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Like New White's Bigfoot Coil Only $525!


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I am being sarcastic but it is true. Back in the day when I had these on the shelf new they were hard to sell. Now you see them like this one on eBay going for crazy sums of money used. How is it there is a coil that goes for up to $500 used and not one of the aftermarket coil manufacturers will take a stab at it? Yeah, I get they need to be hand made and tuned but Jim Karbowski managed to do it and they retailed for $219.95 new. Was it black magic? A lost art, now known to none?

The BigFoot is a 3" x 18" coil specially wound internally in a figure 8 pattern that eliminates electrical interference and allows the use of the front half of the coil for pinpointing with the DFX, which was designed with the coil in mind. The coils were hand made by Jim Karbowski who called his company Applied Creativity. They were sold exclusively through Jimmy Sierra. Jim Karbowski unfortunately passed away in 2007 and the coils now go for far more used on eBay than they ever did new. http://www.gazettetimes.com/news/local/obituaries/james-karbowski/article_c8505ae6-50ec-5639-8a21-33a96b718ad4.html The coils are labor intensive and despite lots if lobbying I never could get White's to make them.

BigFoot Technical Report

BigFoot Field Test

Diagram (in Russian)

More Technical Tidbits/Guesses

This report on coils has some interesting notes on figure 8 coils on pages 4 and 5. It mentions that the field reverses from front to rear and this is true if the 14 khz BigFoot is used on the MXT. The DFX is specially designed to compensate for this and so has uniform responses front and rear.

There is also a more conventional elongated DD design made by Tesoro called the Cleansweep. The BigFoot has a soft spot in the detection pattern in the middle where the figure 8 crosses over. The Cleansweep DD design is easier to make and eliminates that issue. The problem for me was I really got addicted to the DFX ability to trigger just the front half of the BigFoot for quick pinpointing - it is so good it is better than most dedicated pinpointing devices.

No, you can't have mine, not even for the absurd price of $500!

Oh yeah, beware. There are at least three BigFoot versions for different frequency White's machines. The most sought after are the DFX/MXT versions but there are others, and they do not go for as much. Here is a real beat up one for the old Eagle II

I have been lobbying Makro (gave up on White's years ago) but they have not bit - yet. Sure would be a great reason to buy a Racer, having a coil like that for it!

Here is my BigFoot and a friends in the U.K. on our MXTs.

image.jpg

And here is the same one on my old original White's Vision when they first came out.

whites specta-vision-herschbach-big-foot-coil-2009.jpg

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Steve, you are very tenacious. If lobbying one way does not achieve the desired results, switch gears and try another route. I like it.

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Oh, I forgot to say, Makro, I would love a facsimile of this Bigfoot coil for my Racer. I want one for finding nail beds around old mining camps. That sucker could cover some ground.

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I have had every version of the Bigfoot, including the one for the Prizim series. They are great fun to detect with.

I recently got a Goldfoot coil - it's sort of a half Bigfoot - 9" long. It is for the 6.59 kHz machines.

Both of these coils have excellent ability to pick up coins adjacent to big iron. Both the bigfoot and the Goldfoot will clearly signal a dime layinf 1/4" from the middle of a railroad spike - and that includes sweeping the hard way - along the length of the spike. All this with the spike clearly discriminated out - not even a sputter when the dime isn't there.

Only Problem is that the GB point for the goldfoot is way off "normal" - luckily my IDX pro has the GB mod.

There was also a version of this coil for the 50 kHz Goldmasters. Some (or all) of these were called Hotfoot.

post-3-0-12888400-1455293023_thumb.jpeg

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All this talk I decided I needed a new baby picture. Here is my very well taken care of Bigfoot for DFX - MXT serial #914. It is 17-3/4" x 3-1/4" x 1" and weighs exactly 12 oz (no scuff cover) This is a later model; the earlier ones were thicker and more rounded in profile.

applied-creativity-bigfoot-coil-whites-mxt-dfx.jpg

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I have used the Hotfoots but honestly did not see the real advantage. You have a 10" x 3" coil instead of the 10" x 5.5" coil or 6" x 4" coil. The Hotfoot came out before the small Shooter coil for the GMT and served a purpose then, but one the Shooter came out it was game over.

Not trying to talk your Hotfoot down by any means as there is nothing wrong with it as a coil. What makes the Bigfoot special is that wiper blade ability to quickly cover ground quickly and efficiently retrieve shallow targets. Some organized treasure hunts used to ban them as being an unfair advantage. That pretty much says it right there.

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This is the only serious competition for the Bigfoot, the Tesoro Cleansweep. I had one of these for a short while on a Tesoro Silver uMax. It is a much easier coil to build as it is just an elongated DD coil and so works with any normal detector it is designed for. I understand the Bigfoot being pretty much hand made and so not something people are anxious to make. Tesoro made these however and was able to retail them for only $199. This is the coil most any company should be able to make with no problem. Sure would like one for my Racer 2!

By the way, that used Bigfoot listed on eBay in my original post actually did sell for the $525 asked!!

tesoro-cleansweep-dd-coil.jpg

 

tesoro-cleansweep-coil-closeup.jpg

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