diy bazooka mini trap sluice

I went to Bunnings today.

Bought a sheet of plastic and some aluminium angles
Whipped this up in a few hours
Just followed the pics above as a guide and off I went

My first go at making a sluice and will be the first time I use one when I get to the river next

That looks good Saintpaul

I found the PDF, but no DXF - so not sure how useful this is:

https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/doc/member-docs/12642/1600674553_diy_mini_fluid_bed_sluice_compressed.pdf

Awesome, like plans and like the perspex build.What did you cut the perspex with.
Cheers T.

Teemore said:

Awesome, like plans and like the perspex build.What did you cut the perspex with.
Cheers T.

Click to expand...

Just a jigsaw
The aluminium brackets do a great job hiding all the wonky bits and squaring things up :Y:

Had to have a look at a vid to see how this worked.

So, the water comes in the open end - opposite end to the tube pieces.

The gravels wash over the grate - big bits away and little bits through the grate and into the chamber below.

Simultaneously water is pushing into the bottom shute and into the 2 tubes creating a lot of pressure and turbulence into the chamber that the small gravels have dropped into.

The lighter gravels get flushed upwards and over the lip and the heavier materials stay in the bottom.

Is that right? Quite ingenious.

Yeah thats basically it. Pretty cool invention hey. Ive seen smaller ones before (i think they where made by 3d printer) and definately like the idea of a bigger one such as this

Hi there,

just got a message about my old post here. I've uploaded the DIY Bazooka plans on google drive. For the Mini and 36" Prospector if someone is still interested.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1yZvsyZtlHrKdEB-4-LsT8I693du6piQ6?usp=sharing

Stay safe & healthy!
Daniel

Thanks for uploading your plans Daniel, fantastic design mate, much appreciated. erfect:

Thanks for posting that, great for the DIY builder.
Cheers T.

SaintPaul said:

Teemore said:

Awesome, like plans and like the perspex build.What did you cut the perspex with.
Cheers T.

Click to expand...

Just a jigsaw
The aluminium brackets do a great job hiding all the wonky bits and squaring things up :Y:

Click to expand...

Yep, had a closer look, cut the stuff with a jigsaw previously and lots of chipped edges, thought there may have been a better way of cutting.... but as you say a lot fo it is hidden anyway, Thanks.
Cheers T.

HOw is it cleaned out? do you just tip iinto bucketwith water and swirl about??

Eski said:

HOw is it cleaned out? do you just tip iinto bucketwith water and swirl about??

Click to expand...

Yeah. The smaller end fits into a 20lt bucket i think. Nice and easy to clean out

cool, never quite got it...

I went out with my perspex creation and it seemed to work ok.

The dirt would flow over the grate and the big rocks went over the top well enough but it did seem to trap alot of stuff in the compartment below and it filled very quickly.
Perhaps I need to put a few more holes in the pipes to create more a swirl? to push more of the lighter stuff out (I currently only have 1 row of holes in each pipe)
I was in a creek that had lots of fine gravel so whether it would be work better in a more sandy/muddy area I dont know. More experimentation needed

I had no problem setting it up though you did generally need to use a foot, or a helper to help hold it in place in the current.

Need to get a normal sluice now and some matting and try that also

The back compartment is supposed to fill.

It stays full throughout your operations.

The design is supposed to keep the contents of the box jiggling around and loose and uncompacted.

Bit like quicksand.

As heavies go into the box they sink into the loose material, displacing lighter materials

You should be able to run it for hours before needing to clean out.

Looking at your photos your feed rate is to high, shouldnt really get the Grizzly bars totally blocked up like that, good flow rate helps too, , get a good flow through the sluice and particular up and over the Grizzly bars and you can feed it pretty quick but not really a bucketful at a time.




Last photo is of reduced flow rate, not running up over the Grizzly bars like the first two, was taken to show the gold caught in the witness riffle across the back end of the slick plate. But Ive put it in to give an idea of the flow rate in the first two pics where the water is running over the top deck above and behind the Grizzly bars.

I would really like to buy one of these is there are any up for sale ..

nucopia said:

I would really like to buy one of these is there are any up for sale ..

Click to expand...

Same here. It seems like nobody sells them in australia. Can order from the usa on ebay but is getting over expensive when postage is taken into account. Someone earlier in the thread was contenplating taking the plans to someone and knocking some up for pa members to buy/order, but never heard any more about it after its first mention :/