tvanwho

I have a chance to go hunt for geodes in the Keokuk,Iowa/ Hamilton,Illinois area this weekend.

Supposedly this is one of the best areas in the world to find the better geodes. Some even have oil in them I heard.

How do I tell the ones with the larger hollows before breaking them open? Anybody got tips and tricks for geode hunting?

How to break them open the gentle way?  I hear they are in creeks and gray shale deposits in ravines.

Thanks.

Can't you cut out and attach a thin clear piece of lexan or plexiglass to the spoked Racer coil with nylon ties so it doesn't hang up on weeds?

-Tom

Hmm, the Racer 2 sounds ok, but I still had my best ever coin depth results ,in ground, with a Tesoro Tejon and stock coil like 10 years ago. Deepest was a wheatie in dry ground with my Lesche digger completely in the hole, handle and all. I only got rid of it cause it was an iron magnet and did not have VCO audio. Is it possible to add VCO to a detector that does not have it? And my old Fisher CZ6 with 3 tone audio id and meter, could hit a silver dime in black dirt at 10+ inches with the stock coil. Might need to find me one of them again ....

So how do you tell at night what is making scary noises- bigfoot, bears, wolves, the boogey man ? That was quite the adventure.

Thanks Steve,

But both my elbows are in pain this year and I have yet to even swing a detector yet. I am guessing its arthritis  so need lighter weight detectors. Just was told I have arthritis in my lower lumbar back , no wonder it hurts to drive very far to gold country last few years. The joys of getting old....

-Tom

I've had to do this 2x on land.One time was in a private military park setting. A former friend  from where I work  had got permission to metal detect there and invited me along.  I didn't notice at first, but later needed to talk to him, and found like 30 unfilled 6 inch deep holes all leading to him. I told him to fill in his holes and he started swearing at me and refused. I filled them all in myself.  We were no longer friends after that incident. Some people just won't listen to good reason...and its always the minority who ruin it for the majority, is one of the few hard and fast rules I have learnt in life....

Just was wondering if the Racer 2 is any good in the goldfields or is intended more for coins and relics only?

-Tom

Nice color ....so this Rye patch never gets hunted out then? How big is it?

Hmm, Tesoro seems to have these coils, wonder if they can be modified to work on Whites machines...?

Is the black stuff on the nugget iron and manganese? How do you get it off? Nice piece. Persistence can pay off...

Keene makes a 2.5 horse Honda with an air compressor but for some reason they don't always show it in their online catalog. So ,you would have to have 2 of these small Honda motors on your dredge, one for the water pump and the other for the air pump. Altho, they have a 4 horse Honda that can handle both if I recall.

I am tempted to get one for my 2 inch dredge but don't like the idea of having river water in my mouth via the hookah thingie. There can be nasty bacterias in that water especially in warmer months. Brownies 3rd Lung also has a similar unit but the cost is triple what Keene wants.

They used to make a coin popper thing.I never did use mine, flat blade screwdriver works good but sure will scratch up a silver coin as I found out the hard way years ago. Otherwise Lesche red handled serrated tool for me, NOT the Samson digging spade, that's for relic hunting in the woods.

I held off on buying this new machine due to the problems I had with a new AT Pro which Garrett got me for $200 in repairs for THEIR faulty parts......works great now.....almost like buying a brand new model of car, let somebody else buy it first and the factory will fix the bugs later mentality.....

Silver is nice BUT the clad coins will pay for gas and batteries and food altho you may have to clean the crud off them in a rock tumbler before they are spendable. Heck, its been at least 10 years since I last found a silver coin locally. Can't be digging craters in public parks and schoolyards unless you want to get banned. That where the pinpointers come in right handy. My coin dealer is willing to sell me $100 face value in common date silver coins + the silver value , dunno how many I would end up with? Do that every month and after a year, would have  a good stash of spendable silver at home for in case the doomsayers are ever right and the world collapses into chaos. Which almost did happen in 2007-2008 as I recall.

Holy Cow, only $119 for a small coil, hard to say NO on that one.

Yes, you can pay for a Compadre in 1 summer if you just pound tot lots ,school yards, playgrounds, house yards,  grassy spots by parking meters, sled hills, and small hills in  a park- people set up there and look around and set back on their elbows and the money falls outta their pockets without them realizing it.etc Heck, I've had this happen to me relaxing on the living room carpet..Gold rings don't sell for much more than melt price altho they may appraise for MUCH more, UNTIL you go to sell it and the appraiser refuses to give you that amount and just offers you melt value for the gold.....sure seems like a scam at times...if you can sell to a friend at work or somebody who lost/misplaced their wedding ring or such, you should be able to do better....

Yes Rick,I've noticed the guys in Australia have al u min eum cans vs our US made aluminum cans....even tho they sure do look the same....people can be so funny at times, or is it quirky, amongst gold hunters and gold terminology? I am tryin to be less nitpicky at this point in life....

So, my 1/2 inch long Playboy Bunny gold pendants that I got with my Lobo would be classed as Micro Jewelry then?

sounds like the same thing by implication

Steve,

Mind if I ask what the heck you mean by Micro Gold? Am sure its not the same as Micro Mount rock specimens, so what is it?

Where do you get nuggets in Idaho Steve? Under any old rock?

I almost paid the price for not wearing my safety goggles over my eyeglasses while using my hand grinder on my highbanker. .A chip flew off and hit me in my upper cheek. Took me an hour to find a pair of goggles but better than a trip to the ER... Pays to be safe vs assuming nothing bad will happen ,when doing potentially dangerous things like grinding, sawing, welding, using acids...sure wish there was a solution for getting older and more feeble...but my father always told me this was better than the alternative...

Thanks guys for your support, no offense to Chris, but forums are meant for question and answer sessions as well as show and tell,  even repeats sometimes...guess we will all be Old Timers in a few more years much as I hate to admit to it..

Yes, but as I approach the big 60 this year, my brain seems to be in a fog a lot of the time, and poor memory too. One of these days, I will remember to search 1st.

Thanks Strick. I trust folks on this forum more than elsewhere too.Maybe Chris just had a bad day? He is usually quite helpful..

I am not very comfy around acids myself.

That is an excellent gold cleaning  thread by the way.Any good videos on the subject ?

I found a thread on waterproofing a Compadre, user seems to like it for trashy , iron filledwater sites:

http://metaldetectingforum.com/showthread.php?t=168729

If you right click on your mouse, scroll down to Translate with Bing, all words become English vs German