Building the better mouse trap 

The original mouse trap is what me got to your channel, it's always nice to see you improve on your previous designs!

Thank you so much for taking the time and effort to make this build tutorial. My mice are driving my crazy stealing the bait out of the traps without setting them off. We'll see how the little buggers do with this awesome contraption!!!

Weapon of mouse destruction!

BRAVO! I too had built a bucket trap and used an Arlo camera for surveillance. Without the magnet, the video showed how cautious the mouse is, and in fact will usually safely back up. The magnet is a key component to catch the mouse on its first exploration rather than hours later. Thanks for your videos. I'm totally envious of your shop!

If you scale this up and put a $100 bill ot the end, will it catch humans?

Hello Matt. I made one of your earlier, non-resetting traps and really liked it. When you came out with the new design I ended up making 3 of them. I have now caught 27 mice since the autumn (2 months). Great stuff. I love your channel. Thanks for all of your hard work. By the way, I find motor oil, or windshield washer fluid work great as they don't freeze.

If you have access to welding gear you could release some argon over the bucket. since its heavier than air it would stay at the bottom of the bucket and suffocate the mice pretty quickly.

I built one of these in grade 5 for a project with my dad, excellent project to work on and very effective. Mine wasn't as complex as yours though. Wonderful stuff man! subbed

Build this trap a few days ago. Already catch 7 mice with it! Thank you for the plans, this thing is brilliant

I used your plans and built one in about 30 minutes this evening. Caught a mouse within a couple hours of setting it!!

Hahaha I love how he softly indicated that if you have dealt with mice you will want them to drown but if you haven't you might want to just let them go somewhere else 😂 I'm all for the water!

Matthias, did you know that Adam Savage praised your channel in his Maker Faire talk ? (It's on the Tested channel).

Are you selling these on Ebay now? Someone else is if it's not you and they used this exact template? I knew you should have patented it Matthias :) They are selling today and Shawn Woods Channel talked about it and mentioned you also :) It's a great design and it's "launched" :)

I would have loved to have had this while living in Vermont. I like the stipulation at the end in regards to those who have and haven't dealt with mice. I started out on the sawdust-side of the spectrum and ended up on the water-side rather quickly. When your home is under attack, you don't take prisoners.

"Mouse Trap" more like "Mouse Concentration Camp"

how many Better Mice has it caught?

Aww no video of it in use?

Should put this thing over an aquarium full of red belly piranhas

In the oilfield this is called a "roughneck mouse trap." Tons of 5 gallon buckets and a ton of field mice come to eat everyone's food and stay warm. If they're using water based mud then there will be caustic soda and lime on location which guys have been known to put in the bucket. It's a pretty unfortunate way for the mouse to go, but maybe quicker than drowning.

I just built mine a week ago, but on the bottom of the bucket, I put those glue pads you buy at WalMart. I was gonna release them. But Three fell in. One fell in a such way that his mouth was at the other mice's hind leg. Well needless to say, the mouse chew the other one's leg off Two of them were dead. I released the cannibal by using cooking oil, but I took him a mile from my property into the woods. I respect cannibals. Don't think he survived for too long as my swamp is filled with cotton mouths.

Putting the paper blueprint on the wood is quite clever!

2-04-2018 - - - - Nice workshop and nice tools. Also, you could put an identical bucket upside down on the top of this bucket so they wouldn't jump out.

Thank you again! My son and I love building your contraptions.

Boy! I would love to see the footage of how mice "use" the trap.

I'd be really interested to see someone use an arduino and an infrared sensor or even computer vision to have it release an electromagnet when it sees the mouse on the ramp. That way mice could get right to the end of it before it would release.

Just a thought. What about using the lid for the bucket/bin/whatever it is you are using and cutting out most of the center but leaving a lip so that the jumping mice can't grab the edge to get out. Maybe just an inch or so could be enough.

I like the "non-lethal" approach myself. Sawdust is a nice idea for a soft landing and making jumping out difficult. As long as someone checks the trap every day so the poor critter doesn't starve to death. Perhaps drop a piece of cheese in there as nourishment?

You expand on this a bit with a battery and a sensor. Hook up the battery to the magnet, then when the mouse trips a motion sensor on the plank, it could cut the power to the magnet.

A+ on those band saw skills.

Who needs a CNC-machine if he has big print and a bandsaw ;)

Man, this guy works power tools like a boss!

You can also cut the bottom of a 2nd bucket off 2" below the ribs and insert it into the 1st bucket to add an extra 2"-3" to the trap's overall height.

My grandfather made a similar trap back int he 1950's according to my mother. His was a simple trap door where the rat(yes rat, not mouse) wouldn't even get a chance to get any of the bait. It would walk across a plank on top of an old barrel and half way across the trap door would give way and the rat would be dumped into the barrel full of water. Supposedly they lived by the wharf in St. John, NB and were infested with rats.

This is exactly how I used to catch mice when I lived in my sisters back house. You dont need this contraption though. Just put food in the bucket and give the mouse a way to jump in and he will. You just made a fancy diving board for him.

Thanks for coming back, Wendell - I missed your postings! Gordon (BTW, great idea and implantation of your idea.... Again, thanks for posting...)

For your time and money, I suggest a JT Eaton multiple catch mouse trap. I just caught 15 mice in one last night. You have to empty the trap into a bucket in the morning but the results are worth it.

I just bought a product called Snap Alert that attaches to a mousetrap that sends out an alarm that a mouse has been caught. Bought it on Amazon, pretty cool.

You are straight the best engineer

Reminds me of a David Sedaris monologue that starts "I was on the front porch, drowning a mouse in a bucket when this van pulled up..."

Good vid! Instead of water, fill the bottom portion of the bucket with plumbing antifreeze... That way the trap is good all yr round! Or atleast for us that live in the northern parts where freezing is an issue...

It's an especially good trap when you have a cat around and don't want it to eat a poisoned mouse.

Who else wants to see a follow up where we get to watch mice die?

Your workshop is AMAZING!!!!!

Interesting. I see where your design is coming from and I'll most certainly give it a shot my self once I get a chance.

Thank you for explaining the dynamics. It's more of a "retail" design. Could be constructed far simpler.

You are the BEST. Simply a genius and thank you so much for the plans because they save time and improve accuracy. Keep going, love your videos

Couldn't a lid of some sort also block them from getting out? Maybe just covering half the open space.

Nice work on the improved designed.

You could put the lid back on, and just cut a hole allowing for the mechanism, you only need the lip of the lid to overhang to stop them jumping out.

Can we get a newer video of the mouse doing its thing...

By the way, I use two nickels (10 grams) to calibrate my trip point. A mature mouse weighs about 20 grams.

Awesome upgrade, tnx Mr. Wandel.

"If you haven't dealt with mice before and would like to make it someone else's problem" Lmao! My thoughts exactly!

Bahaha. I love the assumption that if you've dealt with mice before you'll want to drown them, but if you haven't, you won't want to kill them. That's hilarious.

Nice and thorough job, as usual Matthias. We have problems with mice and chipmunks eating our garden produce, and just being a nuisance. I will adapt this to something I can put in the garden to catch our chipmunks!

Very clever idea! My first mouse licked most of the peanutbutter off the end of the plank before it fell in. The second time I came back, no peanutbutter, no mouse!! So this time I put peanutbutter on the bottom side of the end of the plank so it would draw them way out on the trap. Got a second mouse!!!!! Thanks!

I just saw a german tv report about the marble machine from Wintergatan, and they showed a short piece of one of your videos :D apparently it was the reason he started the project :)

Hey Matthias, Wally from Sterling Heights Michigan getting back to you. You May already know this but I was just looking for an old idea that I saw years ago on Popular Mechanics. Anyhow I just saw your latest video posted on their site about your new mouse trap!! Good for you. Wally

Instructions unclear, mouse stuck in ceiling fan.

The surveillance footage is what made the other video popular though!

Another great video. Ive been watching your channel for several months now and it has helped make me a better woodworker. Thanks and keep up the good work.

Very good design. Can I make one suggestion. That you add some electronic control. A touchmatic type sensor on a metal pad for the peanut butter or bait that controls a solenoid magnet. It only lets go when the mouse/rat touches it. See the thing is a heavier mouse/rat would trip the board early and fail, I think. If instead the magnet was to hold solid until the sensor indicated to let go. The solenoid might be controlled by timing circuit. A few seconds of power drop and then re-established would do the trick. Awesome the way your design reloads. I made a cruder version of your design (no electronics) tonight and waiting to see it in action. In my case I open the door and stand still and eventually I get to see the rat show.

Hi, Ive got a suggestions but Im not sure if they will work. 1.) Have you tried placing the plank further from the edges? 2.) Adjust the length of the plank... Was thinking of ways that'll throw them off their balance and not allow recovery... Love your work btw~

This is still just as cool as the first video! New we need to find a source for extra tall buckets... And I don't know why, but saying "tippy ramp" makes me laugh :)

It's pretty cool, I'm not sure if it's a "better" mouse trap. The Victor design is more compact and humane.

I like the part at the end, "if you haven't dealt with mice before, and want to make it someone else's problem...". They're pests and they multiply like mad. I would prefer to not have to kill them, but that is the right thing to do.

I'd love to see some more test videos, but if this version of the trap.

For my technology class I'm doing wood works. I'm making a monster truck with a cam at the front wheels to make the bonnet go up and down as the car moves forward or backwards

ever thought about using glass instead of plastic? I assume the plastic of an Icecream tub is still soft enough to grab onto eventually for the mouse.

Can you do a demonstration of the new one?

This is mesmerizing to watch! This dude knows what he's doing! Now I just need a few grand in woodworking tools. ;)

Excellent, thanks for taking the time to make and post this video, it’s much appreciated.

good video but the plans could be improved. There isn't any mention of the measurement used. A couple of sizes are in millimeters and it is safe to assume the rest are in centimeters but that is not made clear. Also the thickness of the plank end is not mentioned. I'm guessing it is around 5mm thick.

You could put an upside-down funnel shape lid to use as a have a heart trap as well. no way they could get out

One problem with these traps are that mice eat each other whenever caught in a small space together, so you need to make sure that you check it every dday

awww...i was hoping there was another time lapse video of the mouse!!

How hard would it be to make a device such that a plank is held in place by an electromagnet, a mouse walks out on the plank to get the bait and breaks a beam of light causing the magnet to be turned off so the mouse falls into a barrel? The advantage is that the same trap could be used for various sizes of animal.

Maybe a fun challege: make a woodworking machine that fits in a 70x70x70cm drawer. If all/some of your tools would have a separate drawer, you could make a (vertical) cabinet with those tools so it wouldn't take up a lot of space. I have a really small workshop, so this is what I am thinking of to make some more space, so that is why I send you this challenge.

What about a ring around the inside of the bucket? From your other video, it looks like they need the flat wall of the bucket to climb up.

I found your channel when I saw your mousetrap video. I am happy that you made a new video :)

Funny that we both have vermin problem this week :))

You need the musically-set timelapse video of the mice trying to jump out of the bucket if you expect to get a million views on this one too :) Perhaps you could put in some marble machine pieces and make it into a mouse played platform-game that they have to escape after they have fallen in the center

Or for mouse to not get out, you could just add big flat wood ring, so the inside (falling part) is open, but sides are blocked and the mouse can't slide out of it

Do you think using the bucket lid to make a horizontal lip would keep the mice from jumping out?

Thanks for the template, however it does not state what unit the measurements are in. Millimeters, centimeters...inches?

what if the wieghted can was improved by instead of having a wieght, it has a little dial thing, like a piece of plastic that stabilizes the can until enough torque is applied to make the stopper fail. that offers a variable resistance-- sorta like the wheel of fortune's arrow thingy, except it would be the wheel of disfortune...

I like it when matt says tippy

Fascinating display of ingenuity! I learned something new: pasting plans onto media. Very similar to how sister makes dresses.

Brilliant as always sir.

Nicely designed!

mouse can be extremely dangerous and may attack at any time so we must deal with it. So let's see...

Very good your videos. What software used to create the plans?

what a magic mouse trap well designed

Nothing quite like the sound of a well used bandsaw blade.

Your a pretty good builderman, and your good at recycling, im saying that because of the way you used the ice cream contaner. im inspired.

I'm going to put a crocodile at the bottom of mine because I'm evil.

can I ask. Why don't you youse a riving knife. you've probably answered this before but aren't you afraid of kick back? or is it that you make your own inserts and it takes too much to extend the slot

Hi. Thanks for sharing this video. This is the best mouse trap ever and can catch multiple mice each time. I would like to try making this. Have some questions: 1. How to you make the edges of the ramp harder for the mouse to hang on to when it it about to fall? 2. Why did you make the wood ramp hollow (like a horse shoe)? Thanks.

man i loved the origional video of this and now this one too. keep it up!

Nice improvements!