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jasong

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Everything posted by jasong

  1. Good rubber sheet is what I'd try too, unless more rigidity is desired. Rubber sheet is what we used for abrasion resistance in the oilfield on gravels. Industrial hose places sell rubber sheet here in various thicknesses in most towns, dunno if they do over there or not.
  2. In NNV just keep in mind what I've said. This 22CC is a large coil on the GPZ - both pieces of equipment are recipes for reduced depth in salt environments and difficult operation. PI's are more immune to salt, have more controls regarding salt, and may actually get better depth if the ground is damp. On the other hand, if you are hunting crystalline gold, then the GPZ will almost always get better depth on that stuff in any soil, so it depends where you are using it here. I'd go for the 22CC because you have the dream. But I would be prepared to have a ton of patience in NNV with it. I could use this thing all season in Arizona and have a lot of success. But honestly, there are only a small handful of places I am going to use it in NNV and most my detecting will be with the 6000 because it's so much more immune to salt and so, so much quicker to swing and cover more ground with.
  3. Got out of the damp salt ground today and into some quiet ground where I could just listen to the coil. This thing is surprisingly quiet for a large coil, in terms of EMI. The 6000 was screeching like a crazed weasel if I tipped it 20 degrees off flat, so I know EMI was around. Usually any large coil starts to get really unstable in EMI, but this one seems to do good, here at least. I was able to tip it up and detect angled wash banks without much issue. If I just sat it on the ground not moving, it was pretty quiet, much quieter than the 6000. Much quieter than I remember my 18" mono on my 4500 being here too, but that was quite some time ago so maybe my memory is bad. That said, didn't find anything. Its been said before, but in general NNV is not a great place for deep coils, due to soil deflation. I think there are only a few places where they'd really pay off, and these are spots with known nuggets deeper than 18", and larger than 1 oz. Anything else, 15" CC or the 6000 are the way to go IMO - the 6000 just destroys the salt, I can detect so fast with it that I can cover more ground than I think I could cover with a drag coil honestly.
  4. FCC authorization website. https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/eas/reports/ViewExhibitReport.cfm?mode=Exhibits&RequestTimeout=500&calledFromFrame=N&application_id=Gh4QGgRuAVf99u4A1R1CNA%3D%3D&fcc_id=Z4C-0061 It's usually a few weeks or months after showing up at the FCC before a product is listed for sale.
  5. Metal detectors aren't spectrometers, discrimination doesn't identify metals in a sample, they just guess at it and are often wrong. Don't rely on a metal detector to tell you if there is or isn't iron in anything. They will tell you solid gold is iron, and rusty iron is silver. And then it'll tell you something completely different on the same targets buried in different ground. Again, they are not spectrometers, they just detect the presence of metal, type of metal is a "best guess".
  6. To my knowledge almost all meteorites that contain metallic iron also contain metallic nickel - the two occur together in alloy form. Alloys are not equal to their component parts, the alloy acts like its own thing in many or most respects. This probably accounts for the metal detector not ID'ing specifically as iron. Some meteorites also contain trace amounts of other native metals including gold, PGM's, etc. Though I doubt those are detectable by metal detectors, but may alter the characteristics of the alloy somewhat.
  7. That's good if its for the Manticore, et all. Because I really want a speaker on whatever new gold detector they come out with, and no external modules because it's just one more thing to keep track of and have to charge...easier to do in town then on an ATV and backcountry. I just drove 800 miles to find out I forgot my WM12. Thankfully that wasn't the first time though, and I found a backup WM12 I bought last time I did this, shoved into a pocket in my ATV that I forgot I had too. I'd love to see a new gold detector, but man, after running that 22" CC, I don't know they can get much deeper than that. Really just want a GPZ+X Coils performance, except way lighter, better in salt, and way improved EMI performance. That'd be pretty much the last machine I'd really need, unless it was some automated drone type prospecting detector or something. I also really want a set of normal, easy to wear glasses that overlays a track of exactly where I've walked onto the ground, so I can keep track of places I still need to detect when gridding. In salt flats where everything looks the same, too easy to miss big chunks of undetected ground. A little VR/augmented reality maybe. I looked into making a set of these myself, I think it's actually possible. But then I got sidetracked looking at adding a Coral.ai tensor unit to the RaspPi and processing all kinds of visual data, and then of course my project got too complicated and I set it all aside and forgot about it as I had 5 other ideas by then, as always, short attention span.
  8. The first week the GPZ came out I was posting here about the importance of running in Normal anytime you can. Before Steve's ultra hot settings I was advocating very similar things for quite some time prior - only difference being I prefer to run as hot as possible while still remaining stable because I think EMI is the #1 largest reason targets are missed. I got told also here among other things back then the first few months the GPZ was released...I believe the phrase was..."running hot is a young man's game". This was in AZ, in soils people want to insist require really conservative timings, but IMO often do not. 🙄 But it's a struggle to get people to listen if you are younger than them, it seems sometimes. Anyways - in my experience the CCs aren't quieting the soil down for me, but they aren't making it worse either. They definitely are quite a bit deeper. This 22CC + GPZ is by far the deepest setup I've ever run, and I am wondering if it's actually deeper than something like those Mothership drag coil setups people are considering. I could detect my Hermit pick at the top of my head (I'm 6ft), and it's quite a lot less metal than a standard pick. I think I could hit it at about bellybutton level or slightly above with the stock coil. This this coil is substantially deeper than the stock, and still very sensitive to crumbs. The next time I use it I am going to have to strip all the metal off my pack (leatherman, crevice screwdriver, etc), not carry my pick around, and see if a bit of the salt signal might actually have been metal on my body. I tried contacting Chet to see if I could compare to his drag coil setup while I'm in the field but no luck. But my feeling is this may actually be a better option than a drag coil unless a person was using something much larger than the Mothership coil to drag. In salt I'm not confident of that statement though, as it's like night and day going between the GPZ and 6000, the 6000 slays salt and so using a machine like a 4500 or 5000 with the Salt Coarse setting on a drag coil may be interesting in NNV, where I think COBill may be interested in using the drag coil setup? Just using PI in general over ZVT probably deals with salt better. This is the problem with just going with advice like "SD is better for drags", you really have to tailor your equipment for your individual environment. Australia is not Northern Nevada, etc. Just take stuff out, experiment, and figure out what works best for the environment is always a win.
  9. Knowledge of where big gold was found, and access to it is more important than any detecting equipment IMO. Because you can always just use a mini excavator... Anyways I finally used the 22" CC today. It's not as heavy as it looks, feels about like the stock coil. I used it in NNV, and the soil is moist here about 3" down, making the GPZ kinda difficult to use since there is heavy salt here. This coil being large makes the salt, as expected, even worse. It's not easy to use, but neither is the 15" CC. That said, I took it down a wash that once had the nicest crystalline nugget I've ever found. I stupidly sold it for spot, and for years I've taken every single new coil and detector here hoping to find its brother. There are no targets left with any other coil combos. I found a 0.4 grammer with the 22cc here, but that was all I found. It was 7" deep, an ok target, repeatable but weak. I thought that was crazy good, so I measured in air and it's getting at least 10" on this little crumb in air, but honestly maybe as much as 11 or even 12"? This thing is crazy sensitive for being that large. I didn't get this coil sent to me for free, I traded for it. This thing would clean up in AZ, its a bit of a struggle in heavy salt in NNV though.
  10. Saw this WM09 coming down the pike, I'm out of the loop, not even sure what the WM08 was for, let alone this one. Maybe it's old news? Or for some entry level machine? Or the 08 needed some kind of upgrade like lower latency? I know a lot of people can't hear the latency in BT headphones but I definitely can and it drives me crazy, so maybe just updating that? But really, I just wanted to hope it means a new detector is coming. 😄
  11. I haven't run the 22" CC yet but I will very soon. My feeling is the 17"CC was deeper than my 4500 w/25" NF. On everything up to half Oz anyways, never found anything bigger with the CC, and my experience with the 25" was not extensive. The 17" CC did ok in NNV. It did awesome in AZ. I think the 22" may be slow going in NNV but I will see.
  12. Simon, you should ask Garrett if they'd either sell you an Axiom for a reasonable price in NZ, or send you one to use at least. I'm curious how these coils do, how the discrim works compared to the stock, etc. Seems like many that bought Axioms are either not very active posters, or mostly newer people though so I'm not sure if there will be much to read, at least not in depth WRT nugget shooting like I know you'd write.
  13. It's gneiss. In particular that sort of texture is called "augen gneiss".
  14. Streak test those crystals. Looks to me like a mishmash (ore, if you prefer). Something like an altered chlorite or greenschist for the gangue maybe, the colors seem congruent with hematite and limonite staining. Crystals my first guess would be pseudomorphs. Hex being either hematite coated quartz, or something after quartz. Cubics being hematite after pyrite/magnetite. Other minerals like chalcocite, sphalerite, etc readily form pseudomorphs after things like galena or whatever, if there are other metal ions available, so the mishmash can be even more complex to ID just from a photo as some of them can be cubics too or any shape really as a result. So in these cases, you really need to research the mineralogy of the specific area to get a good idea what things might be, and that would be up to you to do. But my first thought looking at it is some sort of mishmash ore, and since a lot of mineralized zones in Australia are old greenstone belts, greenstone of some sort would be my first thought for gangue rock. Almost looks like an eclogite, but I don't think it is, still check and see if that kind of thing is found there maybe? Everything I've said is 100% guess.
  15. Looks like melted (and then broken) glass to me.
  16. That looks natural to me too, for many of the reasons already stated by Geologyhound. Also agree it's something metamorphic, and appears to be a crack filling, but that I'm not certain of, especially if it's a gneiss or mylonite. Not sure if the "slots" are differential weathering or some sort of cracking due to stresses (physical deformation, differential cooling effects, etc). Leaning towards cracking though, and would guess from heat/cooling where the whole thing was heated and the central "vein" part cooled at a different rate than the outer material and caused internal stresses and thus the cracks. Potentially in unison with existing physical stresses already existent during cooling, causing the cracks to follow a vague pattern perpendicular to the principal stress direction. As a result, I'd guess that rock probably came from an area with mountain building or tectonically active at some point long ago in the past.
  17. An apt comparison IMO. 🙂 Difference is that it was assumed or said the GPZ couldn't really benefit from larger coils since it was just so ultra sensitive to begin with - and that was not true as X Coils showed. However, I do wonder if it's true with the 6000 to some degree.
  18. If you did the specific gravity test accurately then yes - it's almost certainly aluminum. Streak color matches too. Probably some melted piece of some junk that got water tumbled/worn later.
  19. For nuggets of mostly native metal the most important test is specific gravity. Volume via displacement is too inaccurate and prone to error by laypeople. Much better is weighing the displacement of water with a scale accurate to 1/10th gram. Place a container with water on the scale, and zero it. Then dangle the nuggets on a thin string in the water. The weight on the scale is the weight of the water displaced. Water is 1 qg/cc so the number on the scale is your exact volume in cubic centimeters. Divide your nugget weight by the volume and that is your specific gravity. Do it accurately and your mystery should be solved.
  20. Looks like calcite or barite. Barite would be noticeably heavy, calcite would feel like a normal rock weight. Where you can see your finger through the crystal on the 1st pic, place that part over a book or newspaper and see if the text doubles. Calcite is bifringent. Calcite also should react with acid whereas I don't think barite will.
  21. I had to look twice at that pic, I think there is some forced perspective happening making that snake look bigger than it is. I see prairie rattlers 5-10 a day some places here and I've never seen one half the size it looks in that pic. Still a big one for sure either way though!
  22. Not interested. My time and experience are valuable. If they want to pay me a reasonable wage for my time, gas, and experience then I'd be interested. Otherwise no thanks, and I already know what companies pay because I've declined a few of them already. 🙂 They want to pay a reasonable rate in return for time, experience, and gas, I might take those "opportunities" more seriously. But I'm not retired, my savings are not large, and that's only an opportunity to a person who has the means to essentially pay a company to work for them.
  23. The thing I'm curious about moving forward, if we are still going to get new machines, is who exactly they are going to get to field test them now. Steve has retired from testing. And these companies have made zero effort to try to contact any of the younger set of experienced detectorists, at least none that I know of, and most the detectorists I actively work with are under 50 years old now so I figured I'd have heard something by now. Maybe it's different in Australia? Or maybe they just have part timers testing? But it seems like Minelab is pretty much completely ignoring the needs/desires of the age set of users in the US that are going to soon become their prime demographic, as if intentionally. The only company that has really ever not felt like they were ignoring people under 50 was X Coils, who to me just seemed eager to get their products in anyone's hands that wanted to use them. I guess there is still JP but his silent absence leaves questions, no clue if he's testing machines or just lost patience with forums. I know in my case I've lost pretty much all my desire to post to the gold specific forum, but for my own reasons. My worry is that we are going to start seeing new releases from companies with little input from actual experienced field users. Who's Nokta getting to test? Maybe for an under $2k PI then whatever, but if it's for premium machines then this will be a massive let down to me if they start releasing pro-grade machines without putting them in the hands of people that know what they need for daily use, and are capable of identifying the quirks and errors that might seem tiny to an engineer but can be make or break for a daily prospector. Last thing I want is to drop big $ on another ML machine just to get some EMI crap that makes it literally unusable, despite less experienced people insisting it's normal or fine. If that happens again, I'm done and gone.
  24. That market ended in 2015 when the GPZ was released. Wether the 5000 is sold new or used doesn't make much difference now in terms of coils, no one has given serious effort to develop novel new coils for it since the spiral wound coils came out, 8 years or so ago. In any case - anyone who wants to make 5000 coils can still do it wether ML sells them new or not though, so nothing is changing there by axing the 5000. I would have a hard time believing after the X Coils thing that Minelab wouldn't release an 8000 with a stock sufficient range of coils, or a 3rd party manufacturer already in the wings. Because really all they need to do to make a significantly better machine is two things: 1.) Concentric coils and smaller coils 2.) Lighter. I think they'll have some kind of coil selection. Unless it's a new type of detector again, using new types of coils. Really just a GPZ with a 15" concentric is enough improvement to be a new model, performance wise. Make it lighter, bam, GPZ 8000. So, I have to guess they'd include coils. Update the electronics to modern stuff, reduce EMI, got a good machine I'd buy. The 6000 doesn't have a lot of coil selection, but it doesn't really need it. Honestly, I could probably never truly need anything more than one coil on it, personally. Similarly, 90% of my detecting with the GPZ is with an 8" and a 15" CC. The 4500 I hauled 6 or 8 coils around with me everywhere, thankfully no longer need to do that. The model/idea of needing tons of extra coils itself I think is getting outdated.
  25. Best thing I've heard all day, if true. Hope they axe the 7000 next. 😉 Will be interesting to see if they are able to exceed the performance of the 7000+X. Given how much time they've had, and how seemingly easy it was for those guys to make good coils, I'm personally expecting great things. JP has been missing so long online too that I'm guessing they have been doing some seriously extensive field testing. I'm not ready to jump on the "detecting tech is at a dead end" boat myself yet like a lot of others are, and I still want to see what else we can get. At least one more time anyways. If we have to cut a few old trees down to make light in the forest for the new growth, I'm all for it.
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