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GPR Member Markets His Own
Prospecting Equipment Line

by Dick Oakes

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[ WolfTrapMining ]

From the enterprising and entrepreneurial mind of one of our members, Wolf Stumpf, of Wolf Trap Mining, comes three products that can delight the empirical minds of folks like us! I'm talking here about the Wolf Trap Riffle Sluice Boxes, the Wolf Trap Gravel Scoops, and the newly added Wolf Trap Dry Washer.

Wolf's sluice box comes in two models (standard 24-inch and long 28-inch folded "box" lengths) and has three interchangeable riffles for three types of water conditions (fast, standard, and slow or beach sand). Each sluice has a fold-up funnel to make it extremely portable and each has a sling to allow you to hang it on your back. They are made of heavy-duty aluminum yet are quite light at 6 pounds for the standard model and 6 1/2 pounds for the long model. I bought mine from Wolf a few years ago and really like it!

As Wolf says, "Have you ever wished you could get that gravel out from behind that rock in the middle of the stream? Well, now you can with one of the Wolf Trap Gravel Scoops." When you don't have the bucks or inclination for a dredge, you can still extend your reach out and down with a standard- or long-handled scoop from Wolf Trap Mining! The scoops come in 40-inch or 60-inch handle lengths with cup diameters of 2 1/2, 3 1/2, or 4 1/2 inches (the longer the handle and the larger the cup, the harder it is to retrieve your materials in a swift-flowing stream!).

The piece de resistance in his line, however, is his new Wolf Trap Dry Washer. This 35-pound, 44-inch-high wonder is an original design. He purchased the rights to a design (from the latest owner, something like four times removed from the original designer) of a dry washer made in the 1930s, long before Keene started marketing their model. After having a good look at what it was really like, however, he opted to start building from scratch. It took him almost a year to come up with his final design, a completely new, modern and up to date dry washer. It is a reasonably priced, manually crank-operated, and he now has it in production for desert prospecting. It also can be converted to either a gas- or electric-powered unit. The biggest problem with bellows-type dry washers is that the bellows close completely, damaging the bellows material and making it crack. Wolf's dry washer, however, never closes all the way; there is always a one-inch separation when closed. Wolf has done something else no one else has done--he has used greaseable, sealed bearings on the mechanism toggle.

See Wolf demonstrate his line of prospecting equipment at our GPR meetings--he'll be glad to answer any questions you may have. For additional information and pricing, contact him by telephone at (303) 985-1279.


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