About the Wolf Trap Sluice Boxes – all aluminum design, has an 18-inch flare, tapering to 10-1/2 inches, and measuring 34" long x 10-3/4" wide when in working position, folds to just 24" x 18". This makes it great for the back-packer, or where space is at a premium. Weighs just 6 lbs, and has two unique features: a reversible riffle bar assembly – a "slow water" position, and by removing and turning up-side-down, the riffles are now in the "Hungarian" or "fast water" position. Second, it has a 1-inch “well” in the bottom, creating a slow/dead water space for fine gold to settle out and stay trapped. Comes with removable carrying strap.
View Of The Wolf Trap 1-Inch Deep Well In Bottom -- Catches Fine Gold, Even In Very Fast Water!
Wolf Trap Disassembled -- Showing Reversible Riffles And 1-Inch Deep "Well" In Bottom
Why You Need A Wolf Trap
Sluice Box
In a standard Sluice Box the water must rise to go over the riffle. The water that enters the sluice is at speed S and volume V. If your water is 3 inches deep at speed S and you introduce a riffle in the stream/flow the water can't get deeper so it must go faster to clear it. If the riffle is 1 inch high the water speed increases 1 1/2 times. This means: The gold won't drop out as fast because the water is faster. Hence you need a longer sluice box. Not just 1 1/2 times longer but probable closer to 4 or 5 times longer to get the gold to drop out.
Now take one of the Wolf Trap Sluice Boxes.
Note: The riffle is below the entry water level. This means that the water must slow down to fill this extra space. Now what happens when the water slows down? It drops its Gold very quickly. Hence you don't need a real long sluice box to get the gold to drop out. This quick loss of water speed also makes the fine gold drop quickly. This fine gold would normally not drop at all.
Now that the gold has dropped out you must retain it in the box.
All sluices have same problem. How do you retain the gold???
Some use a piece of expanded metal under the riffle. They hope to hide the gold in it. Bad idea: The water now can find holes under the riffle to wash out the gold instead of trapping it.
Some use Miners Moss. This helps a little but it to has its down falls also. Since it is a open weave water can again wash out the gold from under the riffle. And now the gold also falls through the Miners Moss and lies against the bottom of the box. Bad Idea again: You can't get the bottom of the box in the middle to seal against the riffle. The box well buckle out and leave an open space in the middle. (You can check this for yourself. Take a piece of letter paper. Cut a strip from it ((1 1/2 to 2 inches wide)) and place it under the Miners Moss, or Carpet, in the middle of the box. When you are finished assembling the box. See how easy you can pull out the paper.) Guess what you are loosing, Yup that is right, lots of gold again.
Wolf had this same problem, but he solved it. By putting a dam across the end of the box below the water entry level. This retains the gold fines and doesn't increase the water speed.
To add to all of this I have very deep riffles and a riffle frame that flips over so you can adjust it for the water speeds you find when you get to the stream.
The down side to making my box: Because of these features it cost more to make and it takes longer to build. That is why my box cost a little more. You also have to clean up more often. Because of all of these changes my sluice boxes retains much more black sand and gold. I have seen as much as 2 to 3 inches of concentrate in the pail after a clean up.
Up side is that you get much more gold and much more of that hard to get finer gold
Adjustable Riffle Selection Guide:
FAST SIDE: For Spring Run offs and other very fast water conditions.
STANDARD SIDE: Normal and slow water conditions.
PLUS: For Very Slow Water and for Beach Sand in the surf some buyers remove the Riffle and use only the Riffled Carpet. You can use it on the beach by just staking down the Sluice Box in the edge of the surf. You let the surf wash over it, and then run back through the funnel.
BUT Please REMEMBER THIS ONLY WORKS IN the Wolf Trap Sluice Box because it has a Sunken Riffle Chamber So That The GOLD Won't Wash Out Of The Box.
What people are saying,
How much do I love my Wolf Trap Sluice?
Well, I own all 3 sizes and have used them all considerably. The mini is great for hiking into and testing new areas and the standard is my regular day trip sluice. The large or long I use when my boys are with me and plan on moving a lot of material. The best part is all 3 are legal for national forest use as they are all under 36”. The “Trap” is exactly that, these sluices catch gold I know I loose out of my other sluices. From fine to size of a pin head and even flour or minus 100 it does the job great, What a great sluice and thanks again Wolf for all your great help and knowledge.
O.K., This was my second sluice, and man does it excel in fast water! I bought it for working in Colorado, where the very heavy mineralization (hematite & magnetite) would rapidly clog the average sluice. To run the water fast enough to keep it clean meant fine gold loss. The Wolf Trap, with its two speed riffles and 1-inch deep well at the bottom works perfectly….best of both worlds. Run the water fast and right to the top of the sides, and shovel in your aggregate without classifying!
Yep, no need to classify…the water flow easily rolls the bigger/smaller rocks and light material right on thru and the gold and heavies collect in the well. You just have to ensure the material is evenly troweled into the water flume to ensure max time settling in the sluice.
Loved it so much, I bought a second one used. I added miner’s moss to one of my two, and have a black ribbed mat too. Final note, at 24” long, it fits easily in my big travel suitcase, important for airline travel today…my Le Trap is way too big now to move easily/cheaply.
Randy @ Gold Adventures . Biz
Wolf Trap Mining
Testimonial from Jerry Odom; Colorado Springs, Colorado 4-22-07
Hi, I’m from Colorado and have been prospecting for gold over 25 years. One thing is certain; there is more FINE gold than the big stuff especially here in Colorado. I bet that may be true wherever you may be prospecting. A standard sluice box use raised riffles, which make the water {plus the fine gold} go up and over the riffles. This simply speeds up the water and makes it extremely hard to capture the fine gold behind their riffles and most goes out the bottom end. The WOLF TRAP changed all that while applying a simple theory. Fine gold, as it moves down a stream is looking for a slower, wider pool of water so it can drop to the bottom. The WOLF TRAP box and riffles are below where the dirt and water enter which, one, does not speed up the water, two, gives the fine gold a place to settle just like it naturally would in a stream. The riffle design itself is really flexible as you can flip-flop the riffles depending on the speed of the stream you are working. Based on what I have seen using a standard sluice box next to a WOLF TRAP, the WOLF TRAP wins hands down with fine gold recovery with the standard sluice losing about 65-75% more of fine gold {the test consisted of running 5 five gallon buckets of dirt thru each sluice, sitting next to each other with the same angle, then pan what each sluice caught, then panning the tailing of each. Not scientific, but darn close to what you can expect}. If you are going to be out there, why not get more gold. I whole-heartily recommend the WOLF TRAP and I think you will be very happy at clean up time. Jerry Odom, Mountain Man Discount Store, Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Testimonial from Jack; Vancouver, Washington 3-28-09
Wolf your sluice box came today and I immediately tested it against my old box. I used a known quantity of fine and flake LEAD for gold. And your box captured nearly 100% of the flake and fine "gold" while my sluice lost about 30%. The big dust catcher was the dead end box at the "out" end. I also had the expanded metal in the old box and had no idea how much color was escaping. I’m going to see my son in Nevada County Cal. in a couple weeks and will send you an update on how this works for me looking for the real stuff. Thanks for taking the extra time building me your best box!! It was worth the wait.
Regards
Jack
Reversible riffles. Love the option of having 2 sluices in one, depending on water conditions & material type(s). I did a test on my last day on the NF American River by sluicing for about 3 1/2 hours. Ran three 2 1/2 gal pails each test. Total four times with cleanups between after 3 pails each. Two on fast and two on slow riffle bar settings. Two in one section of my gravel bar and one in another. Good news was all 4 showed good consistency on very fine gold capture, especially the little flat flakes, which I think are the hardest to catch in fast water. If you can get the gold out, you don't need a long sluice! I caught lots of -100 mesh gold with yours.
Gravel Scoop
4” Dia. Cup
1.2 Qts. Capacity
For Use in Placer Gold Prospecting
Fits into Back Packs – Light Wt – New Design
Made by
Wolf Trap Mining
This is for a NEW - TAKE DOWN - GRAVEL SCOOP. With a quick release removable Handle.
The Gravel Scoop has a 4” Dia. Cup that is about 6” long. You will find that it breaks down to less than 24” long. Assembled it has a 40” long handle that can reach those good gravel spots in front of and behind rocks in a fast water stream. It holds 1.2 Quarts of material from the streambed. And it won’t wash away like on a shovel when you pull it out of the water.
The Gravel Scoop Cup is made of Welded Steel Cup and Back Plate, and the Handle is Brazed to the Cup. The Take Down system is also Steel. It has a Orange Grip and a White Wrist Loop so that you won’t loose it when in the field.
The whole Scoop will fit right next to your Wolf Trap Sluice in you backpack or suit case.
The Scoop can also be used to dig dirt if you forget a small shovel. If you have a Wolf Trap Sluice you can dump the scoop straight into the Funnel of the sluice Box.
REMEMBER that the Scoop WON”T LOOSE THE MATERIAL THAT YOU PULL OUT of the stream bed from around the rocks.
Another use for the scoop is to get the material that is under and behind a waterfall. If you need a longer handle to reach further. You can always go down to a Hardware Store and buy a piece of ¾” steel conduit and make yourself a handle to what ever length you need. You just need to locate and drill a 9/32” hole for the takedown push button in to it.
Scoop Information:
The Scoop will break down to only 26 inches long and is ONLY 3 1/2 Lbs.
Just think of the last time you went out with a shovel and tried to get that good looking Gravel that you knew had plenty of gold in it. It was right there behind that rock, in the water, with that fast water running around it. You got your shovel out sunk it into that good-looking gravel. You got a good shovel full of gravel. You started to lift the shovel and the water washed it all away. You made sounds like a Drill Sergeant having a nice relaxed talk with his troopers. Then you made a few suggestions that somebody’s parents never got married. You turned Red and tossed the shovel on the bank or maybe missed and it fell in the water.
Well that’s in the past. You can now get that scoop of gravel and retain most of it in the scoops cup. You can either work it thru the gravel or line it up and give the backend of the cup a little kick with your foot to help fill up the cup. Now lift it out and pour it into a bucket or your Wolf Trap Sluice Box.
Hi Wolf:
The weight of the scoop is not a problem. I figure it is as heavy as a shovel that one may take with them but the scoop breaks down so that is a positive. I'd rather have the strength and durability over a lighter model. You asked me to give you any bad points, and that was the only one I could think of....even though it's not really a bad point. Oh, and it works great for scooping directly into the box! I was by myself that day but perhaps next time, I'll have someone shoot me using the scoop directly into the sluice and send it to you.
You may use the video and my testimony for your marketing.
Thanks for your input, I'll run my sluice as I have been. Fast. I like it a lot, it's a great product, light, easy to carry, and is the next best thing to having a high banker!
GPAA
GOLD FEVER SHOWS
YES YOU HAVE SEEN MY SLUICES
ON THE GOLD FEVER SHOWS
Tom Massie owns three of my Sluice Boxes and a Gravel Scoop.
You may be able to buy a Inferior Gravel Scoop for less. But Do you really want a Inferior Gravel Scoop?
”BOTTOM LINE”
How much Gold do you want to find?
A little, or a lot?
The Best May Seem to Cost a Little More
But It Is Always Worth It.
So here you have it, All the dirt we could find on Wolf Trap Mining Products to help make your decision to purchase the famous Wolf Trap Sluice and Gravel Scoop a little easier (we hope?)
Tim McCormack
New England Prospecting Supplies
