Steve Herschbach

Minelab has completely redesigned their website - check it out and see what you think. http://www.minelab.com/usa/

Now I need to go on a hunt for broken links!

The Dual Field 6 x 9? That started as a White's labeled coil.

Then Jimmy took it over for awhile.

I think the story is Dan Guyer at White's made the initial TDI specialty coils. Dan was the White's PI guru. Unfortunately he passed away, and I think that was the end of those coils, and then Jimmy went to Miner John. Could be wrong on that, just vague memory and best guess.

Great article on hunting park strips... http://kcofortc64.dlinkddns.com/TheAnatomyOfAParkwayStrip.pdf

Well, right now I think either White's or Miner John (Razorback). The Jimmy Sierra coils pictured on his website at http://jimmysierra.com/tdi_loops_menuC.html have Miner John stickers on them, except the T-Foot. Not sure about that one. The sticker on it says made in Sweet Home, where White's factory is located.

Miner John/Razorback http://razorbackcoils.webs.com/apps/webstore/products/category/655438?page=1

Beautiful gold. The larger one has great character - congratulations!

If it is a Keene and input is same as output it is either very old, like 1960s, or has been modified. The older the Keene pumps are, the less efficient, as they were built very loose, so do not expect the old ones to deliver near the power of the newer ones.

Certainly can be down with lots of digital machines like my V3i, but I like the simplicity of it. It can be used to hunt certain coin ranges, or just left off if extreme high coin readings are an issue. Lots of machines do have presets blocking that area however just for the reason I mention, hot rock and ferrous id wrap.

And an example parts breakdown. All the threaded shaft models were similar. Big thing to know - shaft is reverse thread. The impeller screws onto the shaft. I sold a few impellers to people who put pullers on them and split the impeller in half!

Keene P100 and P180 pump diagram & installation instructions

Well, still not sure what the specs question is. Almost all Keene pumps for decades used a 3-4HP 5/8" threaded shaft P-100 variant, a 5-6HP 5/8" threaded shaft P-150/P-180 variant, an 8-10HP 1" threaded shaft P-200 variant, and a 11-16HP 1" threaded shaft P-300 variant. In more recent years they really started messing things up by throwing keyway shafts into the mix, making it harder to get correct parts. Someday I am going to put together some historical info on all this that I have in a decent form on my website because it is hard information to make sense out of and not a lot of info available on old stuff. Anyway, here is a 2006 chart to get the ball rolling.

Keene 2006 pumps and engines chart

Simplistically dredges are just a trade between weight/compactness and fine gold recovery. You have to find the balance that works best both for you and your gold deposit.

In Alaska for short term operations I preferred light weight and simplicity. But the longer the dredge stays in one location, the less weight matters, and the more important fine gold recovery becomes.

A crash box design is nice for simplicity and compactness. However, you use up half the riffles just getting things to settle down. Adding a flare just allows things to settle down before getting to the riffles. But now the whole setup is a third again as long.

I don't look at stuff like this as a right way or a wrong way but just trying to figure out what works best for each person and their particular situation.

Twin P180 pumps will drive a 6"" did it a lot myself, but it is borderline and so keeping the sluice at waterline is critical to minimizing lift. Every inch of vertical lift robs power fast.

I will hook you up with specs in the next few hours.

Next step up from a subsurface dredge would be a good old fashioned crash box sluice. Next step up would be a flare. I would not bother with the double decker setup personally but that's just me. I like simplicity.

Hey Paul, would not a Big Foot or Cleansweep type coil be a great thing for Makro/Nokta to make in order to give people even more reasons to consider their machines? I think exploiting all these neglected niche items is the perfect way for a new (to us) company to make inroads.

Color me frustrated, Gold Racer in hand and wanting to prove its jewelry hunting capability, and temps hovering around freezing right now.

I would like also to see dual ID Filters (discrimination controls). The one we have right now, that turns the disc level up from the bottom. But I want another one that turns the disc down from the top. The first thing this would allow is elimination of ferrous items and hot rocks that wrap around and read as extreme high non-ferrous item, usually high 90s. Better yet though a person could selectively turn downwards on the upper end and upwards on the lower end to chose which "gold region" targets to focus on. Kind of a notch window system but done simply with two variable controls. For me the area above ferrous and below zinc penny is a sweet spot, and above ferrous but below nickel for cherry picking.

Something to never forget on the Makro and Racer detectors is the ID Filter comes preset at 10, which by their scale is the top end of the ground reading range. For really gung ho detecting in low mineral ground, specifically white sand or other very low mineral areas, dropping into the range below 10 has possibilities I need to explore more. High gain, low iSAT, and low ID Filter settings are extreme hard core detectorist playthings available on the Gold Racer.

I think it is obvious that Matchbox has taken metal detecting technology to a whole different level. Once again the major manufacturers are getting caught flat footed while a newcomer shows them how it is really done!

The Matchbox Treasure Truck is a rugged, large-scale truck equipped with a real working metal detector, which raises the bar on exploration by taking the hunt below ground. Activate the truck by pushing the antenna down, which will emit a detection signal and once the truck is roving along a surface, the hunt is on. As the Treasure Truck detects metal, the detection signal will change, and the treasure is ready to be dug up! Grab the scoop and dig until the metal is found, using the sifter scoop to separate soil or sand so that only the treasure remains. When the hunt is over, simply raise the antenna to turn off until the next mission begins.

Even though the Treasure Truck weighs under two pounds, I appreciated large integrated wheels that allowed me to roll the detector over the surface. The is an important feature for relieving arm strain and possible injury. Better yet is that the Treasure Truck is tuned to find very large coins at shallow depths. I think everyone hates digging deep holes only to find a penny. The Treasure Truck allows you to focus on digging more valuable targets like silver dollars, $20 gold coins, and Rolex watches, all without breaking a sweat digging deep holes. The cleverly integrated digging scoop makes target recovery a snap. Best of all, this breakthrough technology is more affordable than ever before, and available at fine retailers everywhere.

In case you were worried about your ability to master this complex technology, I found a child wandering the streets, and he agreed to test this new detector. In minutes he was digging Spanish doubloons, something I have never been able to find in a sandbox with my much more expensive detectors. So simple a child can use it!

I seriously can't believe all the time and effort I have wasted digging deep holes for small gold nuggets. I realize now I should focus on finding those shallow one pound and larger nuggets. Thanks Paul for waking me up to the possibilities inherent in this new technology!

Matchbox Treasure Truck:

Rugged, large-scale Matchbox truck equipped with a real working metal detector

Antennae signals when there's metal below

Scoop lets the sand fall through so that only treasure remains

Works on grass, sand, and dirt

Can find coins and metal objects 3'' below surface

Uses carbon zinc batteries

Can find larger objects up to 1' below surface

Multicolor design

Less than 2 lbs

Well, I can tell you pretty much anything you might want to know, but could you narrow the question down a bit?

Here you go....

Don't mind at all Rob as long as I am properly credited - thanks!

You should come visit us JP. Not only is there a lot of VLF ground around here I think you would find a lot of open doors with a LOT of folks!

I would be negligent to suggest that the Gold Racer somehow replaces or obsoletes the Gold Bug 2. Since 1995 it has reigned supreme as a sniper of the tiniest gold flakes, and nothing much has changed there.

In Alaska I often had no good option but to focus on grain size gold, and the GB2 was my detector of choice. However, I now have more options for locations and in my opinion focusing strictly on tiny gold would now be counterproductive for me. When I left Alaska I had far more reasons to use my GPX 5000 and then the GPZ 7000. A year ago I realized I had not really used my Gold Bug 2 in nearly two years.

I had a two machine goal. GPX and something else, which morphed into GPZ and something else. What if the GPZ while out and about quit for any reason? I needed a backup. And good as it is the GPZ still can't hit gold a hot VLF can hit, so I needed a hot VLF. So far so good for the Gold Bug 2 and many people can stop right there and be good.

But being in historic Mother Lode county I wanted more versatility by way of discrimination options than the GB2 offers. Just in case I got around an old camp and wanted to coin or relic hunt. The Gold Racer seemed to hold out that promise for me, so I sold the GB2 to go all in with the Gold Racer. Mind you it was maybe my fifth or sixth GB2 and may not have been my last. I as a rule always rotate detectors out after two to three years use and often reacquire the same model again at a later date.

I think the GPZ/GB2 combo is perfect for many people and a no risk option. And I think is that the Gold Racer offers a reasonable alternative with a slightly different twist on things. It offers that little bit extra I was looking for. Playing around with new detectors also really is part of the fun so it works for me. I just want companies to do more than sit still for 20 years and am more than happy to work with anyone pushing the technology forward in any way.

Yes I dream of things like light weight GPZ detectors. Or better yet a GPZ with discrimination! Just like I have dreamed of a dual frequency Gold Bug 3 for twenty years. Or a modernized GMT which more than anything is what the Gold Racer resembles.

More choices, more options, more detectors, bring them on!

I did use the concentric but not enough. Two things. Slightly more depth than the stock DD in Mild Ground. And better ferrous discrimination. DD coils tend to false more on flat steel items like bottle caps and flat rusted steel.

VLF Concentric vs DD Coils

compared to the MXT, I've been wondering what if anything for the areas I've been hunting (old sierra trash areas and parks) would i want to be able to do with my vlf that i can't. it is the only vlf I've every used so i have nothing to compare it to, and so few were sold that very little information is available from other users, I'm talking about the Whites SST one of their mystery detectors made for the western states and never marketed, with almost nothing to adjust, but set for hot soil and fast recovery. i don't mind the all metal hear everything other than that performance is the question, if I had the mxt just for comparison would i likely just run it the same as my SST anyway for gold country?

The Sierra Super Trac (SST) is just a very stripped down MXT that comes stock with the best coil for the unit, a 10" X 5.5" DD. Performance is identical to the MXT/M6 just far fewer features.

I think the MXT has a better balance of park detecting capability AND other type of detecting capability than most machines. And very easy to learn. However, Merton's post is actually spot on with my way of looking at things. I ditched the MXT years ago myself for the F75. The same engineer behind the MXT lead the team that designed the F75. The DEUS is tops for hunting in ferrous but it has one weakness - no small coil. The Racer exploits that weakness.

It does often split between groomed parks and places in the woods. This thread started out being about parks. There are lots of nice, well behaved park detecting machines like the DFX that serve well for that purpose, but when hitting thick ferrous trash, the "carpet of nails" scenario, they come up short. If you really, really are just going to hunt parks than a U.S. Style park machine is more appropriate. For diving into deep ferrous trash, Euro Style machines have the edge these days. That was the whole point if my article at http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/1378-european-detectors-versus-us-style-detectors-on-target-masking/

Technically the Gold Bug 2, GMT, and Gold Racer are all LF, not VLF. I have commented about this before but the reality when talking metal detectors is that VLF has become synonymous with Induction Balance (IB) detectors. http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/970-minelab-gpz-7000-a-super-vlf-saturable-soil-tips/

Different Types Of Detectors

Detectors And Frequency

Any word on release date/price yet?

I have to believe we will know soon, but I don't know any more than you Ray.

Hi Mike, welcome to the forum!

I try to stick to what I know. Having never detected in SoCal and never having used the final product it is premature for me to recommend anything to anybody. I have done the best I can to describe the machine and what it might be capable of but that is about as far as it goes right now. What I am seeing suits me to a tee and I will be using nothing but a GPZ 7000 and the Gold Racer for my prospecting from here on out. If you have a Gold Bug 2 you are well covered and no rush to do anything different.

I also am a Sun Ray Pro Gold (the special CTX version) user. They work with everything I own.

Wow, that is an impressive repair. I can't imagine actually cutting chunks out of circuit boards and sticking chunks from another detector in myself. A real life FrankenDetector!

One last tip. I do the "buy and try" thing and so do many others. Many detectors have a transferable warranty these days. For example, the White's MXT has a two year transferable warranty. Many people buy detectors and never use them more than once or twice. It seemed like a good idea until they went trash digging. Popular detectors are the way to go because there are lots of them for sale, and it is easy to sell them. Right now there are tons of like new DEUS models for sale with transferable warranty.

So, go to eBay, do a search for a used model. You can search "sold listings" to see what the average low resale price is. Right now used MXTs go for $400 - $500 dollars. Then look for units about a year old or less. With White's if you get the serial number from the seller you can call and confirm remaining warranty plus see if the detector has been reported missing.

Then bottom fish. This thread got me kinda sorta craving an MXT. If I proceeded I would place max bids of around $350 on clean units from known sellers. There are so many MXTs for sale that eventually you just get lucky and snag one on the cheap. Call White's, inform them you are new owner.

Now use it a bunch, but keep it clean. If you like it, keep it. If not, sell it yourself being sure to advertise it has remaining transferable warranty. If done right you can get enough extra on resale to cover postages and fees and pretty much break even. Or at least learn a lot for very little spent.

In the last year I have done this with the F19, F75, V3i, and Sierra Pulse Pro. The Fishers usually do not have the transferable warranty however. I honestly don't worry about it much myself but it can offer a level of extra comfort having that.

Good for you on responding Comrade. Welcome to the forum, despite my earlier less than warm welcome!