Steve Herschbach

Congratulations!! You are on your way now....

Well, not like I need a detector in this category but if I did these would be top contenders. I like the clean looks and feature list for the price. Big improvement over the Prizm line in my opinion. I wish White's good luck with the new models.

Yeah, I also got my first lesson recently in northern Nevada desert and rain. Just as I turned in for the evening the rain started. I should have left right then, but I figured no problem, just head out in the morning. Now I know that rock hard desert dirt turns to pure snot with only a few hours of rain. Very nasty white knuckle trip out and $20 at the car wash getting the snot off my truck afterwards. Chris is disappointed I just wimped out on a trip back out but I just in am in no hurry to go back out there until stuff gets well and dry. Even if the rain quits then salt ground effect stays for a long time after as it may be dry on the surface but the ground stays wet a few inches down for some time.

Was told the same thing in Australia - either get out fast or be prepared to wait a long time for stuff to get dry enough to get out.

Unfortunately I can't help in the relative worth department. One man's waste of money is another man's must have purchase. But I will tell a story. Again, more for the general readership than you in particular John.

I ran a store and sold mining gear for 40 years. When people wanted to buy equipment or upgrade my advice was always the same. Using mining gear it was:

1. Buy a gold pan. Learn to pan gold. if you can pan enough gold to pay for the $9 gold pan....

2. Get a sluice box. Go shovel dirt where your pan tells you there is gold. If you can sluice enough gold to pay for the $80 sluice.....

3. Buy a gold dredge, highbanker, or other powered equipment. If a dredge, get a 4". If you can find enough gold to pay for the 4" dredge....

4. Get a 6" or larger dredge.

The point is it is all about the ability to find gold. If you can't find enough gold with a sluice box to pay for a sluice box, you do not know how to find gold, and spending more on equipment is usually just a waste of money. Gotta walk before you can run.

Same rationale. If you can pay for a GMT with gold found, spending more money on detectors is wise. If not, maybe more research and better areas are needed.

ah yes, I knew this had to be something some of you had tackled before. Beautiful craftsmanship Steve, when I saw the picture my hopes went up it looked like a product model I could just order. No matter, this also sounds like a fun project to work on and build.

 

Steve, thank you very much!

Very easy to make, though as Norvic points out you can just hip mount or backpack mount some control boxes.

One key here is to try and use a unit with a small control box since the coil is so close, but a detector will tune out more metal in close proximity to a coil than you might imagine, as long as the coil is immobile in relation to the metal. Still, detuning does take place so a bit longer rod may be called for if the control box is larger. Also, using a small coil simply angling the coil at 45 degree will eliminate much of that issue. This would be very easy to do with a Gold Bug Pro - just remove the middle rod, shorten the lower rod and use the small coil. With extra rod parts you could convert from full detector to ultra compact and back with no problem.

"So in Low medium Ground would the MXT with the 12" setup Be Deeper??"

Probably. The TDI is not exactly a powerhouse detector and it requires pretty bad ground to look good compared to a good VLF running in all metal mode. In most ground I found a Gold Bug Pro in all metal did just as well or better than a TDI.

The caveat being, if the ground is mild enough, can you turn the ground balance off on the TDI? Now you have a very powerful "straight" PI about as powerful if not more so than most you can buy. It is perhaps the best beach PI you can buy when run with ground balance off.

I started out as a kid collecting rocks. First thing that happens if everyone wants to give you rocks and they pile up fast. I drew the line early on at only rocks I found myself, as it is the finding I enjoy most. Even then they piled up. When I left Alaska I had a lot to either dispose of or ship.

I went to a rock show and sold 3/4 of the stuff I had and the 1/4 that was left I donated to the rock club. I only shipped maybe 20 lbs south, pretty much all gold ore. With a clean start I am being choosy these days, but did bring home a nice piece of agatized petrified wood the size of a loaf of bread last summer and put it in my garden near the front door. No doubt more will be added with time.

I spent a good portion of my life flying around Alaska as a passenger in small planes - very small planes. Many many hours propped up in the back seat asleep. I have logged lots of hours sleeping on jets, which tends to be poor as the seats really do not recline and too many people waking me up when I would obviously rather be sleeping.

My Toyota I can put that seat all the way back, and I have a long pad for the seat, whatever blankets suits the weather, and a good pillow. I sleep better in my truck sometimes than at home, where four dogs always seem to have me up for one reason or another.

For more extended in truck camping I pull the headrest off the passenger seat, run it forward a bit, and lay it all the way back until it is flush with the rear seat. Toss a 6 foot long 4" thick foam pad on that with low spots bolstered underneath with blankets and I have a nice soft bed ready to use.

But the front seat does me well enough for a night or two. Recently I was out in northern Nevada. I intended to use my tent, but the wind was really blowing, so I just crawled in the front seat. Woke up at 4AM to the truck shaking and little "splat. splat, splat" noises. I turned on the headlights and saw fat flakes of snow going sideways at 40 mph! Seat went forward, truck turned on, and I was on my way home in minutes. I like being mobile at the drop of a hat.

This answer is not aimed specifically at you John, just generic readers.

Whenever you are looking for nuggets suspended in mid air it is very important to turn the ground balance off when running the TDI or TDI SL. The ground balance system is designed for in ground use and robs depth when working in very low mineral or no mineral situations. This is easily seen by testing a target with ground balance off and ground balance engaged.

Raising the age old detector question - why use a setting that degrades performance?

Ground balance exists to compensate for ground conditions. Any pure all metal machine without a ground balance system, including VLF detectors, gets more depth in no mineral or low mineral ground than a ground balancing detector.

In order to properly test ground balancing metal detectors you cannot remove the main component the system was designed for - the ground.

A VLF ground balancing system cannot handle extreme ground as well as a PI based ground balancing system, because PI has an inherent advantage in ignoring ground signals.

As ground conditions get more severe a VLF loses depth faster than a ground balancing PI and so eventually conditions are encountered where the PI can get twice the depth of the VLF. This chart tries to illustrate this. I no longer have either of these machines and so this is for illustrative purposes as I cannot attach exact numbers to the chart. It all depends on the ground and the target as to what the exact difference are and what machine is the best choice. Notice that as ground conditions get worse both detectors lose depth. A PI just does not lose depth as quickly as the VLF.

In low mineral ground like at Ganes Creek a VLF is the detector of choice because it gets maximum depth while having superb discrimination. In extreme bad ground a PI is a much better choice.

Long winded way to get to the real question. Big nuggets found deep here with the TDI. Chicken or the egg problem. So few of the people most likely to find that kind of nugget are running a Minelab that the TDI is at a distinct statistical disadvantage. On top of many big nuggets here being found at shallow depths. My 6.5 ounce nugget recently could have been found with a TDI but I was swinging a GPX. But the MXT would have found it also, as would an Ace 250.

This post is inspired by the the question 1515Art asked at http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/972-iron-detector/ "is there a small lightweight detector that would compliment the GPZ mainly by giving the operator a second look that reads for an iron signal on the target in question, something like a pin pointer with some decent depth made for iron."

This question has of course been asked by many Minelab operators over the years, including myself. In my case being dissatisfied with the option of carrying a complete second detector around as not very practical (I tried it) I made this little cutie back in 2003.

I chose the Tesoro Silver uMax as my base unit. I cut the armrest off at the end of the foam grip, in effect giving the unit a pistol grip. I removed the middle rod section and inserted the cut-down plastic isolator rod into the grip section. The isolator was cut down as far as I could go and still allow enough room to wrap excess coil cable. This ended up making the isolator 7" long.

The stock 7" coil was too big, but Tesoro had a nice little 4" coil for the uMax. This was attached to the isolator with a Fisher nylon wingnut instead of the steel screw Tesoro used back then. I had to drill the hole in the isolator out slightly for the nylon wingnut. The overall unit was 15" long.

The unit was very sensitive, easily getting a signal on a 2 grain gold nugget. It hit a 4 grain matchhead-size nugget at about 2". It hit small nuggets better than I really expected. It hit a silver dime easily at 5". Better yet, it had good iron and steel discrimination.

The Silver uMax at that time had a suggested retail is $299.00 The 4" coil had a suggested retail of $89.00. I was able with discounts to build this for about $300

Something like this offers better than normal pinpointer ranges plus discrimination and so this may be something a person would consider and now there are even more detectors that might make a good base unit. I ended up selling this one but kept the pistol grip rod and adapted it to my Gold Bug 2 and 6" coil. You can see a picture of that setup at http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/1028-fisher-gold-bug-2-pinpointer-conversion/page-0

I still think the Silver uMax is the best dedicated solution but for most people like me that have a VLF anyway just tossing one in the truck to have nearby is usually "good enough". However, I did recently try and sell a couple manufacturer reps on the idea. A factory made version would be cleaner and cost no more than a standard pinpointer. I do think many people want a pinpointer with more depth and iron discrimination. Tell you favorite manufacturer to make these!

Looks like a simple stroboscopic effect - there is a video on their website. Interesting part is the ad above is $1750 and on the website they are $499

Looks like a good way to induce a headache at least or a seizure if you are prone to them, big warnings about that on the website.

Hello Dean,

The specs compare favorably to the X-Terra but the X-Terra also with an accessory coil can run at a higher "gold friendly" frequency of 18.75 kHz. I have seen no firm information on availability.

White's Treasuremaster and Treasuremaster Pro Metal Detectors

Control Panel and Display Screenshots

Here is my old 4-Runner in Alaska. It was a 2005 but after years of Alaska wet weather and salted roads was getting some body rust, so I sold it when I moved south with 170,000 miles on it. Upgraded to a used 2008 6 cyl with "only" 75,000 miles on it. I have towed 3000 lbs with it and it does ok but but it cuts the gas mileage in half.

I sleep in the front seat a lot. There are many places where camping is not allowed, but in the U.S. sleeping in the front seat of your rig is "resting" not "camping".

The way the GPZ works it is the perfect machine for this, but could use that smaller coil for getting into corners and pockets.

Been using a 4-Runner myself the last 15 years. Did great in Alaska and doing great now in the Lower 48. Most guys here seem to like huge diesel pickups but I like the narrow profile of the 4-Runner for going down overgrown roads and for turning in tight areas.

Yeah... I'm like, having to stay away from tree and large bush trunks because of this issue. One can miss out on gold near a tree. Unless there is a setting (like difficult ground, severe ground or something) that won't hear root mineralization?

JP indicates that coil technique may be able to help with roots http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/763-bruce-candy-technical-paper-gpz-7000-zero-voltage-transmission-zvt-explained/?p=7905

Not normally with PI detectors - but the whole point of this thread is that the GPZ is not a PI detector.

Wowza!!

Same seller has many spectacular nuggets from California, Australia and Alaska.

Again a common issue with VLF detectors - tree roots. http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/metal-detecting/321053-detector-triggers-tree-roots.html

The GPZ by design detects items with very short time constants, and this is unfortunately not always what we seek.

It is all relative argyle. The Lobo may not suit you in Australian ground but it has many fervent fans in the U.S.

I certainly do not discount Dave and now with Carl Moreland on board I tend to have faith in what might happen with First Texas eventually. It is no secret that they have been working on multi frequency and pulse induction machines for years and that something should hit the market in the not too distant future. http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/555-new-fisher-pulse-induction-multi-frequency-detectors/

I do worry the bean counters call the shots at First Texas more than the engineers however. I believe they would rather back $300 detectors than invest large sums into expensive high end machines that they view as niche products.

That quote was from 2009 Rick. First Texas is a company chasing mass market sales. Follow the patents if you are looking for which companies are investing in developing new cutting edge technologies.

Ray, I made the 10K thing up to illustrate the point of such a detector being desirable. I have no idea when or if such a detector will appear, or what it will cost.

On the other hand if I could get my hands on a PI that discriminated to full depth for 10K I estimate I could pay for it with gold found in less than two weeks at several locations I know of.

I had a recent scare running my truck battery dead while charging stuff. A portable rechargeable jump starter is a good idea. In my case I now have a new deep cycle battery with solar panel that I toss in the truck to use as a charging station and emergency backup.

Very nice - my kind of work!

Being lazy and cheap (I prefer to think efficient and frugal) I got an Ace Knee Brace with Dual Side Stabilizers for $15 It is neoprene so it is stretchable and the whole thing is velcro covered so it is very versatile in how the three straps can be wrapped. Actually looks pretty neat and easy to change battery without completely removing. Now that I have used it for some time I am happy enough with it that it is probably all I will use.

If you want a pod cover, the pod cover for the Minelab X-Terra series will work just fine but then so will a plastic sandwich bag. I do not cover the pod myself except for using a screen protector but this is what the X-Terra cover looks like when fitted on the GPZ 7000.