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Got some areas that I want to hit but can't really use my regular digger as the ground is really dry and want to be bit more discrete. Made a mini digger/probe using 1095 high carbon steel. Thinking I may use a lower carbon steel as this can be brittle but it is surprisingly strong and holding up well even on packed dirt. Still have to get my technique down but it does a pretty nice job.

So always bugged me how the tiny stuff falls through scoops which is no big deal when your on land but when your wading it is damn near impossible to get an earing to the surface. Printed this on my 3d printer in ABS and used some double face mounting tape to hold it. So far it works perfectly for what I want. Here are the earings I found along with a tiny gold teddy bear, jade rose earing that has part of the back on it. Also tiny split shot. Signal on split shot can bounce a little but I dig them anyways to be sure. On another note, same pond I found a monster size 13 titanium ring. Tonight a guy and his fiance asked if I found a large titanium ring with a groove in the area and described it to a t. I was able to return that.

Does anyone use this? Seems like a good price. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007WFG2I/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?tag=slickdeals09-20&ascsubtag=39d8d9f0e10811ecb689e61b785c285b0INT&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&th=1

The homemade pick I have used for quite a while and really happy with stopped working Sunday. I decided a slightly larger handle would last longer. Can't remember what I made the original handle from. The pick itself is carved out of a leaf spring and I welded a 1"inside diameter pipe on for a collar. It balanced well. It was tough. I liked it. Then the handle broke. Cut the old collar off and welded an 1 1/4" piece on that is a little longer, you know, for strength. Then I couldn't find any of my broken shovel handles, I usually have one around. A piece of manzanita l had would make a cool handle. Unique. I screwed it up I think. Now the head looks out of proportion and it doesn't balance like before. I'll try it today and see. I've read some of the other posts on picks looking at designs, ergonomics, function etc. Does anyone else have a home made digger? I did see the post using plow discs.

Premium Sand Scoop Stainless Steel 2-piece handle for easy transportation 3-Way Adjustable Angle 7/16" (11mm) Laser Cut Holes Sharp Front Edge Perfect 9" Size Opening MSRP: NOKTA MAKRO PREMIUM SAND SCOOP-$99,95 NOKTA MAKRO PREMIUM SAND SCOOP HANDLE-$15,95 NOKTA MAKRO PREMIUM SAND SCOOP ROD SET-$11,95 NOKTA MAKRO PREMIUM SAND SCOOP-3-IN-1 SET-$119,95

Sharpening My Digger --- A How To Question Ok, so I like to have my Lesche Digger razor sharp when I go out to look for possibles. My question is; what do my fellow detectorists use to keep digging tools sharp? Due to arm, wrist, elbow, and shoulder injuries; and drought like ground matrix, razor sharp is the solution for me. Currently my sharpening tool is an old Harbor Freight type 'el cheapo' bench grinder. It works OK, but removes too much stock and does not always get the edges, or more importantly the tip, as sharp as I would like. The Delta model 23-700 looks like the right solution for me. Yes/No --- What are your suggestions? nwdetectorist TOO MUCH DIRT --- NOT ENUFF Hunting with the EQ 800 and best back up ever, the Tesoro Bandido II uMax

Any thoughts on the best pick axe to use for heavy work. Durability & weight is a consideration.

I have been wanting a Walco pick for the last 12 years now and have had a hell of a time getting my hands on one. Last month I contacted Lucky Strike Gold Prospecting in Geelong Australia ? and to my surprise, Justin said yes we will ship to the United States. He had the Solid Swinger handle and he had the Walco heavy duty pick with a 29" handle. It has taken a month for them to get here. This pick has a very well balanced pick head with plenty of length on the hoe blade to sink deep along the edges of a hole to widen it as you have to go deeper. I my opinion, and this is just my opinion but Apex picks just don't have the details figured out. They told me they refuse to lengthen the hoe blade. I told them then I won't buy an Apex pick. This Waco pick is light weight but still feels like it has enough weight to sink the pick deeply into the ground. Pick end and the hoe end. I'm impressed with this pick for sure. The Solid Swinger handle is awesome as well. Now I don't have to worry about breaking a handle when I am swinging that big 25" NF DDX coil. Hahaha ?. Justin with Lucky Strike provided great customer service. I would highly recommend them. Can't say I am too impressed with both the USPS and Australia Post on the shipping end of a month long.

KAC started a thread to show a new and awesome looking pouch from Garrett. It quickly got hijacked by folks showing their pouches and F350Platinum suggested someone start a new Pouch Comparison thread... well I'm your Huckleberry! Let's see what you got. Pouch preferences preferred. ? Here are some of mine... I know... I have a problem... ?

This may save some of our mates in Australia some time in shipping. Finders Keepers Gold in Kalgoorlie Australia is carrying my GSpot Scoops and also the cover for the GPX6000. Ring them up if you need either of these items. Metal Detectors - Metal Detectors For Sale - Buy Metal Detectors Online (finderskeepersgold.com) Address: 80b Hannan Street KALGOORLIE WA 6430 Phone: (08) 9021 7207 Email: info@finderskeepersgold.com Thank you, Doc

Looks like Garrett has a higher end pouch with pretty much the features I was looking for. Wore out my others, velcro on one does diddly and zipper broke on my old Garrett pouch. Was some talk on one of the threads a little bit ago on pouches but can't find it. I was almost tempted to get some made up but this one looks promising so got one on the way. https://garrett.com/accessories/recovery-tools/garrett-all-terrain-dig-pouch All Terrain Dig Pouch from Garrett Metal Detectors on Vimeo.

I'm always looking for new stuff to try out on a limited budget, and think I may have found an interesting new item. I like the Calces365 waterproof beach bag, I've been using it for everything for quite a while, but my last coin shooting trip to the campground took the zippers out on the bag, the dirt and sand ate them up. I trashed the finds pocket by zipping it more than 300 times in 4 days. However, for $13 they are easily replaceable if not sold out. Recently I was looking for a replacement, the beach bag belt belt is too thin to hold my pinpointer and Doc's shovel bag well, it does but it isn't great. I came across the above rig, apparently new from Calces365. It's only $19.99. It comes in camo and black. It has two pouches Velcro-attached to a very comfortable and tough belt. One has 3 pockets, front, large inside, and Velcro-closure mesh inside. The other is a large trash bag with a mesh bottom and a drawstring that can fold up small. Velcro doesn't wear out too fast if you brush the dirt out of it from time to time. They should probably use self-repairing zippers but that would drive the cost up. It has a 52" belt that has one drawback, if you have to make it small the bags almost go to your back to attach to the inside Velcro. I'm tall but not "big". If they sewed Velcro to the first 8" of the outside that would fix it. You can slide the pouch under the outside if you want to, but you'd lose some hold. The belt can easily hold a pinpointer loop (wish it had one) and whatever else you want to attach. I know some don't like mesh in a bag, so you could throw a small towel in the bottom to keep sand from falling out, I have no problem with the trash bag getting lighter but it never seems to. ? It's about as large as I would want it to be as well. It can be found here and probably on eBay: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B08ZSWF8N2

Check out our new accessory packages! The accessory packages will provide you with all the necessary accessories that you can use with Nokta Makro detectors at unbeatable prices! Makes a great gift for the upcoming holiday season as well! https://www.noktadetectors.com/accessory-packages/

I picked this up on Ebay for my updcoming trip west: I like the lightweight, compact design. The overall quality is quite good, with the aluminum parts appearing to be anodized. Shown in the photo is the central magnet assembly removed from the hexagonal tube. Here are a couple concerns I have: 1) Particularly when installed, the effect of the magnets seems weak. I think the ad says 13 1/2 lb pickup force (however that is measured) but given the distance of the magnets from the outside of the hex extrusion when fully installed, it doesn't seem to have much strength. 2) The magnet frame assembly weighs almost half of the entire unit -- 408 g vs. 430 g for everything else. That's not so bad, but for hiking and backpacking, every ounce saved helps. 3) The magnet assembly (when installed) rotates 360 degrees without any stop/lock to hold it in a desired position. My guess is that bumping either end on a rock or vegetation (think of the black plastic ends as knobs) could cause it to rotate to an undesirable position. The design is clever in that in order to clear the rake after filling with iron trash you just rotate the magnet assmbly until the fork tines push off the nails, wire, etc. -- a type of easy self-cleaning. However, I might be willing to dispense with that feature to mod it for stronger pull. So here's some advice I'm seeking: Do I replace these alnico magnetics with neodymium ones? If so, how many and how strong? Should I stay with the magnets on the inside or just attach them outside, and if the latter, where? I should have included a ruler for scale. The width of the rake is 10.5 inches (267 mm) and the tines are 1 inch long and 7/8 inch separation. Each hexagonal face is 3/4 inch across.

Does anyone know a way to dip in grass without the grass dying. When digging in my yard, I try to not kill the grass. But the circle of grass in dig always turns brown/yellow. I was wondering if there was a way to prevent this, or is this something that just happens. Thanks!

I like carrying my small Apex pick but it’s always left me wanting a bit more when digging the blade is a narrow scraping down on a target but I’ve put up with it because it’s lightweight and digs OK. A couple months ago the bracket welded onto the rear bumper holding my spare tire and aux fuel tank cracked and was starting to flop around held mostly in place by the large bolt the swing out arm pivots on. The bumper actually works well with the exception it’s breaking and a new setup would run me $1500 to $2000 so I decided to teach myself to weld on YouTube and bought myself a little mig/tig welder, fixing the bumper has gone well so far and I’ve branched out to other projects modifying my picks and a few other things. On my small apex pick I add two small wings with 1/4 weldable steel one to each side widening the pick from 3” to 5” and creating a scoop out of the blade, I also slimmed down the pointed side to compensate for the added weight of the blade and shaped the point better for getting down into and between the desert rocks. If this works well I’ll modify the Apex Tallon next.

I just bought this magnet off of brute magnetic's For magnet fishing and I hope I find some neat finds i will keep you guys informed on how it goes and if i find anything! https://brutemagnetics.com/collections/top-mount/products/brute-box-500-lb-magnet-fishing-bundle-2-95-magnet-rope-carabiner-threadlocker

Hey folks, I'm always trying to small down my kit and I've been successful in stuffing all my gear(detector etc.) into a nice compact light weight backpack for back country/far from the road excursions, with the exception of my digging tool, I'm looking for something that is strong enough not to break on me when I'm 3miles from the truck that fits in my pack. A take down shovel of some sort would be great. I've tried mil surp. trenching tools and they don't agree with me. If anyone has suggestions and experience with any particular model I would love to hear them before I start having a tool custom built for me which will be expensive and take time. If this post is in the wrong spot please move to the appropriate group! Thanks

When getting close to the target, I lay the pick aside and start digging with the scoop, to avoid any possibility of marking the prospective nugget with the pick. I think it's time to finally retire my scoop, though. ?

Want to get a sand scoop for the beach. Search did not come up with a good discussion here. Looking for suggestions. Use 2-3 times a year, salt water, wet and dry use. A travel type scoop would be nice for travel and storage. Not wanting to spend $300 on high end since it won’t see the heavy use in the near term. I like the RTGs but there are so many options! Length, scoop size, material/weight. The travel scoop with 2 piece handle seems nice but I have read it has a crappy connection with a sheet metal type screw? Scoopal and the Nokta scoops are tempting but I could see breaking these. Thoughts?

NEW FROM NOKTA MAKRO STAINLESS STEEL PREMIUM SHOVEL WITH COLLAPSIBLE T-HANDLE! • Laser Print Ruler • Wide Footrest • Double-Sided Bottle Opener • Collapsible Shaft 80.5 - 97 cm (31.5" - 38") • 24 cm (9.4") Blade with Teeth on Each Side • 16 cm (6.3") Handle

First proto, I will be testing. 4 1/4" x 10" blade, 40" overall. 2.15 lbs. Integrated foot peg so it doesn't hang up, couple root cutters to reduce side kick. Thoughts?

Kept snapping the wood handle I had for my sand scoop so I snagged a snow rake extension that has spring clips and insert for around $15. Now I can take the handle off so it fits in my car easier and should hold up well. It seems very sturdy with the ribbed walls. Overall length is cut to 48" including the scoop.

Although we own Minelabs-Equinox, GP's & other detectors, more and more often my brother Jim and I are using the Gold Bug 2. We've discovered that when we find a patch and after the small nuggets are found, tiny pieces still remain. At the end stage, we can get even more pieces by raking the area. Jim made me this collapsible rake, from a tiny collapsible four tine rake and a welded-on eight tine piece. I can carry it in my backpack and it looks like just the tool for those tiny pieces.

As a relatively newcomer to the Probe & Pop world, I'm getting better at it but I still manage to scratch at least one coin every hunt using my basic brass probe. I recently found a different probe made by Fossicker that has replaceable hard plastic tips (it comes with 5 tips) and took it out for a try this week. It's a little thicker than my regular brass probe so it's a little harder to push into the ground now which is getting dryer and harder from the colder weather. The plastic tip hasn't scratched anything but it makes it harder to feel the metal click when I touch the target, so it's another learning curve I guess. I use my pinpointer to find the exact target location and the probe to find the depth to pop and was curious what kind of probe others are using.