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Quick Iron Balance Test


F350Platinum

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8 minutes ago, BchPatrol said:

I'm not much of a metallurgist but I'd say they are a mix. They are the normal freebies that come with a cheap sun shade/canopy.

Try a magnet. If they are mostly aluminum, no amount of high iron bias settings will help.

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3 minutes ago, Jeff McClendon said:

Try a magnet. If they are mostly aluminum, no amount of high iron bias settings will help.

I just checked a couple of them and they are highly magnetic.

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23 minutes ago, BchPatrol said:

I just checked a couple of them and they are highly magnetic.

In beach 2, horseshoe on, IB 6, Recovery 6, auto sensing GB mode,  these tent stakes will double ring. They should also give  a minus vdi.  Even if they are galvanized it should not be different.  

Put a few on the ground and practice. 

So one other thing I should mention.  Coil control is important. So is centering the target.  Impossible to center any type of target at depth unless you are in horseshoe mode. 

Once centered, move the coil slow enough so that iron can react off both sides of the coil. If you burn the coil fast, you might only get one ring.  

Also, nonferrous targets do have the ability to double ring, but they will not be deep, and be confirmed by vdi numbers 1 or greater. 

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10 minutes ago, BchPatrol said:

I just checked a couple of them and they are highly magnetic.

High iron bias settings may stop them from falsing and may not. It is also debatable how the iron bias settings effect targets bigger than coins/crown bottle caps……

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6 minutes ago, midalake said:

In beach 2, horseshoe on, IB 6, Recovery 6, these tent stakes will double ring. They should also give  a minus vdi.  Even if they are galvanized it should not be different.  

Put a few on the ground and practice. 

So one other thing I should mention.  Coil control is important. So is centering the target.  Impossible to center any type of target at depth unless you are in horseshoe mode. 

Once centered, move the coil slow enough so that iron can react off both sides of the coil. If you burn the coil, you might only get one ring.  

OK. I'll practice a bit tonight and then give it a try tomorrow morning. I've been working with beach 1 but I can adjust beach 2 and try it.

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Just now, BchPatrol said:

OK. I'll practice a bit tonight and then give it a try tomorrow morning. I've been working with beach 1 but I can adjust beach 2 and try it.

Right now I can not say this will work in beach 1, so yes please try beach 2.  When I get back on my machine I am going to try Beach 1 if I can get it stable in my wet sand.  

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8 minutes ago, Jeff McClendon said:

High iron bias settings may stop them from falsing and may not. It is also debatable how the iron bias settings effect targets bigger than coins/crown bottle caps……

Thanks Jeff. I'll keep in mind that I'm truly experimenting here. 

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Before I repost from another thread I have to say here that I hunt on the beach with all metal and a 15" coil in Beach 1 at 23 just about all the time.  My FE2=0.  I have turned up my volume on iron to 10 or sometimes more so I can hear the deep, faint targets.  When I dig some of them on some of my beaches they go from negative to positive and they have been gold on enough occasions that I get Excited at deep, negative numbers.  

Simon and I have written about the negative numbers many times and we both find good targets by digging them when you know they are there.  You have to dig everything first.

This is what I said in the jewelry thread 'A Lot Of Numbers':

As a beach hunter I dig just about everything from a -6 up in an area until I find out it is not worth digging it.  I sometimes skip a -2 because it is a hair pin.  The -5s sometimes fool me lately because they are tent stakes.  The 0s and 1s can be foil bottle seals or ketchup foils but they can also be something good.  I get tired or sometimes forget a 14 is a pull tab but they can be real too.  Then the clad, corroded pennies can be anywhere from 15-25 on my beaches.  They take more interrogation.  If I'm working a patch which has quarters, dimes, pennies and jewelry I will sometimes skip a solid 20 to dig something more valuable if the tide is coming in or I just don't have enough time or energy for a penny.  That becomes evident at the end of a session of 3-5 hours.

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18 minutes ago, mn90403 said:

Before I repost from another thread I have to say here that I hunt on the beach with all metal and a 15" coil in Beach 1 at 23 just about all the time.  My FE2=0.  I have turned up my volume on iron to 10 or sometimes more so I can hear the deep, faint targets.  When I dig some of them on some of my beaches they go from negative to positive and they have been gold on enough occasions that I get Excited at deep, negative numbers.  

Simon and I have written about the negative numbers many times and we both find good targets by digging them when you know they are there.  You have to dig everything first.

This is what I said in the jewelry thread 'A Lot Of Numbers':

As a beach hunter I dig just about everything from a -6 up in an area until I find out it is not worth digging it.  I sometimes skip a -2 because it is a hair pin.  The -5s sometimes fool me lately because they are tent stakes.  The 0s and 1s can be foil bottle seals or ketchup foils but they can also be something good.  I get tired or sometimes forget a 14 is a pull tab but they can be real too.  Then the clad, corroded pennies can be anywhere from 15-25 on my beaches.  They take more interrogation.  If I'm working a patch which has quarters, dimes, pennies and jewelry I will sometimes skip a solid 20 to dig something more valuable if the tide is coming in or I just don't have enough time or energy for a penny.  That becomes evident at the end of a session of 3-5 hours.

I use a 15" Coiltek and I'll keep all of that in mind. I'm not sure about running at 23 though as stability starts to suffer around 20. I usually dig everything that gives me a repeatable tone. Sometimes I question my sanity when digging yet another 2,3,or 4 but they are usually close to the top and easy to dig/find. I would prefer to know that I'm after a stake while digging it. It's a bit of a bummer to start digging for a 25 and see a damn stake come out of the 3d scoop.

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Tent stakes are made out of iron most of the time. But they're galvanized / zinc-plated, that's why we hear them as good targets every now and then.

Tip if you're always hunting in all-metal mode:
Instead of using the horseshoe button after every power-on, you could change your accept / reject settings to accept every ID / the pattern to your liking. That way you're in "all-metal" after every power-on. Tradeoff: You lose the ability to discrim with the horseshoe button. But beeing a local setting, you can work around that problem..

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