AUddicted

A friend of mine showed me what he believes is a small grinding device used for gold ore sampling. Anyone have any info on this? Thanks

They're free to GPZ owners!

Regarding Northern Nevada... Deja-vu to that. Last year I was sleeping in the back of my 4x4 truck/camper shell out at Sawtooth. Late at night it started raining. I knew from others' stories that you don't want to get caught there in the rain. But I was so sleepy and it was so late, I said screw it. At 6 am it was still raining and now I was getting very nervous. It was white knuckle driving and sliding with large trucks passing opposite direction splatterING my windshield and truck with that white slimy crap, then headed toward and past Rye patch. OMG, I was so relieved when I finally made it to pavement! I still have that hardened white matter in the crevasses of my undercarriage.

Steve,Can you actually get a good night's sleep like that? What about your back?

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?

But how common with non- VLF machines?

This has also happened to me, with oak tree roots and manzanita roots. Strong mineralization in the root structure. Two ways to decipher whether it's a target or not- as you dig deeper the pseudo target does not get louder, or switch to another machine at the point of confusion. This seems to be an anomaly issue with the GPZ only.

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After my first outing with the GPZ I realized this machine is going to look pretty beat up in a few months. I pondered some different ideas to protect the top of the coil like stick on shelving paper or some kind of self adhering protection. I ended up testing a spray on rubber product called Plasti Dip. I first tested it on plastic and wood before blasting it on my precious and expensive new GPZ coil. After multiple coats and letting it dry you have a rubber coating that is pretty durable. When you want to later remove it, it just starts pealing and stretching like balloon rubber as it comes off, and it stays in one piece. Application is a little bit of a pain though. What I did was undo the coil fasteners and suspended the detector from the ceiling with the coil (cover off) sitting on a bench covered with cardboard. I retracted the shaft so the coil wire extended past the shaft knuckle. Then used masking tape over the coil wire where it meets the coil and masking tape over the coil eyelets so there's no build up there. After spraying each coat I had to remove the tape right away, and 30 minutes later re-tape before applying the next coat, for a total of 5 fairly thick coats. It has proven to be quite durable and I will definitely continue to protect my coil with this method. Next time I'll spray it with the white color. Oh..., the nozzle of the spray can wants to clog between coats. Pull it off right after spraying and let it soak in mineral spirits until you need it. The product instantly dissolves in mineral spirits. Another protective product I use is this self fusing rubber splicing tape. The picture is pretty much self explanatory. This product has to be redone more often. The warmer the temp. the more the rubber wants to kind of roll off. I don't know why some of the pics rotate when I attach them.

A few weeks ago I had this grandiose idea of designing and selling a cover for the new 7000. During this time of working on it and shelling out $, I've learned there are 2 others working on a cover as well. The company I had do the sewing felt it would cost $85/ unit so I gave them the go ahead to make one then decide if I like it, and if they truly could produce them for $85 each. Well after it was done she charged me $110 and said she can't beat that price. So I really don't think I'm going to try to compete with the other guys and produce these. Oh well, at least I have a cover. The back was left open to let heat out. I do have another idea, about producing a real high end cover. It would be a real high quality fit, have a rubber foot sewn to the bottom, have a "tactical/ military" look and quality, a more heavy duty cordura nylon material, just plain "cool". It would also have a velcro removable pouch for the wireless module to be stored- either when in use or for just when its not in use. But it would cost over $200. I know most people would buy the less expensive covers but I'm wondering if there might be a smaller but decent market for this higher end cover? I mean this is a $10,000 machine. I would appreciate your thoughts...

Well I think my "posted concerns" are diminishing. Ironically I dug up a 5.5 dwt nugget about 4 hours ago along with 1 slightly under a gram and 3 smaller ones. Seems kind of dinky after JP's post. The quarter ouncer was 9" deep. Not super deep but hey, none of the other machines that hit this area heard it. It was in a tailings pile under 3 to 4 inch sharp edged rocks mixed with dirt.

Chris has found a .58 oz piece at 18", Rob Allison (You Tube vid.) found a 1/3 oz piece at 18", Doc (You Tube vid.) found a 1.2 dwt piece @ 18". And there are more You Tube vids. with deep finds. I just want to find a piece of trash at 18" to know my machine is working as well as the others. I hunt a lot of different areas with different soil depths and percentages of trash so I feel I should have dug up a deep target by now. If it can't hear deep trash then it can't hear deep gold either. It would also be helpful to hear about other's deep trash examples (like Chris's 24" deep iron piece, even though iron will be louder and more obvious) to get more info. on the potential depth of the 7000. On a side note: I can't help but wonder if Minelab were to set up an SDC2300 with a 14" coil would it equal or better the performance of the GPZ?

Hi all, I have this nagging concern that maybe not every machine is as optimum as say the most "optimum" one. I have spent around 120 hours with the GPZ, and I am very pleased with the small gold it finds, and several 1 gram pieces, to the tune of 38 pieces for a total of 1/2 oz. But I'm not getting the deep targets that some folks are reporting. For example, 2 of the deepest targets have been- a nail at 12" and a 22 casing at 10". I've dug up over a hundred birdshot pellets of all the various sizes and many other pieces of various sized lead trash. I'm very comfortable with the settings I'm using which are consistent with what others on this forum are using, and I've been very diligent about removing inches of soil when unsure if I have a true target or not. The main settings I use are Normal ground, High Yield and Audio Smoothing off, but I mix up the Sensitivity settings and re-hunt productive locations after making changes to see if I might do better. I do follow the ground balance procedures and Re-set Noise cancel recommendations that have been much talked about here and from other GPZ owners. With this machine I have hit 3 locations that produced 5 or so nuggets in relatively close proximity, sort of "mini" patches. It's really hard for me to believe there aren't some deeper targets in these spots that I'm just not hearing. I have definitely found deeper targets (but not gold) with my beloved and long gone GPX 5000, but I don't think it would have heard most of the gold I have found with the 7000. What I'd like to learn from other GPZ owners is, how many "deep" targets you've been digging? A few, quite a few, lots?

Here's a tip for preventing the headphone wire from pulling out of the jack. Simply attach 2 small zip ties quite firmly as shown in the pic. The quick release still functions normally.

I removed that right away figuring it was just for packaging protection and wouldn't last long. No the actual lens itself is soft.

The plastic screen on the GPZ is ridiculously soft, especially for a 10K machine. I just don't get it? I was really aggravated by this because I found out the hard way. I then did what Steve did. You can buy a 3 pack at Wallmart and cut to size.

Tungsten is very hard wouldn't dent so easily. Tellurium perhaps? But you did say it was very heavy. Hmmm

Well, I feel I'm really setting myself up for criticism but, with my GPX 5000 using the Nugget Finder elliptical Sadie mono coil or their 12" mono elliptical coil, approximately 80 percent of iron trash made a noticeable bubbly sound. Smaller and less rusty iron trash didn't make the same sound. With those 2 coils only, neither lead or gold ever did that. But I still continued to dig those bubbly targets because everyone I told this to disagreed with me and would not accept what I was telling them and I wanted to see if there was ever an exception to the rule. Finally I just quit talking about it (so I ask myself why am I bringing this up again). This bubbly specific iron sound has not been true with my SDC 2300 or the new GPZ or the GPX with different coils other than mentioned above. With the SDC and the GPZ I have dug up gold and lead that sound bubbly.

They could have waited a month or two, stocked up on parts then released the machines. I'm glad they didn't wait.

When I got mine the first thing I did was devise a way to lock it inside my truck. Turning the coil 90 degrees with the shaft retracted, I set it on the floor behind the seat, tight against the back of the seat. Then I put a Kryptonite lock around the shaft at the handle of the unit and through the seat frame. Then I cover it with a dark gray bedsheet which is basically invisible through the factory tinted back windows. Looking at it I ask myself, "if I wanted to steel this without damaging it, how would I go about it?" First I'd have to steal the truck...

If a person had the patience, each time he/ she had a target, before digging, they could try those combinations (re-ground balancing after each setting change) and then record the findings. When changing locations you might get different results due to hotter/ quiter ground or stronger/ weaker EMI. So each location would need separate records. But eventually you could have some good useful data and know your machine much better. If I were to do this I would record the info. for lead targets as well.

Funny you posted this today. Today I made it my mission to buy a pair of metal free boots. I bought a pair of Keen "Detroit Mid" boots which are metal free and water proof. After the purchase I tested them with the GPZ and got no response. I then went to one of my usual dig locations for a few hours and these boots are soooo comfortable. No gold though.

I hadn't been able to do this with the GPZ because I have metal on by boots (which had never been a problem with the GPX machine). So today for the first time I wore shoes with no metal, shortened the rod length and the weight of the machine was much less of a burden. Do you wear non-metal boots?