In article ,
Sunworshipper SW@GWNTUNDRA wrote:

On Wed, 2 Feb 2011 21:41:47 -0800, "Steve B"
wrote:


"Jon Anderson" wrote in message
...
On 2/1/2011 10:19 PM, Steve B wrote:

She built a viewer out of 4" PVC with a glass bottom, and walked the
creek.
In the first week, she found one nugget the size of a golfball, and
several
smaller ones of good weight. Hugh gave up on all the heavy stuff and
just
used the underwater viewer after that.

Another neat item, though a lot pricer, is the White's Goldmaster, tuned
specifically for gold.

The 16 to 1 mine in Allegehaney, California, has taken to using metal
detectors quite a bit. They found one dang decent size specimen in a well
traveled tunnel, just a foot or two inside the rock. They'd been walking
right by it for many years and had no clue it was there.


Jon

IIRC, they are the prime method of finding gold in Australia, and companies
have even made specific models to deal with Australian soils. I have been
using mine for looking for meteorites. None yet, but some possible
specimens. I use three neodymium 1.5" disks right now, and boy, you can
hear it when something clicks and jumps on the magnets. Will have these
analyzed at some time, there is a lot of iron in the soils hereabout, the
next county north being Iron county, and iron ore to make cast iron has been
mined there for 150 years now.

Steve


You should see it up here by Iron Mountain Mi. My cheap metal
detector in Vegas would beep loudly over a penny, up here the penny
doesn't ever beep at all. Matter of fact, the thing has a tone and
goes blank over something metal and back to a tone here unless it's an
anvil.

Wonder if this has anything to do with it.

http://thebigfoto.com/earths-gravity

I seem to have moved to a big low spot. I'd like to make a
magnetometer some day. Plus try to get it to work just above or below
water.

Has nothing to do with gravity.

The issue in Australia and I assume Iron Mountain is that there is a lot
of various kinds of ferrite in the soil, which raises the background
level, making for instance that penny less visible to a detector.

Joe Gwinn

"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Sunworshipper SW@GWNTUNDRA wrote:

On Wed, 2 Feb 2011 21:41:47 -0800, "Steve B"
wrote:


"Jon Anderson" wrote in message
...
On 2/1/2011 10:19 PM, Steve B wrote:

She built a viewer out of 4" PVC with a glass bottom, and walked the
creek.
In the first week, she found one nugget the size of a golfball, and
several
smaller ones of good weight. Hugh gave up on all the heavy stuff and
just
used the underwater viewer after that.

Another neat item, though a lot pricer, is the White's Goldmaster,
tuned
specifically for gold.

The 16 to 1 mine in Allegehaney, California, has taken to using metal
detectors quite a bit. They found one dang decent size specimen in a
well
traveled tunnel, just a foot or two inside the rock. They'd been
walking
right by it for many years and had no clue it was there.


Jon

IIRC, they are the prime method of finding gold in Australia, and
companies
have even made specific models to deal with Australian soils. I have
been
using mine for looking for meteorites. None yet, but some possible
specimens. I use three neodymium 1.5" disks right now, and boy, you can
hear it when something clicks and jumps on the magnets. Will have these
analyzed at some time, there is a lot of iron in the soils hereabout,
the
next county north being Iron county, and iron ore to make cast iron has
been
mined there for 150 years now.

Steve


You should see it up here by Iron Mountain Mi. My cheap metal
detector in Vegas would beep loudly over a penny, up here the penny
doesn't ever beep at all. Matter of fact, the thing has a tone and
goes blank over something metal and back to a tone here unless it's an
anvil.

Wonder if this has anything to do with it.

http://thebigfoto.com/earths-gravity

I seem to have moved to a big low spot. I'd like to make a
magnetometer some day. Plus try to get it to work just above or below
water.

Has nothing to do with gravity.

The issue in Australia and I assume Iron Mountain is that there is a lot
of various kinds of ferrite in the soil, which raises the background
level, making for instance that penny less visible to a detector.

Joe Gwinn

"Ground balancing" is a very important feature of any good metal detector,
and one that is not understood very well by many operators. Plus, the soil
conditions can change five feet from where you set it.

On 2/3/2011 4:33 AM, Sunworshipper wrote:

My cheap metal detector in Vegas would beep loudly over a penny, up
here the penny doesn't ever beep at all. Matter of fact, the thing
has a tone and goes blank over something metal and back to a tone
here unless it's an anvil.

I'm not an expert with metal detectors, but have owned a couple low end
models. Typically they do not do well in highly mineralized soil. I've
experienced the same thing with a cheap Garrett detector.

I was out in the ruins of You Bet, a gold rush era mining town just east
of Grass Valley many years ago, with the Garrett. There's an
unbelievable quantity of flattened tin cans out there, just below the
surface. I couldn't tell one of them from an axe head, or any other
large signal, and the ground itself was mineralized enough to cause
problems. There was another fellow out there that day with a state of
the art detector. We didn't even speak to each other, just sorta warily
worked around a pit that had been the cellar of a long departed house.
I got disgusted digging up flat tin cans and started only digging up
things that gave a much shorter and sharper tone. Finally gave up and
left. Next day ran into a friend that knew I was into detecting, and he
tells me about a guy he knew finding a mason jar full of silver dollars
out in You Bet. I described the guy and he asks how the heck I knew.
Told him I was there. Always wondered if that jar was one of the large
vague signals I'd ignored...

Cheap detectors are find for finding lost rings and coins at the local
playground, but really are next to useless for anything approaching
serious work.

Jon

On 2/3/2011 8:06 AM, Steve B wrote:

"Ground balancing" is a very important feature of any good metal detector,
and one that is not understood very well by many operators. Plus, the soil
conditions can change five feet from where you set it.

Exactly. It takes time and patience to learn how to tune ground balance,
and in some areas it seems that's all one ends up doing, constantly
tuning... Been out of it a while, but I'm pretty sure the newest models
can auto tune to a large degree. I want to take a decent one with me
when I move down under. My wife spent a lot of time roaming the bush and
has found old coins on the surface. Makes me wonder what might lie just
below!


Jon

On Thu, 03 Feb 2011 09:26:26 -0800, Jon Anderson
wrote:

On 2/3/2011 4:33 AM, Sunworshipper wrote:

My cheap metal detector in Vegas would beep loudly over a penny, up
here the penny doesn't ever beep at all. Matter of fact, the thing
has a tone and goes blank over something metal and back to a tone
here unless it's an anvil.

I'm not an expert with metal detectors, but have owned a couple low end
models. Typically they do not do well in highly mineralized soil. I've
experienced the same thing with a cheap Garrett detector.

I was out in the ruins of You Bet, a gold rush era mining town just east
of Grass Valley many years ago, with the Garrett. There's an
unbelievable quantity of flattened tin cans out there, just below the
surface. I couldn't tell one of them from an axe head, or any other
large signal, and the ground itself was mineralized enough to cause
problems. There was another fellow out there that day with a state of
the art detector. We didn't even speak to each other, just sorta warily
worked around a pit that had been the cellar of a long departed house.
I got disgusted digging up flat tin cans and started only digging up
things that gave a much shorter and sharper tone. Finally gave up and
left. Next day ran into a friend that knew I was into detecting, and he
tells me about a guy he knew finding a mason jar full of silver dollars
out in You Bet. I described the guy and he asks how the heck I knew.
Told him I was there. Always wondered if that jar was one of the large
vague signals I'd ignored...

Cheap detectors are find for finding lost rings and coins at the local
playground, but really are next to useless for anything approaching
serious work.

Jon

Yeah, know the feeling. In Nevada I could be out in the middle of
nowhere and almost everything I dug up was a bullet. One time I was at
Delamar NV. and started metal detecting in the huge tailing pile,
first beep was a bullet !

Talk about nowhere. Just found what looks like a long runway just NNW
of that town on goolge earth. If that's what it is, must be a
emergency strip cause there is nothing around it. Just south of the
paved road, the road that use to be red, have a picture of it
somewhere.


SW

On 2/3/2011 10:45 AM, Sunworshipper wrote:

Yeah, know the feeling. In Nevada I could be out in the middle of
nowhere and almost everything I dug up was a bullet. One time I was at
Delamar NV. and started metal detecting in the huge tailing pile,
first beep was a bullet !

Haha, yeah, I've found a couple dozen bullets out in the woods, and not
in banks or hillsides, but out in flat areas. Pretty much where they
landed I'd guess.

One of the neatest things I found was a plain whiskey shot glass in
perfect condition. Just happened to be in the midst of yet another
collection of flattened tin cans...


Jon

"Jon Anderson" wrote

Cheap detectors are find for finding lost rings and coins at the local
playground, but really are next to useless for anything approaching
serious work.

Jon

You got that mostly right. Doing homework and establishing the age of a
site is a good practice. Setting search grids is good. Doing a site
examination for purple glass, square nails, potsherds, etc, is good, too.
Digging up everything is good. Learning how to use the discriminator
feature is good. Learning how to use the ground balance is good.

Just learning how to use the detector you have is good. Most people do not
spend enough time to learn their detector, have their controls set
improperly, move through an area too fast, get discouraged too easily, and
give up too soon. Whenever I am in an area of purple glass, I search
thoroughly in grids, and dig up most everything. If I am in a hurry, I turn
up the discriminator, and silver, copper, and gold coins will stay. But you
will lose nickels and 14k gold.At high discriminator settings, lead, brass,
and a few other unwanted things will stay. Most big chunks of iron will
give a loud but slightly broken signal. You just have to know your machine
intimately from using it for about 500 hours or so.

But, generally, when searching in a 100+ year old area, it is good to take
time and dig everything with low settings, as even some small buttons,
jewelry, tokens, coins, jewelry, gold nuggets, and other things can be quite
valuable, or just historically interesting. Deep items like the jar of
dollars will not appear at all with settings that are too high. I'd rather
search all day in a 100+ year old area and find nothing than go to the park
and find a hundred coins. But I did find an English two penny coin once at
a park that was worth $200. Some kid brought it to the park and lost it
under the swing set.

Metal detectors are cool, don't take up much room, and you will always pass
lots of abandoned sites where you always wonder what you might find. Lots
of people are very agreeable to letting you look on their land, and will
even direct you to places where buildings once stood.

Steve

Heart surgery pending?
Read up and prepare.
Learn how to care for a friend.
Download the book.
http://cabgbypasssurgery.com

"Jon Anderson" wrote in message
news
On 2/3/2011 8:06 AM, Steve B wrote:

"Ground balancing" is a very important feature of any good metal
detector,
and one that is not understood very well by many operators. Plus, the
soil
conditions can change five feet from where you set it.

Exactly. It takes time and patience to learn how to tune ground balance,
and in some areas it seems that's all one ends up doing, constantly
tuning... Been out of it a while, but I'm pretty sure the newest models
can auto tune to a large degree. I want to take a decent one with me when
I move down under. My wife spent a lot of time roaming the bush and has
found old coins on the surface. Makes me wonder what might lie just below!


Jon

If you're going to Australia, you could find one gold nugget that would pay
for the whole trip.

Steve

On 2/3/2011 2:13 PM, Steve B wrote:

If you're going to Australia, you could find one gold nugget that would pay
for the whole trip.

There were gold fields not too far away from where I'll be settling. But
of much greater interest would be caches of coins buried by bushrangers
of the mid 1800's. My wife knows the bush as intimately as anyone within
a 100 mile radius. I'm confident we'll uncover a stash or two. She's
found a few coins that are fairly valuable already. They are out there
and not so many people looking for them.

A great book for anyone seeking hidden/lost treasure is "Treasure
Hunter's Manual" by Karl von Mueller.


Jon

"Jon Anderson" wrote in message
...
On 2/3/2011 2:13 PM, Steve B wrote:

If you're going to Australia, you could find one gold nugget that would
pay
for the whole trip.

There were gold fields not too far away from where I'll be settling. But
of much greater interest would be caches of coins buried by bushrangers of
the mid 1800's. My wife knows the bush as intimately as anyone within a
100 mile radius. I'm confident we'll uncover a stash or two. She's found a
few coins that are fairly valuable already. They are out there and not so
many people looking for them.

A great book for anyone seeking hidden/lost treasure is "Treasure Hunter's
Manual" by Karl von Mueller.


Jon

I almost emigrated to Australia in 1966 after high school, but could not
qualify under their strict job standards. I have always found it
fascinating, and may still go some day. There are some very big nuggets
found there, and if you live close to a known deposit, you're in a good
spot. Just see what detectors the locals are using, and buy a good one.
Then spend the time to learn how to use it right.

Can I come visit?

Steve

On 2011-02-03, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

"DoN. Nichols" wrote:

On 2011-02-02, Steve Ackman wrote:

[ ... ]

Big Bang Theory. Sometimes socially inepter, but
certainly not stupider. ;-)

That's the only one which I watch. :-)


I've worked with people like them.

What worries me is that I probably *was* like them way back
when. :-)

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Remove oil spill source from e-mail
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

"DoN. Nichols" wrote:

On 2011-02-03, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

"DoN. Nichols" wrote:

On 2011-02-02, Steve Ackman wrote:

[ ... ]

Big Bang Theory. Sometimes socially inepter, but
certainly not stupider. ;-)

That's the only one which I watch. :-)


I've worked with people like them.

What worries me is that I probably *was* like them way back
when. :-)


Nothing wrong with being a nerd. It's the pompous nerds that give
the rest a bad name.


--
You can't fix stupid. You can't even put a band-aid on it, because it's
Teflon coated.