gold trap, fluid bed or schmidt (I think) sluice you will find lots of info.

The actual product is only $200ish plus postage from the states, so while a bit expensive for a joined and bent bit of ABS and lots of research and development, I actually think it is good value for something that works so well.

Ok thanks for that. I will investigate further.

Just watched some youtube vids on it... If you ignore the obvious salting in the posts, its actually not a bad set up, and ideal for creeks, i wish there was enough water around here to run one, and less clay to contend with... You could probably make a mini one from a paint tray...