Detecting high quality Stainless Steel

[2wheeldevil]

I have a friend who makes his own ice cream. He has 4 (3 gal. tubs) made up but he lost a small stainless steel clip from his equipment and he
thinks it may be in the ice cream tubs. We tested another stainless steel clip like this one with the metal detector and there is no response, no response with a Garrett pinpointer either.
The clip is made of high quality stainless steel which has chromium added for corrosion resistance and also nickel added to give it strength.
Adding the nickel makes this stainless steel non-magnetic also. Because of the high amounts chromium and nickel this makes the stainless steel very hard to detect with a metal
detector especially if the item is small like this clip.
This may be a dumb question, could this small clip be detected by lowering or raising the ground balance on a metal detector?

 

[Reg]

Hi have no idea what detector you are trying to use but use the all metal mode. I know a White's Goldmaster will detect some non magnetic stainless steel, but one would have to test another piece similar in size and shape as the one lost to see how well this detector might work.

As for your question simply try it to see if it helps

Reg

 

[2wheeldevil]

We tried a BH, a F-75 and an At Pro with no success-all metal, full sens. He lives 50 miles away and thought maybe we could save the drive
if somebody told us the ground balance adjustment would not work.

 

[Reg]

Stainless is to be considered a very low conductor and treated as such. Typically, higher frequency detectors should work a little better and that is why I tried an older Goldmaster VSat. I used a non magnetic stainless screw 8-32 by 1 1/2 as my test target when I tried the VSat. Unfortunately, that is all I have in stainless at this time. I tried an older Tek Mark 1 and got nothing and even ran the GB control through its range. My newer GBSE detects the screw reasonably well in all metal. I also tried an old TR, a Mark II made by Bill Hays and it detected the screw. Finally, I tried my MXT and it detected the screw quite well. So, you might try a stainless screw like I did.

BTW, I just traded my F75 LTD so I can't try it any more. My AU52 still has a coil problem I haven't fixed so I can't try it and my GB 2 is loaned out at this time.

What size is this lost piece of metal? Thickness is important also. The thinner it is, the higher the frequency it will take to detect it.

Reg

 

[2wheeldevil]

The spring stainless steel clip is about the size of a nickel, thickness of about a pencil lead and open on one side.

 

[Reg]

Is this part a common item that can be easily purchased or a speciality item that can only be purchased from the manufacturer of the machinery? It sounds like an E clip from the description.

I am just wondering if a similar part could be purchased easily so it could be checked.

Reg

 

[2wheeldevil]

As stated in the first post, he had another identical clip which was tested with 3 detectors and a pinpointer and none of them detected it. We came home without the clip
and on the way home we wondered if changing the ground balance would help in detecting the clip.
We will be trying a gold machine on the clip to see how it does.

 

[Reg]

I am sorry, but the reason I asked about the specifics of the clip wasn't so the owner of the equipment could get another. Instead, I was wondering if the clip was cheap enough and available, others like myself could purchase one and test it with various detectors. Since I have quite a few detectors I could check many of them if I had a similar clip.

Reg

 

[david.di]

Maybe this could be a hand held solution for your friend. Most others involve the use of very sophisticated and vary expensive "feed-through-a-conveyor-belt-of-some-machine" technology.

http://www.detectmetal.com/commercial-metal-detector.htm

Maybe also try another Pulse Inductance hand held probe like the UniProbe Pistol probe or the latest Whites Bullseye TRX Pinpointer.

I used to be in the food production industry and I can only imagine what your friend is worried about.

david di

 

[stasys]

Try any PI detector, military use them for mines and in some mines stainless steal small parts, this is what I have read, you can found all info in Minelab dot com counter-mine section-size and depth of targets. Allot good info or found any person with Pi detector with small coil.

 

[Carl-NC]

Nickel is highly magnetic, whether any given ss is magnetic or not depends on the alloy. Reg is right, most ss has low conductivity and your best bet is a hight frequency VLF. Goldmaster (48kHz) or, better yet, Gold Bug 2 (71kHz).