Lesgold

Just put up a clip of a couple of the small pieces that my grandson found on his first trip out in the bush. Phrunt’s earlier comments about the 6000 having a narrow range in relation to small gold shows through a couple of times in the video.

Thanks for the feedback Simon. Much appreciated. I have seen the 15” concentric in use and was very impressed with it. Not really suitable for this type of prospecting with the large rocks but it would be fantastic in open country. Yes I was lucky to have some water reasonably close and I should do something about it. It’s a pity high bankers are illegal for us to use in NSW. The material would have fed through quickly as it was all contained within gravel with next to no clay. My grandson took some footage of some of the gravel that I ran through the pan.

Simon, I have a question or two for you in relation to the 8” Xcoil. How does it perform in relation to the 10x5 Coiltek on the six? I assume it would have pretty good sensitivity but what about depth? It could be another option in my situation as I have family members who would grab the six every time and leave me twiddling my thumbs. I have heard a mate say that it was very good up at Tibooburra on the small stuff but this was only hear say. I assume that it would love hot rocks even more than the. Six. I know why they are called Xcoils. The “x” is for expensive (especially when you add the cost of an adaptor.) It is still a viable option if the performance is there and I assume it would balance nicely on the end of a 7.

Cleaned up the gold that the 6000 recovered. What you see is actually the result of a lot of careful work so in reality the 7000 actually did quite a good job. When we arrived at the patch, I had my 12 year old grandson run over the ground before any gravel was disturbed. He found 5 targets that were obvious which was pretty good as he had never been detecting before. We dug those pieces (which were very small) and then systematically turned over the ground and dug a little deeper and wider to recover the remaining pieces. As soon as we hit hard packed, dirty gravel the gold disappeared which indicated that it was a drop zone during floods that occurred late last year. I’m sure that the Zed would have squawked on some of those larger pieces if we had followed the same detailed search procedure a few days ago. What Phrunt has been saying was really reinforced and made obvious as I watched my grandson and daughter searching this area. I spent most of the day watching and filming as they enjoyed the excitement of the hunt. Often a scrape of an inch would reveal a screaming signal that was not audible a minute earlier. Gold signals lost in tailings piles or a scoop that had too much material in it were a common occurrence. To his credit, my grandson soon leant the tricks required to achieve success. The gold in the photo weighs just over a gram. The pieces that were panned were dried and weighed and came in at just over .2 grams which was surprising. There may have to be a rethink about leaving the remaining specs for someone else.

Couldn’t agree more Phrunt. It has made life easy. I took my eldest daughter and grandson back to this spot with the 6 in tow. I knew that there would be gold left in that patch but gee, it was small. It was my grandsons first real attempt at prospecting and he picked it up quite well and had a ball. Just cleaning up the “fly specs” now. Just for a bit of fun I took two pans of the gravel and panned it out. Had to walk about 40m to get to water so it lost its appeal quite quickly. Here’s the result. I was quite impressed. If I was keen, I could classify a few buckets and have a play in the water. The problem with doing that is detecting time would suffer. So maybe not just yet. Lol.

When the Equinox 800 first came out, I purchased the 6” coil. It was a pretty good coil and it found a bit of gold in suitable locations. I remember performing a comparison test against the SDC with the standard coil. I found a benign mullock heap which contained quite a few small pieces of gold. An area about 2mx2m was raked clean and the area was carefully detected with the 2300. Any targets that were identified (without any boot scrapes or scratches with the pick) were marked with a blue plastic marker (like the ones you see in kids board games) 7 targets were identified. The same area was then detected with the Equinox and targets were marked with yellow discs. I wanted to give the Equinox a slight advantage so it was used after the SDC did its thing. 4 targets were found with the other 3 being a no show. The Equinox gave a very good signal on one of the targets but the SDC won hands down on that test in that particular location. One test doesn’t doesn’t prove much at all except that the Equinox can find small gold. All 7 pieces ended up being gold.

Thanks Phrunt. That sounds just right for the 6000. Just about to head out now with the detector to see what turns up in that patch.

Your comment about the six going from no signal to a screamer in a short distance is so true. My mate and I were out detecting yesterday and I had this situation arise twice. I went to a shallow rock bar that had produced a few small pieces on previous trips. I decided to move some rocks so that I could get the coil a bit closer to the bedrock. Initially I checked a small area for any evidence of a signal and then a thin piece of shale type material was removed. When the shallow water cleared, I could see the bedrock below and ran the coil through that area. The six screamed. After a bit of fluffing about, a small nugget was retrieved. In another situation, I ran the 10x5 coil over some damp bedrock that had a thin layer of clay sitting on it. It was potentially a good area to trap a piece of gold. When I ran the coil over the clay, the machine didn’t have a break in the threshold but gave that sort of low pitched moan type sound that tells you there is something there that it needed to react to. It was very much like the sound you get when you run over some mildly mineralised ground. As it was in one confined area, a scrape with the pick was in order. About half an inch of clay was removed and the area was detected again. The machine reacted in protest. Again, a small piece of gold ended up in the rattle jar. When working mullock heaps that contain gold, removing material an inch at a time before detecting often pays dividends. This issue is more evident with the smaller coils (which is to be expected). There was a comment earlier about running in normal. It is fantastic if you can and does produce outstanding results. In the area that we are currently working you could run both machines in normal if you wanted to. The only issue would be that running in normal would reduce the life of the detectors…………. Within ten minutes they would be wrapped around a tree and have huge rocks dropped on them from a huge height.

You are right phrunt. Coil sizes and types do make a difference. I’ll take the 6 back with the 10x5 attached to try and sniff out some small pieces. It would have been good to have both detectors on site at the same time but I’m not that keen to carry two machines the long distance required for this exercise. My mate and I have always done a lot of comparison testing on live undug targets just for the fun of it. When ever new coils or machines come out we often grab a couple of detectors and search hard for some faint signals and then run the different coils/machines over them using a range of settings. I’m not a big fan of planting targets unless there is no other real option. Some people say that we are wasting prospecting time doing this but we don’t care. We enjoy doing it and the discussion and surprise makes it worth it. I would love to try a small X coil on the Zed. I have heard it is very sensitive to small gold. What’s your opinion of it?

That’s a valid point. Nearly all of the targets would have been easily recovered using the 6. The point is, this area was detected well with the 6000 on previous trips with no targets being heard. The 7000 picked up 3 signals in close proximity to each other and were recovered from good depth. This resulted in rocks being moved and gravel shifted in order to cover the ground well. What you saw in the clip was a result of that activity. If we didn’t take the Zed with us on this trip, the gold would still be in the ground. I’m not putting down the 6000, (it is actually our go to machine) I was just pointing out what happened and how the 7000 really does sniff stuff out that the 6 can’t hear. The two machines are a fantastic combination. The small patch area was detected really well with the Zed until I was satisfied that there was nothing else to be found. The problem I did face was the machine was trying to tell me something but no matter what I did, it could not give me enough information and lock onto a target. As this was a flood gold deposit, I assume that there will still be some small pieces present and possibly some pan size specs. With Easter coming up, and family visiting, the plan is to head back with my daughter and grandson to have one more play at the patch. This time the 6000 and a pan will be used. It is amazing how the 6 can absolutely scream on a small piece and yet the 7000 won’t even hear it. Im hoping they can have some fun and share in the thrill of holding some pieces of gold. I’ll report back if the 6 does find anything.

They are good finds Doc. You are right about its ability to sniff out deep targets. When we were onto the small gold, we just got into the zone and forgot about getting the phone out to do some filming. As things slowed up a bit, we finally drew breath and took the time to take one small bit of footage. It’s just a raw, unedited clip so apologies if it is clumsy. It is what it is. We had our machines running in sensitivity 15, high yield, difficult. Except for the really small pieces, they were banging through really well.

Agreed. The 6 makes life very easy but the 7 is a real workhorse. I accidentally left the guide arm at home which made for an interesting outing. Using a detector without one puts a lot more strain on the body. I found my concentration span was shorter yesterday due to this and short, regular breaks were needed to maintain focus.

My detecting mate and I have been working a dry gully for quite a while using our 6000’s with 10x5 Coiltek coils attached. We had been finding a bit of small gold but lately our returns diminished and we had almost decided to move to a new location. In a bid to squeeze out a few more pieces, we decided to detect the ground with our 7000’s and try to uncover a few deeper nuggets. We weren’t expecting much as we had spent a considerable amount of time working this area on the short gully and thought that if we could come home with a piece or two we would have achieved our goal. The Six with the small coil really suited this area as there were many potential gold traps and hiding spots for the tiny pieces that inhabited this location. The Zed’s were fitted with Nuggetfinder 12” Z search coils and after a ground balance and tune were running exceptionally well. The hot rocks and noisy ground that played havoc at times with the 6, were ignored by the 7’s so we knew that we had a bit of potential to find that really subtle signal. We moved slowly and tried to get into difficult areas and hopefully jag something for our effort. After about 20 minutes we added a couple of small pieces to the rattle jar from steep banks on the sides of the gully. It was agreed that the shallow pieces would have been picked up easily with the 6000 but were now happy that we hadn’t been “skunked” for the day. Joe was working a stretch of ground that had produced well for us in the past so I decided to move upstream about 50m to give him some space. I started at a rock bar that had given up some treasure about a month or so ago. We had pulled about 6 very small pieces on and around the outcrop and made a concerted effort to cover all the ground in that area very well. Every subsequent trip resulted in a repeat of that process just in case we missed something. The same region was detected today with the Zed and to my surprise, a very faint signal was heard. It was in an ideal location next to the rock bar on the inside section of a bend. You can see the hole in the photo. We had hoped to find a piece of gold at a depth that the Six couldn’t see and it finally happened. It must have been on edge as the signal was initially very soft and only increased during the dig. What popped out was a pleasant surprise. The 6000 has dominated our detecting for a couple of years now and the Zed barely gets pulled out of the cupboard. It was good to get its coil scraping on the ground again and put through its paces. We had forgotten how quiet it could be when the ground suited. We had also forgotten about digging deep holes until we were quickly reminded of its power. Rusty nails and bits of steel with soft enticing signals generally resulted in ugly growls and swimming pools being dug half way to China. We moved upstream and continued to detect some old ground looking for that deeper target. I was lucky enough to get a really faint signal behind a large rock. After digging a deep hole, a small, shiny nugget surfaced. I could see why the Six would not see a piece of gold at that depth. When the hole was inspected with the coil, another break in the threshold told the story of a surprise awaiting inspection. When a piece of gold ended up in the scoop, I called Joe over and we started moving rocks and detecting a small area thoroughly. A bunch of small pieces resulted. We had a lot of fun working that area together. Joe finally moved 20 metres upstream and found another patch of deep, small pieces of gold. The river worn gold was often visible in the scoop or in the ground like the piece shown in the picture. Joe pulled a couple of pieces on the walk back including one that was in a pool of water. Boots and socks came off and a slow and frustrating recovery followed. It’s great to see a prize for all the effort put in. The final picture shows the result of our day out. Quite a few of the pieces were so small that they wouldn’t move the scales but they all added up. It is pleasing that the Zed can still earn its keep on the tiny gold. Most of the pieces found would still be in the ground if we had used the 6000’s on this trip. Having a combination of machines has proved to be a winner in this area.

Hi Folks, It’s Sunday afternoon here and I’m trying to get ready for a few days detecting over the next couple of weeks. I’ve been working some gully areas with a mate but he’s gone away on a prospecting trip for a month and it looks like I’ll be working solo during that time. We put out a YouTube clip last week and it was so easy with two on the job. When we detected a target, one person would film as the other person dug out the buried metallic object. It saved a lot of time as normally tripods etc need to be set up and this often becomes a frustration that can take the edge off a trip. I decided that I’d mount my GoPro on the shaft of the 6000 to make life a bit easier for some of the footage that I plan to take on the next outing. When I looked through the various assortment of mounts that I had for the camera, there was nothing suitable for the job so I decided to make one. It is a simple task that can be achieved with some PVC pipe, some basic hand tools and a hot air gun. A piece of 50mm pipe was cut to 30mm in length and a slit was cut down one side. A spacer block and two cramping blocks were then cut from some scrap timber. You can see on the left hand side of the photo that the lower shaft of the 6000 was ready to be used as a mandrel to shape the PVC. The hot air gun was then used to heat the pipe until it became soft and pliable. This only took about 10 seconds. The PVC was then shaped around the shaft and the blocks were positioned in place. A G cramp held the moulded plastic in place until it was cured. I had to repeat the process a couple of times until I was satisfied with the shape of the mount. It was a simple matter of reheating the PVC to soften it before reshaping it again. The mount took a couple of minutes to cool before being trimmed, shaped and drilled to fit the GoPro. An off-cut of 3.5mm acrylic was shaped as a spacer to fit between the camera legs. Stainless washers could have been used for this component. The mount was attached to the detector and secured with the standard locking screw and a 5mm wing nut. Using scrap PVC is a cheap way of moulding all sorts of mounts for prospecting gear. I’ve just finished making a bathyscope from some 100mm sewer pipe. You may be able to see the light fittings at the bottom. They were all made using a similar method to the mount shown above. I noticed a local prospector was using a bathyscope when he was detecting in water. I thought it was a good idea as it can be time consuming trying to recover gold from submerged crevices without one. Have a look at Bedrock Gold’s channel if you get the chance. It really does speed things up.

I’ve taken both a camper and caravan to WA for prospecting. Both have advantages and limits as mentioned. If you are on your own, a camper would be my preference. You can get it into tight areas and push the limits to get closer to the gold in some localities. If the “better half” is travelling with you, considering her comfort is pretty important so a van would be my preference in that situation. The cost of pulling a van over extended distances also should be considered. I have found that water and to a lesser extent fuel reserves tend to be the biggest issues to resolve when camping off grid for extended periods of time.

The 12x7 has been getting a bit of a run over the past couple of weeks. It continues to impress as a well behaved coil that responds quietly to most conditions. As with all of the coils that currently run on the 6, wet ground cover or damp mineralised soil can be a bit of a pain when running the machine flat out but this really comes down to the price that you pay for sensitivity. Hot rocks love this coil when running in normal but a quick button press into difficult usually provides the answer that you are after. If the signal disappears a hot rock is usually the culprit. Anything else is worth further investigation. One thing I have noticed about this coil compared to the Coiltek 10x5 is that the broader signal heard on the 12x7 has a bit more tonal variation than the Coiltek. Steel, lead and gold are a bit easier to pick with the Nuggetfinder but both coils can trick you consistently. Junk signals that give a harsh scream can end up being gold and silky smooth, mellow tones can result in a small piece of rust. You really do have to dig everything. Had a pleasant morning out late last week and was pleased to come home with some small pieces from heavily worked country. This coil is very good in tight areas and works well in all positions. The larger piece was detected in a vertical wall and gave a good, clean signal.

A beautiful little spot to detect. A nice piece of gold was pulled from bedrock in about a foot of water. (Just below the tree on the left hand side) The best part was to share the day with a good mate and video the gold reveal.

Camping on the gold fields at Tibooburra Somehow the search for yellow was a secondary pursuit.

I agree phrunt. I had a deposit on the Xceed for months and got sick of waiting so the Goldhawke got a run. You wouldn’t need both coils but I believe that the Nuggetfinder will be a better all round hunting coil with the 10x5 being used for vacuuming the scraps, especially in tight areas.

Took the 12x7 out for its first swing today. The only issue I encountered was not wanting to take the Coiltek 10x5 off the 6. It is an awesome bit of gear that sniffs out a lot of small stuff that the standard coil won’t hear. My mate and I decided that if either one of us were to get a faint signal, the target would be marked and I would swap over to the 12x7 to compare signal strengths etc. We were detecting in fairly benign ground and generally bounced between normal and difficult in auto plus. Both 10x5’s were running really well. After the first target was detected, I swapped coils for the comparison. We tried the full range of settings on both machines and we agreed that each coil nailed the signal exceptionally well. If I were to put money on it, I would have given it to the 10x5 purely due to the short , sharp signal response. My mate eventually picked up a really faint signal on the side of an old mullock heap. When I ran the 12x7 coil over the target, the signal came through but was totally different to what the 10x5 was saying. The short, sharp but quiet signal from the Coiltek coil was replaced by a broad, faint chirp from the Nuggetfinder. We discussed this for a minute or so and agreed that the target was going to be relatively deep. A small bit of gold popped out from a depth of around 5 inches. Again, there was nothing in it but I would say that the Coiltek’s crisp signal was slightly better. The Nuggetfinder came out on top later in the day on a reasonably deep target. I heard a faint signal and stupidly dug down a couple of inches to confirm it before calling my mate over to compare signals. When he passed his coil over the target approximating original ground level, nothing could be heard with the 10x5. When we debriefed at the end of the day we agreed that the coils both performed as we guessed they would. The 10x5 has a slight advantage on the small, shallow targets and the 12x7 punches a bit deeper. It’s far to early to read too much into what we found but we were both happy with how the Xceed performed. The 12x7 was exceptionally quiet and ran really well in auto plus with threshold on. The detector was in normal all day and settings were only changed when comparing coils. The Xceed appears to be well made floats effortlessly over the ground. I think it is going to be a good general purpose coil for hunting in a variety of terrains. Although the standard 11” coil performs quite well, I think it’s skid plate is going to last quite a few years. cheers Les

Hopefully a small coil with sensitivity close to the edge would be something that is being considered. Perhaps even a small DD for those damp, highly mineralised rocky areas.

I would expect that Coiltek will be testing a range of coils to suit the 6k. The 14x9 would be my guess for the first release as they have the tooling and equipment already in place for that specific size.

Thanks for the replies everyone. Sorry about the delay in getting back to you, there’s just been a lot on lately. The battle belt idea is what I was thinking of but what I was also considering was the option of modifying the standard harness to add a camelback arrangement using webbing and Velcro as it is one area that is not utilised at the moment. This would free up some space on the belt as this is where water is currently held. Will keep scratching my head and thinking about it for a while until a moment of brilliance hits. (This may take a while) cheers Les

Hi Folks just Finished reading the detecting backpack thread with interest. Some great ideas presented there for people who will be detecting and camping out for a few days. My question relates to detecting harnesses that many of you use on day trips. What do you wear and how do you configure them? Now before we get started, I know that many of you hate wearing a harness and use other methods to hold your gear. I understand that and can relate to that but as a harness wearer, I’d be interested in what solutions people have come up with to hold a pick, scoop, phone, gps, enhancer, speakers, water, finds container, first aid kit, camera gear, food etc, etc, etc. I have always used the Minelab harness and found that it works well in most situations but it does lack storage space and I have run out of room. It would be great to see photographs, ideas, links etc as even one small idea could make a huge difference to harness “efficiency”. Looking forward to reading about some of your rigs. cheers Les

I have a roll of the cloth tape that prospecting stores sell but the problem with it is that it works too well. It sticks effectively and lasts a long time but it is a pain to remove. I tend to clean the area between the skid plate and the coil regularly as moisture and dust tend to build up when a section of the seal breaks down. Like phrunt, pvc tape works well for me. It is inexpensive, lasts longer than I need it to and is easy to clean off. I use a label remover liquid to clean up the gum quickly. It doesn’t leave any residue and the tape sticks well to the cleaned surface. Be careful not to put it on the manufacturers label as it will peel it off.