New To All This... Looking For Advice!

[jfjohn77]

I'm hoping someone can help me out here. I'm not looking for Gold, but I need a detector to pick up some Copper wire. I have a Construction Company in South Texas and we are digging in areas that have buried pipelines. Several of these lines are fiberglass and have copper wire (as a tracer) is laid with these lines to be able to trace them later and prevent damage when excavation of the area is necessary. Normally, one can use a line-finder to locate them, but only if you know the beginning or termination points of the line. Because in those instances, where the line enters and exits the ground there are terminals to attach your ground enabling the line-finder to operate correctly and detect the copper line. In our situation we do not know where these entry or exit locations are, so we can only use metal detectors to find the steel pipelines, but it is not working for the fiberglass of course. I was thinking that since Copper is a Non-ferrous metal, as is Gold, that a Gold locator would work. Is my thinking correct? The real problem I believe, is in the fact that this Copper wire is around three (3) foot deep and only 10 gauge. It's not very large in diameter, but it is a continuous run. Does anyone have any suggestions as to the best Gold detector for my needs? Cost is of no concern as the cost of repair to the damaged lines will more than offset the cost of the detector. Thank you in advance for your time.

[Steve Herschbach]

There is no such thing as a gold locator, though plenty of people sell metal detectors as such. There are simply metal detectors, and the ones made for gold prospecting are just particularly powerful and sensitive metal detectors. Ironically, most make no attempt at discriminating the type of metal, as metal detector discrimination is a flawed thing, and so most serious gold nugget detectors find all metals, steel, aluminum, lead, copper, gold... . does not matter, you dig it.

Your situation was specifically designed for the use of a line tracer for a reason. Metal detectors "see" the surface area presented to them looking straight down. A half dollar laying flat is an easy target, a half dollar on edge near invisible as far as a detector is concerned. A wire three feet deep is unfortunately beyond the range of even the most powerful metal detectors made, UNLESS you boost the target by running a signal through it. A line tracer.

Long story short if I were you I would redouble my efforts at finding the end points so a line tracer may be employed. Outside of that you are talking random trenching 90 degrees to the guessed lay of the line in hopes of intercepting it. A detector might be employed to check the bottom of the trench after about 4-6 inches of material is removed at a time, slowly trying to get closer to the line without hitting it.

The following link is applicable to the subject in general:

 

[SwampFox]

On 12/21/2023 at 2:06 PM, jfjohn77 said:

I'm hoping someone can help me out here. I'm not looking for Gold, but I need a detector to pick up some Copper wire. I have a Construction Company in South Texas and we are digging in areas that have buried pipelines. Several of these lines are fiberglass and have copper wire (as a tracer) is laid with these lines to be able to trace them later and prevent damage when excavation of the area is necessary. Normally, one can use a line-finder to locate them, but only if you know the beginning or termination points of the line. Because in those instances, where the line enters and exits the ground there are terminals to attach your ground enabling the line-finder to operate correctly and detect the copper line. In our situation we do not know where these entry or exit locations are, so we can only use metal detectors to find the steel pipelines, but it is not working for the fiberglass of course. I was thinking that since Copper is a Non-ferrous metal, as is Gold, that a Gold locator would work. Is my thinking correct? The real problem I believe, is in the fact that this Copper wire is around three (3) foot deep and only 10 gauge. It's not very large in diameter, but it is a continuous run. Does anyone have any suggestions as to the best Gold detector for my needs? Cost is of no concern as the cost of repair to the damaged lines will more than offset the cost of the detector. Thank you in advance for your time.

Since cost is no obstacle, I would explore GPR Ground Penetrating Radar. In my past experience GPR shows disturbed soil in lines or waves this could indicate previous intrusion i.e. the Fiber Optic Casing with the copper indicator Tracer. In a past Life I did many last mile Fiber to the Site (End User) installations. Of course we knew the start and end points of the fiber casing. However we often did not know the exact location of the travel of the fiber which causes issues when installing power poles and other semipermanent structures. We found a solution using inductive coupled RF this is not a perfect solution to your problem but it is  work around. You can buy a low powered transmitter on ISM Frequencies we often used the 13.56MHz, we used a Magnetic Loop Antenna to loosely couple that power to the tracer wire then we used a very small receiver that was very inexpensive. (Not that cost is a factor, but because open trench construction sites are a hazardous environment. Things get damaged, lost or treated roughly, so an inexpensive item can easily become a consumable item. If any of this is of interest to you contact me and I can walk you through it. All this is not a perfect solution however it does work and might just be an answer for you to consider.      

[Joel - cacadordereliquia]

To look for copper, I believe the multi-frequency vanquish would do the job.

Or any other single frequency device you could find.

[DSMITH]

On 12/21/2023 at 12:06 PM, jfjohn77 said:

I'm hoping someone can help me out here. I'm not looking for Gold, but I need a detector to pick up some Copper wire. I have a Construction Company in South Texas and we are digging in areas that have buried pipelines. Several of these lines are fiberglass and have copper wire (as a tracer) is laid with these lines to be able to trace them later and prevent damage when excavation of the area is necessary. Normally, one can use a line-finder to locate them, but only if you know the beginning or termination points of the line. Because in those instances, where the line enters and exits the ground there are terminals to attach your ground enabling the line-finder to operate correctly and detect the copper line. In our situation we do not know where these entry or exit locations are, so we can only use metal detectors to find the steel pipelines, but it is not working for the fiberglass of course. I was thinking that since Copper is a Non-ferrous metal, as is Gold, that a Gold locator would work. Is my thinking correct? The real problem I believe, is in the fact that this Copper wire is around three (3) foot deep and only 10 gauge. It's not very large in diameter, but it is a continuous run. Does anyone have any suggestions as to the best Gold detector for my needs? Cost is of no concern as the cost of repair to the damaged lines will more than offset the cost of the detector. Thank you in advance for your time.

you will be hard pressed to find a metal detector that will see a 10 gauge wire at 3 feet deep, there may be someone reply later with an idea of something to use, not real sure if a PI will see a 10 gauge copper wire at that depth or not, i know I have dug a few scrap pieces of metal at a pretty good depth using my PI, but nothing as small as a 10 gauge wire yet, and no where close to 3 feet deep either

is there not a blue stake company in Texas, I do know in Arizona you are required or it is suggested to call out blue stake before digging for any lines of any type, it is a free service and can save a lot of headaches and fines, not sure your situation would apply or not though

[DSMITH]

12 hours ago, Joel - cacadordereliquia said:

To look for copper, I believe the multi-frequency vanquish would do the job.

Or any other single frequency device you could find.

not at 3 feet deep, a 10 gauge wire is not very large in diameter

only in our dreams is there a detector that could see a 10 gauge copper wire at 3 feet deep

[Joel - cacadordereliquia]

So now I understand. Thanks.