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It's Almost Like Cheating!


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Is there a picture to help us understand?

Mitchel

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Nice work Steve

That was working Discrimination to your advantage for your specific site and targets.

Any photos of your copper found ?

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Not that I can with current bandwidth limitations. Once I return, then gladly. 

I found today that copper that was freshly crushed out of embedding rock isn't as oxidized as some released long ago. It appears either the mixture of metals differs from site to site, or the level of oxidation as well as size can give it quite differing numbers. So, it's prudent to start digging everything to learn what you want to avoid then adjust accordingly. I learned today that one's site's settings don't pan out for other sites! 

Still learning, but liking this detector all the more as I do!

Curious about the ground balance numbers being as high as mid 70's! Wasn't just my detector, my friend's was too! Going to turn on the auto tracking and see how that works tomorrow. What a great machine!

 

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I've got a thousand bottle caps to one gold earring in that 12-19 range on the beach.   When I found the earring, two feet away I got an identical number and thought for sure I had a pair.  Instead, a bottle cap.  ?

I've since found this trick handy:

All metal, then backup a bit and get the tip of the coil over it verses the center.  Tells me right away I'm on a cap again.  Only time it's tougher now is when numerous items right next to each other.

 

As much as I want to notch some junk out I know Im not ready and am still digging pretty much all except these easy to spot beach bottlecaps.  Well still gettin some when they are close to treasure!

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2 hours ago, staffydog33 said:

I just turn on all metal and pump the coil. Tells me straight away if it's a bottlecap.

So bottlecaps are easy again.  Good news, because back in June it was a dig everything machine...glad we got that sorted out.  I still get fooled by the occasional bottle cap even with the above tricks.  After getting warmed up to digging a few early in a detecting session, then the "softer" audio starts to also clue me in as well.  But it is definitely not going to be a 100% solution no matter what.

On 7/6/2018 at 11:37 AM, staffydog33 said:

I got lots of gold here that rings in the 12-19 range....so i would be losing a LOT of gold with that discrimination.

 

Matt

True but I think he was solely hunting for copper metal.

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On 7/4/2018 at 5:00 PM, SteveJJ said:

Ok, back on the Keweenaw Peninsula detecting on copper mine tailings.

If you get a chance could you go into a bit more detail about where to hunt on the peninsula, what to expect in terms of targets, etc.?  I see pieces at gem and mineral shows but am always a bit suspicious as to what was found and what was subsuently modified.  I was told by one dealer (I think I understood what he said...) that the native copper is found in those thin, scraggly sheets and if you see a shiny 'nugget' it has been melted, etc.  But since you've been there I'd like to hear what you are finding (and even see some pictures)!

 

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We used Google maps to find the piles, pretty obvious in satellite images. Some we took a chance on to see if it was posted no trespassing or not. If not, we hiked in (most were gated or marked no vehicles) and detected the piles. Yes, we were only expecting copper but some mines also had silver so we dug many hot rocks. 

Mostly the copper is in sheets, but there is also float copper chunks or nuggets left by glaciation. Some float gets an inch or two thick. Most sheets are a quarter inch or much less in thickness. Sometimes the copper has crystallized and creates rare beauty. 

Ill try and take some photos of my chunks as they were found, then again after soaking in vinegar to remove the rock. This was from hard rock mining, blasted and hauled out of the mine. If the ore wasn't high grade enough it was discarded. We searched the discard piles. We both found deep targets in areas it was obvious others had detected in. Both Eq800. 

We both found bits of chiseled copper where miners would chisel off chunks of large sheets to haul out. Likely from 1800's. pretty uncommon to find those. 

I reworked an area I'd first set tight discrimination on, others came along behind us and hit the crushed pile thoroughly. I found some deeper copper all had missed by running plain park 2, and lots of low grade copper oxides (I'm sure there are many mineral names I could learn and identify, but haven't, so I just call it low grade oxides). I was paying attention to fainter signals and slowing down to sift and sort through them. Much to my pleasure I was understanding what it was telling me. I removed rock slowly and rescanned frequently and found the lower grade near and above the deeper purer copper. I'm just learning this machine, but already,liking what I'm learning. I hope these notes help others both learn and enjoy!

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