3 hours ago, Gerry in Idaho said:

Oh  would you crush it or keep it?

I would keep it as it is, but if you are selling the gold because you can better use for the money then dolly it for quick sale. Remember once it smashed it is all over, so leave it as it is till you sell it.

I agree with the quote " I have access to stronger acids such as hydrofluoric acid in high concentration form but I advise anyone who would like to use this type of acid that it is extremely dangerous and only someone with experience and safety equipment can proceed with caution when using it." 

Back in the early 1980s I was involved with the operation of removal of milling scale on a large boiler. We had several truck loads of hydrofluoric acid  the size of fuel trucks. It was shipped in steel tanks at a strength of 35% how ever it will attack oxides and silica ( glass ) but most important it will get into your skin will little feeling that it has happened and it will then destroy your bones. So correct usage is really needed or its deadly. Products like WHINK in Aust. are used for mag wheel cleaning and it is about 1% and has other chemical included.     

You can find it with black rock.

On 3/1/2021 at 12:16 AM, Gold Catcher said:

I understand the reasoning. But it would break my heart having to melt such a wonderful nugget. Unless of course I would find them all the time....

A Mate from my area held a nugget for 2 or 3 years trying to get a good price for a solid 96 oz nugget. At the time gold was about $800 AUD an oz. When the price went up a bit he let it go for less than 10% above gold price.

On 2/27/2021 at 3:49 PM, orgone500 said:

I heard on the grape vine that the release has been delayed to mid April. Hope I'm wrong 😥

 

No way it has to be before Easter or September School holidays or they will miss out on an excellent opportunity 

Quote....Agreed and some of those techniques work well or not so hot depending also on the size of the target. Edge on methods work well if the target is good sized, and can be almost required if the target is huge. They do not work well if the target is really small. Small targets may not sound off on edge until the are almost touching the edge of the coil. 
With a DD I typically step back and move forward rather than moving the coil backwards towards my feet but the net result is exactly the same.
Fast target pinpointing and recovery is more of an advanced technique and exact methods depend on size of the target, size of the coil, configuration of the coil and likely approximate depth to the target. But it is something well worth the effort.

If using a DD and the signal is small switching to mono and using the edge of the coil will help however if the signal drops expect it to be deeper than expected. On very deep nuggets of respectable size and quiet sound I set the detector on manual and approach from back where there is no sound and slowly bring the coil in listening for the start and end of the signal and mark the centre then do the same it at 90° or some convenient angle. Where they cross is target. Note the hole should be more a narrow trench than a circle to enable you to get the overburden out quickly. An added point is the uses of a pick. Most people must work in an office that I see using a pick on the gold fields. The force hitting to ground is combination of the weight and the speed of the pick head. If you watch a carpenter using a hammer you will see him/her use their wrist to double the speed of the hammer head. I find I can do more damage to the ground using a smaller handle pick with one hand than most people using both hands with a long handle pick. I hope that this is on topic as it reduces time wasted getting the gold.      

55 minutes ago, Reno Chris said:

double post

 

The PDF file of the second link in first post.http://41.67.20.41/bitstream/handle/123456789/18621/Metal Detector.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Metal Detector Second link.pdf

1 hour ago, Cascade Steven said:

Geof:  Interesting question and interesting first article.  I personally have never read of anyone making a 4-D coil  so I am curious if such a configuration has been investigated and if so what were the results?  I was unable to access the second link.  Thanks for posting an intellectually stimulating question.

The site has some problems...... It was a good write up on coils in the preamble I got ¾ of the way though it. I will try and get on it again when the site get back up as it had a lot of technical details in it over 40 pages.  The site error listed below.

This site can’t be reached

41.67.20.41 took too long to respond.

20 hours ago, Gold Hound said:

Hey Trent...

I woke up one morning and Paul hadnt put his socks on yet so I saw them first thing🤢 ruined my whole day!

Some things just scar you for life🤣

 

You made him wear socks how did he manage that with his throngs (flip flops) 😆

24 minutes ago, Gold Hound said:

.

Nice lump, I like manual but would like Auto with a plus or minus bias.

It is a Texas outfit, well it the cognac. 🤣

From Garretts.

 How do I pinpoint a target?
Slowly and methodically sweep your searchcoil from side to side, keeping it one to two inches above the surface. Overlap each sweep by advancing the searchcoil by about one quarter to one half of its diameter. Scanning in a straight line helps to keep the searchcoil level and the overlap sweeps uniformly while reducing the likelihood of lifting the searchcoil after each sweep. Listen for a peak in the audio sound. Hold the searchcoil one to two inches off the ground and slowly sweep it back and forth in an X pattern. Note where the sound becomes the loudest. The target should be located in the center of the imaginary X. Many of today’s modern metal detectors are equipped with an electronic pinpoint button. Read your owner’s manual for complete electronic pinpointing instructions.

I would use the 90° method  to get a better position.

So I thought I would throw a spanner into the discussion. Here goes.

4 minutes ago, Northeast said:

Sorry geof but I can’t see a link or anything.  Was there supposed to be something there?  
 

👍

You are on the ball. Sorry I not sure it was because I was thinking of the meal I was cooking for the wife or to much cognac. 😇 But this time I think I'm on the ball. 

Have not tried or connected but it is an Australian company I'm interested.

....LINK....

https://metaldetectingstuff.com/

They are waiting for all the gold in Africa to be found so they can show it and hype up our release.🥱

10 hours ago, Reno Chris said:

Oneguy - as far as saving time digging targets, one of the biggest problems is that many people simply do not make much effort to accurately pinpoint the target location. They swing over it a couple times to make sure there is a target in the ground and then immediately start digging. Then they chase the target all around trying to find it and it seems like its here and then it seems like its over there. The hole gets bigger and bigger, time drags on and the prospector gets frustrated. Taking an extra 30 seconds to pinpoint a target carefully can save 5 minutes or more of digging and chasing. Multiply 5 minutes per target (more or less) by 20 or more targets a day and it really adds up. Plus the less time you spend digging and chasing your targets, the more time you spend actually searching for gold. This means you will be able to detect and find more targets in a day resulting in more gold produced.

You are spot on about pin pointing. I have got to the stage of not watching a lot of video finds now because of the wide spread lack of pin pointing and time they spend getting the gold out of the ground because of it.. 

Sometimes the junk will beat you. My wife and I got nuggets right up to the cans. We removed a lot of cans before the photo was taken how ever the small bits of rusted cans made it impossible to proceed. However managed to find two patches that yielded over a kilo of gold each with only a couple or so of steel rubbish no further than 5km away.

All I can say is discriminating for gold is risky and only for larger than a coin nuggets in highly mineralization and junky areas. 

To me a sunbaker is one that you can see before you disturb the ground, that is the nugget can see the sun. It is OK if the detector sees it before you do.😁I have lost count of how many but it is around 30 but most are small in the range 2 to 4 grams. 

The one on the left has moss and lichen as it was hiding from the sun most of the time. It made the oz+ the other one was an oz also 

The large one on top was just under 5¾ oz and was sitting right out in the open enjoying the sun. The smaller one was in the ground hiding near by about 6" deep.

If you are looking for a spot to do and the GIS data bank has records of mine/claim before 1950 load it in by it self in the area that you are interested in. My belief is in those days a lot of them had to be worked by hand and not loads full of speculation claims these days.

Rob don't get dishearten, back when big nuggets were everywhere I spent 10 weeks 12+ hours 7 days a week detecting in Wedderburn Vic. Aust. and I found 2 nuggets less than you. In those days no one was teaching anyone how to use a detectors. As Gerry has said a lesson or two will speed up your learning curve and it is not only learning your machine that involved. Best of luck in the Gold Fields and keep at it. 

Some good advice above. Gold does move and spread out a lot in some ground. The trick is to cover a lot of ground correctly at the required speed. Have a look at this post, but start near known gold finds.  

.....Nugget Spread....

21 hours ago, rvpopeye said:

Wow Gerry ! WTG !

Again with a mouthful ! (I'm guessing that is your signature pose now....)

I'm thinkin' you couldn't get that pounder in there ?....You're gonna need a bigger mouth !

 

Thx for the pics and encouragement to us that are slumming with an 800 !  OH , AYUH !

 

You are in luck gold is measured in Troy weight. ie. 12 heavy oz instead of 16 light oz so don't use the kitchen scales for your pounder. About 81 grams lighter.😁

The troy ounce is heavier than the avoirdupois ounce, yet the troy pound is lighter than the avoirdupois pound.