schoolofhardNox

2 hours ago, Joe Beechnut OBN said:

That's a lot of digging!! Love the Gold! Always makes the trip easier driving home. 🏴‍☠️

Thanks Joe. With traffic back on the roads these days, it's a bit over 2 hours to home. I always drive faster when I get gold 😆. I'm trying to reach 200 silver coins from this beach this season (09/2020 thru 05/2021). If I'm lucky I have 2 more trips remaining to get 13 silvers. Before, that would have been easy. It's dried up now, so I may not make it. ☹️

7 hours ago, rvpopeye said:

At least she lets you GO detecting ! skuh kuh kuh kuh kuh 

I'm single so I don't know these things but I have friends that show me by example ..... 🥴

 

She's a good egg 😄. Never gives me a hard time about detecting or buying new machines.

5 minutes ago, Jim in ma said:

Nice piece of AU Hardnox 👍    Has it been claimed yet???

Not yet.  😄 The boss is away visiting the kids. I think it's too small for her anyways. She's getting picky  - 1/2 ct or better is all she wants now.

7 minutes ago, Raphis said:

I have a TDI Pro...it has the low, all, high switch settings, but those are only applicable when the ground balance is enabled...I easily lose 4” to 6” of depth if I turn on ground balance on the TDI Pro.  Yes, I have to swing very slowly in wet or mineralized sand to keep the threshold more stable, but that extra depth is key for having a chance at the older finds when there’s no erosion present. 

Makes sense. Loosing 4-6" makes all the difference in getting deeper than the rest. In that case, I would go without ground balance and skip the medium to loud targets and just go after the ones that are barely audible. Even if it sounds like ground noise. As long as it sorta repeats, I would remove some sand to see if it brightens up. After a while I got better at figuring out ground noise from an ultra deep coin sound. Not always right but another angle at getting the deep stuff.

13 minutes ago, Raphis said:

Great hunt, HardNOX! 👍🏼 It reminds me of my beach hunts with my Whites TDI.  My digging technique is much different than yours, but I’d imagine my sand strata is quite a bit different than yours.

Could you elaborate a little on how you describe above of your ability to decide to concentrate on digging lower conductors with your 5000 for a while, then switch to digging higher conductors?  Does the GPX have this ability without loss of depth??  I do have this ability to differentiate between higher and lower conductors to some extent  (if I ground balance my TDI), but I would be greatly limiting my depth capability with my PI by enabling ground balance on the TDI, so I don’t hunt in GB mode.  

Thanks. Yes there is no loss of depth that I know of. It's simply the way it responds with a certain timing chosen.  The 5000 will either give you a low to high sound or a high to low sound depending on the target. I don't know the cut off point but zinc pennies sound high to low. Somewhere after that it will switch low to high. I call it low conductor hunting, but in reality it is small targets/ shallow/ low conductive targets vs big targets/ deep/ high conductive targets. So a low conductive target could be everything below zinc pennies and also small iron, while high conductors are copper cents and up and big iron. That's a generalization, always exceptions. With the bit of iron reject it has, the shallow iron is easy to pass on. It also has a function called inverted which I use to change the low conductors to read opposite from the stock setting. In other words I like to hear low to high sound for low conductors and high to low sound for high conductors, backwards from the preset. The ground balance is used on most timings I think. The coin/relic timing has ground balance off, but changes the disc so that everything above foil reads the same. But it is the deepest setting on the machine, but sometimes tricky on salt and black sand. There are a lot of other settings that also help. It is very versatile, but a bit hard to read at first. I will never learn all the settings for all situations. I stick with what works and am happy to be dumb to the rest 😄 You must have the older (and deeper?) TDI. I think on the TDI SL, you can toggle between low/all/high.

Wow, never heard of such a thing. Good for you for researching it. So, did you scan it and listen to the playlist? What if it sucks, do you toss the ring back 😄

14 hours ago, Tom_in_CA said:

Good show !  Good pix.   Love that beach-kissed charcoal grey silver 🙂

Thanks Tom. The show is almost over. I'll be lucky to get 2 or 3 more hunts in before the Memorial Day opening. Then it's off limits until Labor Day. I need the break anyways and get back to some household duties.

11 hours ago, F350Platinum said:

Outstanding. What do you use to dig this stuff? Your retrieval rate is fast. I dug 51 coins and 3 rings in Savannah over 4 days - probably about 20 hours, but I'm new, and the beach was crowded. I'm sure most of it is experience and one heckuva great detector, but a 14" hole is a bit of work.

Thanks. I use a small handle spade and dig on my knees because it's faster than standing up. Also, when I get into the rock layer, it's easier to dig it like a back hoe would (scrape it ). But it's really a slow, steady pace, otherwise I would burn out after a couple of hours. The reason I get what I get, is because I found the perfect combination of machine to beach conditions. There are times when a discriminating machine can run circles around the GPX, not in depth but for quick ferrous / non ferrous hunting. As an example, when the tide is low and enough sand has been removed to get to the layer with all the coins and a lot of iron. Even though the GPX has some iron rejection, and you can further investigate targets and get an idea of deeper iron, it is tedious and time consuming. The other detectors would leave you in the dust getting all those silver and gold targets with their target ID's 😄 

1 hour ago, rvpopeye said:

The sheer volume of finds is impressive . One of the copper cents is almost gone !.... sand fleas ?

Nothing like that here,,,so far. (Maybe the Corona caps? I think that guy comes here..LOL...)

Endless amounts of junk on your beach and you still find gold.....It would be my favorite beach too !

 

 

 

 

Thanks. I'm lucky that the surface trash is gone (except for the recent dropped Corona caps) which were all in about a 15 foot circle.... no party going on there 🙄 Only the deep stuff is left behind. The copper coins suffer the most in those conditions. Not sure if it's wear and tear from the storm surges, or if it's just the acid chemistry leaching out the copper or both, but eventually it consumes the whole coin. Silver survives better but is probably pitted and grainy under that black mess.

Made it out for a day at the beach. It seems like ages since I been out. The crowds were starting to gather since the weather was perfect that day. I was able to hit my favorite stretch of the beach for the most part. I started out trying for silver but decided to concentrate on low conductors, hoping for some gold. Total of 40 nickels that hunt, counting the war nickel. I ended the afternoon digging for high conductors as well, and was rewarded with yet another half dollar. Using a PI, you cannot get away from digging the deep, rounder shaped big iron since it could be a deep half, so I dig it. Some of longer iron items and shallow smaller nails, I could have avoided if I wanted to. I did manage to find a nice 10K tiny gold ring, so that made for a great day. Average depth was about 14” on most items. The ring was fairly shallow, probably around 7”. Total coins I believe was 100, so a high coin count. The usual copper and lead bits also found. Most items were resting on the clay layer or near it. Great to get out and enjoy the day.

20 hours ago, Carolina said:

I have not heard of any coil problems. The coil is very straightforward. I have heard of Souriau connector failures though. Good luck and hope for a quick turn around for you. 

Sorry, not meaning the coil itself, just probably the wire or connector. I should have been clearer. It just get old after a while that every time it's a good time to use that machine it is down. I guess I expect they would move those to the front of the repair section, but it's like your forgotten, and not ever a sorry it broke. 😄

Sad to hear as I  just sent in my AQ for what is probably going to be a coil problem. If I get the same run around like you, I will never buy another Fisher product again. Sorry Alexandre, but that is how it is. I spent $82.13 cent to insure it and get it to Fisher. I wanted to just send the coil but their "Tech" said he wants it all (including shaft). My beach season is almost over and again my AQ is down. I feel for you as a quick turn around on a new shaft should have been done immediately! I almost get the feeling like I am doing something wrong and they don't trust anyone when you bring to light a warrantee problem. These are known problems and there should be no decision needed. Just fix the damn thing! Rant over.

20 hours ago, F350Platinum said:

I've read a lot of reviews and musings on this forum, the top two seem to be the Garrett Propointer AT, and the Fisher F-pulse. I have two Propointers. I'm interested in the F-pulse.

I have both. I still like the Garrett carrot best.

In the old days....no pinpointer. Nowadays, I always use one. Even on the beach when the coins are deep. Makes moving from one target to another way faster.

9 hours ago, Skozzy99 said:

Still very new to the gpx. I go through the routine of EMI reduction and then GB, but even when absolutely motion less, every 5 seconds I get a warbling sound that lasts for about a second or so. When I start to swing a bit, it still does that warbling at the same interval. This is with the 11 commander DD. I haven’t tried this with the mono yet. I do have a single phase 7200V line about 200’ away. All settings are at factory presets. I have tried adjusting RX gain and stabilizer without success. The only thing that smooths it out is the cancel switch. Is this a common occurrence? I’ve searched 25 pages of Minelab forum pages (here) to root out the answer, but no luck yet.

Thank you

If you change your manual noise cancel settings  (up or down) the warbling should go faster or slower. I have to run my noise cancel at 209 on my beach. If I change the number, the warbling can quicken (worsen). That Is how I know that even thought there is a lot of frequencies that the noise cancel can go through, there are some areas that the best the noise cancel can do is warble less. In those case, with a DD coil, you may have to use cancel mode which should quiet your machine right down. But you loose some depth for sure. Your situation is normal, at least from my experience.

Super hunts! Nice to see you getting along with the AQ!!! That engagement ring on the left is gorgeous.

Great write up and great series of hunts Chase. Thanks for the honest write up on some of the machines I do not own. I've heard similar opinions on them from other people as well. The most impressive thing you wrote is finding that bit, that deep in hot dirt with the cancel mode on. I'm also assuming it was a Minelab coil and not an after market coil. One thing for sure, you will not make any new friends from the VLF guys at the hunt 😄

2 hours ago, F350Platinum said:

Didn't dig too much that was iffy, of you mean tone but no id. Tried one but found nothing. I pretty much avoided iron this time, did chase a 32 from under a piling that turned out to be a big hunk of lead. Had to use the composite trowel. I was going slow and covering areas that my foot prints weren't on.

Learned a lesson from my grid searching, If I want to find stuff in the future I shouldn't do that 🤪

Yes, actually anything that repeats (mostly) and has some positive numbers flash. Also it has to show that it's deeper than 6" Really anything that is odd sounding.

9 hours ago, F350Platinum said:

Kinda sad to think about, but probably true. 😕 I'll have to find out how deep the silt and sand go. Haven't dug more than a foot for anything yet, most stuff shows up in the first 8".

Great finds.  Always nice to see old gun parts. Silver seems to hide well sometimes. Interested to know if you were going rather slow and did you ever try digging very iffy, repeatable signals. Sometimes the deep stuff does not come in as a solid hit and a lot of times if it's on the fringe of what the machines can do, it may read as iron. I would dig any tight, small signal for a while and see what turns up.  The ground conditions there may limit you to 8" for solid sounding signals.

Nice hunt. That is one of the best stamped coins I have seen. Apparently F.L. marked his coins for a reason. A lot of times you find some coins that are just practiced on and randomly punched or engraved. That cross stamp must have been specially made, since it's so perfect and not sure if it came with the set of letters. Maybe a store did these as advertising or someone was tired of people stealing his coins 😄

That's a pretty ring. Nice job getting it! Lucky for you - you only found the tooth and not the shark 😄

On 4/26/2021 at 10:53 AM, kac said:

Was a pin, the hook and hinge are missing but can see where it was. Back of wings are the same as it was die struck. Great research, makes sense as most the stuff in that area is that age. Not sure what the stone is, maybe onyx or opal. It is pretty clear but has inclusions so it isn't colored glass, Color is on the purple side.

As long as it doesn't have any bubbles in it, then it could be a stone of some sort. A lot of the turn of the century jewelry I find has glass in it. Also glass chips a certain way, so examine any small chips in the stone. Very nice piece, great find. Guys that repair items like that heat them up and slowly, and bend them a little at a time and repeat the process until it's straight. Too much heat on thin items and you burn through them. Too little and it cracks when bending.  Still a nice find the way it is.

It interesting that only 20% nickel can keep zinc and copper from leaching out after being in the salt water for so long.

I deeply regret selling my E Trac. Their were  settings on it that allowed one to get deep silver if they could handle the symphony of tones. One hunter got a little bit over 1000 silver coins in one year at hunted out New England parks. He lived near by me, so we went to some very trashy Hartford CT parks. He was killing me with 7 silvers before I even could find one. So he called me over and showed me a signal. I heard nothing. He tweaked my machine and told me what to listen for and then told me to dig. Out at about 9" was a Merc. I lost that program when I sold the unit. Bummer

7 hours ago, Joe Beechnut OBN said:

Love the red stone ring!

I've found several nickel rings but they have that clean look but nickel colored.  I have one I found that is marked Nickel / Silver. (which is German Silver)  When I found it I though gold but for some reason it looked different. Very clean but just not the right look. See if I can find the picture...

You should be able to tell the difference if you scratch it on the testing stone. 

Gold is soft, NIckel will be hard...Nickel/Silver.. I'm not sure.

Thanks Joe. I did a quick scratch test on the stone before I headed out to work. It left a mark on the stove easily. I could only find the 22K and 14K solutions, so I put a drop of each. The 22k ate through the line rather quickly. The 14 K took a while but did eat through it also.

4 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

Actually (as I'm sure you, Joe, know) it contains no silver at all (see Wikipedia:  The usual formulation is 60% copper, 20% nickel and 20% zinc.^[5]), but, yes, one of its many names is 'German Silver'.  I found out the hard way when I saw seven pairs of nickel silver cream and sugar containers (from United Airlines -- retired from back when they actually treated you like you were somone) at an antique shop around 2005.  The total weight turned out to be a bit over 700 ozt.  Thinking I was making a buy-to-kill-for I gobbled them up (for about $100 with tax).  Needless to say when I got home and looked up 'nickel silver' my heart sunk.  Sucker!  I still have them if someone wants to make an offer.    They do (to my un-expert eye) look like silver, particularly when tarnished.  Another example of the veracity of the axiom "if a deal appears too-good-to-be-true..."

Ahhh the old German Silver trick. False advertising at its best. I mean it is nickel and it is silver "COLORED", so I guess it's ok 😄 As for the creamers, I think you have the answer in your own words. Sell them as vintage American Airlines sugar/creamer set and add that tag line "When they used to treat you like you were someone"  $20.00 a set and you'll make a profit and you can bury that sucker feeling for good. 🙂

1 hour ago, mn90403 said:

I'm surprised he uses a Commander coil in that wet stuff.

Yep. That won't last long. I guess they are a bit rain proof, so it should work unless he has to put it in a hole full of water Then it's game over.  A bit of water on those hard mud beaches helps the coil glide over the surface. Remove the water and that mud makes the coil stick and skip. Happened to me a lot the other day. You can't scrape the coil there.

😄

8 hours ago, mn90403 said:

Here is a 5000 beach video we all have to like!

 

That's what the 5000 looks like if you use it a lot 😄 Scratched, but unaffected. Paul Cee, I watch his videos, he's a good guy. That flat beach is where a PI will shine. It's also where a lot of junk targets settle over time. He did a good job pinpointing and not scratching such a large target.