Search the Community

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.

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

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.

https://www.diveblu3.com/product/nemo/, There is also a unit sold by Air Buddy. 25 years ago I built my own hookah unit , using a 5hp gas motor, Thomas diaphragm compressor, wash tub, and all set in a big innertube. The dive blu3 unit only weighs 10 lbs. which is doable for me, as I approach retirement. Would love to dunk the Simplex in the shallows, looking for fresh drops. Our lakes here are all rock bottoms. If you have used these electrics, I'd love to hear your comments. While Im considering it, one of those propulsion units would be fun too! The only difference between the men and the boys, is the price of their toys! 😁

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

I can't figure out a reliable way to re-mount this pick handle. This is a small pick (USA quarter on left, Australia 1943 penny on right, for scale). You can see what I tried -- wooden wedge in the long direction and steel wedge in the short direction. This didn't hold worth a nickel. Given that this design has been in use for well over a century there must be a solution. I can't be the first person to have this issue. (I looked online without success.) Any advice is appreciated.

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.

I recently bought a Tesoro Diablo II nugget detector on local Craigslist for a really great price. I wanted a nugget machine because I currently don’t have one and I had never seen, much less owned - a Diablo II. It comes after the Diablo and before the Lobo, Diablo Micro Max, and LST. It uses the same 20kHz coils as the original Lobo and is all metal only. The main reason I went for it was that included in the price was - A Hodan pick, a Faswing rock hammer, driving hammer, two drills and a pair of snake proof gaiters - plus a couple of loupes, a Keene “gold Magnet”. I was telling a fellow AZ Treasures Unlimited club member about this and mentioned that a while back, it was posted (here, I think) that these were no longer available because the company was no longer making them. If I remember the post correctly, it went on to say that it was because John Hodan had passed on. I am delighted to announce that while the company is gone, I am reliably informed that John is alive and well.

On 9 August, I posted my initial impression of Steve Goss’ latest offering---carbon fiber scoop handles for the T-Rex, Stealth and X-treme series of sand scoops. I’ve been using his product exclusively now for over a month and thought I’d submit a few follow up thoughts. Bottom line up front: Does his handle still impress me as it did when I first got it? ABSOLUTELY. A few descriptive words/phrases come to mind when evaluating this handle after many beach outings: Stout: This handle is indeed worthy of the term. It leaves no doubt that what you have in your hand is a very stout piece of carbon fiber. There isn’t one hint of flex or weakness in this thing. Reliable: I’m more than certain Steve’s handle will serve me well for years to come. Professional construction: Steve’s handle is not your big box store, mass produced item. This man takes pride in what he makes and each one reflects his strict attention to detail. Conclusion: I’m even more impressed now than I was when I first posted my initial report. If you decide you’d like a top notch carbon fiber handle, you can buy this with the utmost confidence that you’re getting the best I’ve seen since I bought my first detector in 1970. Again, I have no financial interest in Steve’s business. I’m just passing along my personal opinion.

I made this video a few years ago as I always had people wanting to know about prospecting and what to use. So here it is.

Old magnetron magnets good holding shopping list on fridge and keeping rare iron in the bottom of your scoop for easy retrieval.... Happy Trails jimpugh

I’ve had a lot of questions regarding my Sun Spot water scoop so I thought I’d do a quick video. Thanks! Aaron

New scoop from RTG. Anyone using one yet?

I got my hands on a new product from Steve’s Detector Rods--a scoop handle for my Stealth 920! As we all know, Steve has a well earned and most deserved reputation for giving us top quality shafts for a variety of metal detectors and now he’s dedicated that same level of attention to producing carbon fiber handles for the Stealth, X-treme and T-Rex scoops. It really is a great day for the detecting world. As soon as I opened the box, that professional manufacturing and precise attention to detail was clearly evident. You can just tell it’s first class when you see and hold it. The feel of this handle immediately tells you it’s ready for anything you can throw at it. The look of it tells you this is a professional piece of equipment...it’s simply a great looking handle. I took it to New Smyrna Beach, Florida for its 3 day maiden voyage and the bottom line: It proved itself to be a real beast...but a very light beast! There was absolutely no flex in this handle even when pulling out a 920 scoop full of very wet sand. This handle felt and performed like the extremely substantial shaft that it was designed to be and there were no exceptions regardless of the various conditions under which I used it. Fit, finish and texture: Like all his other shafts, Steve’s scoop handle is a work of art. The carbon fiber is top quality and the finish is truly professional in every way. The top cap is a perfect fit with no sign of twisting...no matter how hard I tried and the handle at the business end slipped perfectly into the 920s tube. It has a shark skin texture that ensures a firm solid grip regardless of how wet it was. Specifications: Overall length is right at 46.5 inches; the wall thickness is an impressive 2.5mm; the diameter of the handle is 35mm except at the point it slides into the scoop tube where it’s shaved down to 34.7mm. The weight is a scant 23.73 ozs (1.48 lbs). Even the bolt washer Steve uses to attach the end of the handle to the scoop is larger and thicker than others I’ve used measuring 1.25 inches by 0.050 inches! Simply put, Steve has built this thing for the long haul and the tough going with no detail being overlooked. Wet sand or dry, shells or surf, I found it’s all the same to this handle...tough as steel yet light as anything. It makes your scoop sing and a real pleasure to use. My “go to” set up is now 100% Steve Goss--both of my EQX shafts and 920 scoop handle are his creations. In summary, I’m convinced that I have the best of the best. Finally, rest assured that I have absolutely no financial interest in Steve’s business. My sole purpose is to simply share my views on what I consider great equipment. Another superb job by Steve Goss. Note: The two vertical grips shown in the photos are not part of Steve’s handle--I added those. www.stevesdetectorrods.com www.facebook.com/stevesdetectorrods

Earlier this week I had my car 'pilfered' of some loose items in it. It was probably done sometime early Sunday morning. Nothing was broken on the car but who knows how they got in without setting off the alarm or perhaps it was just left open in the carport on an alley that gets a lot of scavengers walking through. It has happened before. The police have been notified. There was some change and sunglasses, reading glasses taken along with some keys (which have no value to them) which included a disc lock on a garage door I rent. I'll have to cut or grind it off somehow. The door is aluminum and I can't cut the attachment off. I guess I will follow this advice: https://www.selfstoragetalk.com/forum/general-self-storage-forums/general-storage-chat/10594-cutting-disc-locks So much for the first 'view' of things and then I was going detecting and noticed that my Lesche 'knife' the 2"x7" kind was missing from the back with a few tools. Also my beach jacket ... so now I have an opportunity to buy replacements. I'll use some of my beach coins to buy the stuff. Is that still the best tool for a park? I like the root sawing edge but the hole digging part with just the hands is a pain. I still have a larger version but that would be too big for a nice park. The 'pilfering' could have been worse. It could have been major. They didn't have a way to walk down the alley with a couple of metal detectors and I had taken my cell phone and wallet inside but I sometimes forget it when I get back late at night. We all need to think about replacements for things 'forgotten' so please learn from my recent experience. Mitchel

Yesterday I went to the lake to try out my new "treasure" rake in the water. I pulled it for almost 3 hours and found a very thin silver chain after which I switched to the Nox 800 for the remainder of the hunt. Couple of things I learned about the rake: It did not dig as deep as I expected or wanted it to. It had a tendency to ride on top and took a lot of work to even force it down an inch or two. I may try and add some lead weights to the head to help drive it a little deeper next time. Pulling the rake wasn't as strenuous as I had anticipated but then again it wasn't going very deep. With the detector I managed to find a small silver ring and a hollow gold earring that tests out as 14K. My buddy used his detector the entire hunt and found a nice 5 gram 14K ring so maybe I would have been better off metal detecting the whole time but still, I am encouraged by this first test of the rake and will try again next hunt. It does test one's patience though even more than detecting does. In this last picture you can see how thin this chain is compared to the thickness of a dime. If the rake can find this small sized silver chain it should be able to grab a bigger gold one as well. GL&HH!

The handle on my trusty old stainless steel scoop finally broke. The scoop is fine, but the handle is a custom curved 7/8" aluminum tube. I made a trip to Home Depot - nothing like that in stock. Looked at a piece on Amazon - shipping is killer on stuff 40" long. It was going to be like $50 delivered. I figured I could find something locally for less, but did not want to bother with it at the moment. I decided that I had $50 I might want to spend on a new scoop instead. Has to be stainless steel, and my new criteria is that I want to be able to bolt any straight handle on it that I want - wood, metal, fiberglass, whatever. I've looked at highly recommended scoops like the Stealth 720, but I have to admit $250 seems a bit much for a scoop to me. A bit of Googling and I saw one that looked fine, and the price was more to my liking. The $99.95 Scoopal Sand Scoop. I had a 10% off coupon from Serious Detecting, and after free shipping this scoop showed up in two days for $89.95, U-bolts included. I like that! It is well built, looks plenty stout enough to me. I happened to have an old wood handle already in my pile of pick parts, and so I bolted it on. The scoop has been on two outings so far, and I am quite happy with it. The holes are a little smaller than my old scoop, so it gathers more gravel, but is also way easier to recover tiny stuff like .22 shell casings that slipped through the old scoop. Anyway, if you are looking for a scoop without spending the big bucks this scoop is worth a look. I have zero regrets on this purchase.

Hello, I am looking for a beach rake like the one in this video but will consider other designs. Thanks! Added by Steve H, previous threads: https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/topic/2544-coolest-rake-ever/ https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/topic/11582-raking-for-gold-on-the-beach-and-in-the-water/

Hi all, I just bit the bullet and purchased a Nemo Blu3 portable dive system as another tool in my metal detecting arsenal. For those who don't know about the Nemo, here are a couple of videos that show what it can do: I'd love to compare notes with those here who are using a Nemo Blu3 with their Nox underwater. I haven't used it yet myself as I had to put it in my shipment to Vietnam, where I will be starting a new job in a couple of months. So I'm just doing a lot of research at this point. The only problem I am hearing so far is that the Nox can be difficult to hear underwater over the Nemo Blu3 regulator whether you use the Minelab "yellow" underwater headphones or don't use headphones at all. For anyone using the Nemo with their Nox (or diving at all), have you been able to find an alternative underwater headphone with better sound or another workaround? Thanks in advance!

Hi Guys, Has any members got or used the Radius Root Slayer coin hunting. Have noticed they have a very narrow one which tapers in which would give you a small hole. Regards .

This is a demonstration of the Gold SPOT™ being used as a portable gold pan. It's extremely effective. Don't worry about the first few minutes where I am out of frame. Leo Aranza, my buddy, takes over and the rest of the video is well framed. -Doc

Some posters on other forums rightly questioned whether the Gold SPOT™ Treasure Scoop was really any better than a regular treasure scoop. Well I already knew the answer to that question. You see for a year I have been working on the Gold SPOT™ design. I played with it I re-designed it, I proto-typed it 5 times. I wanted a design that would speed up nugget recovery and make it easier to keep the nugget in the scoop and not lose it. Remember, I'm the guy who had a catastrophic failure with the SAGA swing arm, and within days of release I recalled them all from the field. They just did not perform as they were supposed to. I went back to the drawing board and sunk thousands more dollars into re-designing and perfecting the SAGA™. I won't sell something unless I know it is a significant improvement over anything on the market. But just to show you what I already know, I decided to do a little impromptu video, an experiment. The video is unedited, except for the very end where I panned across an invoice with a customer's address on it that was sitting on the shipping table, I clipped that out. Watch the Gold SPOT™ in action and see what you think. Not to over-hype the Gold SPOT™ but one of the unique features of this scoop is that you can "HEAR" the gold. I know that sounds like an outrageous claim, but let me explain. When you get down to a small amount of dirt in a regular scoop along with a nugget and you agitate the scoop back and forth, the nugget does nothing but slide back and forth on the smooth bottom of the scoop. When you get down to a small amount of dirt in the Gold SPOT™ along with the nugget and you agitate the scoop the nugget rattles back and forth in the trough or channel clicking against the sides of the channel. Cool, right? I know we are getting quite a few Gold SPOTs™ out in the field and I would like to hear some feedback. Although if you are like me you are probably staying in out of the heat. -Doc

I got the 1945 us army shovel from my great grandmother’s third husband. It was given to my dad, and then he gave it to me. the older bounty hunter tracker I-d 505 detected is from my neighbor, who gave it to me for free. It works great, but I know it isn’t modern or efficient. I don’t have a pinpointer, but I make it work I have a us army web belt to hold my shovel and my finds. this is not exactly My stuff just pictures off google. let me know what I should improve. Should it upgrade? what do you use?

With the Impulse AQ opening a new chapter on depth on Heavy and light gold ring, i am wondering which sand scoop or digging tools tester will use . I know for a fact that Le Jag(Denis) is using a beast of a scoop 3mm thick with an unbreakable shaft. I myself broke many,but with my deep holes experience i am wondering if i am adding 20% depth and 50% extra positive ID(which will make you believe it is defo Gold),which tool will be needed.........and maybe ask Zeus to give us the stamina of 2 Hercules. I am expecting to see a lot of broken tools . RR

The new Gold SPOT™ Treasure Scoop portable gold pan. (So have the SAGA Swing Assist Guide Arms, but I am waiting for some nylon nuts and bolts to arrive.) This unique tool is designed to increase your recovery speed of detected nuggets. When you give the scoop a little shake and agitation gravity causes the heavy gold to be channeled into the recessed bowl in the bottom of the scoop; the "Gold SPOT." When you start dumping dirt into your hand to isolate the nugget, the trough of the recessed bowl ramps up and channels any gold towards the riffles. The riffles hold the nugget, as the lighter material spills over the tops of the riffles into your hand. Ever cleaned out a crack in bedrock and the material in your scoop is setting off your detector but you're having a difficult time locating that little speck of gold? Add a little water to the material and you have the fastest most convenient portable gold sniping pan ever. I was prompted to redesign the standard conventional scoop that has been around for over 30 years because with the popularity of the Minelab Gold Monster 1000, smaller gold is really hard to isolate with a standard scoop. Included with every Gold SPOT™ is a plastic lanyard and EZ on/off security clip. How many scoops have you lost? Well not this one. The security clip is designed to allow you to always keep your scoop "at the ready" and be able to remove it and replace it in seconds using only one hand. See the video. The G SPOT comes in Green and we have a limited number of Yellow. I'm pretty sure you are going to love the unique features of some of the innovations I have incorporated into this scoop. Looking forward to your comments. The G Spot Scoop: Retail Price $17, discounted price, $14.95 or 2 for $27 plus s&h. Thanks! Message me with questions. Or email docsdetecting@gmail.com Doc This is the load I had waiting for me after it cleared customs.