Dual Field....

[UKSEEKER]

UK user, laid down the cash for one of these things and think I made a bit of a blunder. Done about 10hours in two sessions. The beach I was detecting on had about 6" of normal brown sand/stones/big pebbles and under that pure black/grey clay that was sticking to everything!

I was convinced this underbelly would hold lots of yellow metal, no way anything was sinking into this stuff in a hurry even a backhoe would struggle digging in this stuff. I found about 10 coins down to around 12" I would say. Three were pre decimal one a big penny and two florins, rest were modern coins, NO GOLD at all! and a 20mm brass shell casing that was about 16" deep but it was big (over 4" and nearly 100grammes) and about 100 nails and other assorted junk.

Settings were delay at minimum ie clicked off, gain at about 2 o'clock, if I turned it up more than that it was a little too erratic, low but audible threshold and investigating any repeatable variations, with a sweep speed like it says in the book of 5 ft a second.

The machine had NO PROBLEM at these settings with the funny clay stuff and I reckon if I had gone over gold up to a foot deep I would have got it, seemed easy enough to use and locate stuff so did I not get any gold because someone beat me to it or is it just a question of more digging and a deeper machine like a TDI? I'm hoping it's user error because my back/spade won't be looking forward to digging deeper in that stuff.

LOL

 

[UKSEEKER]

Some of the good and bad

 

[Dancer]

You just might have to put in a little more than 10hrs before figuring it all out. Actually you didn't do too bad getting what you got. Just keep moving down the beach than hunt it back. Than move one to another beach.

 

[GeorgeinSC]

10 hours and you are disappointed you haven't found any gold? I sometimes go months without finding any gold at the beach and I usually spent up to 50-60 hours a month actively searching at the beach. You can not find gold unless it is there and you happen to get a coil over it. Give it a fair amount of time and you will find it. Look for areas that have been eroded, the areas where the most of the people are playing especially in the surf. The towel line where the ladies are sun bathing. Good Luck

 

[mudpuppy]

Yeah, what Dancer and Geo said!...evaluating your finds, you are hitting and getting the right composition...so now its just a matter of staying with it and sooner or later, there will be some gold in the scoop..thats interesting what you mentioned about that clay though...must have blown out once and settled back in...you keep doing what you are doing...
Mud

 

[tvr]

Yes, what the others said.

And if you are hunting beaches where the nearby car parks are filled with 10 to 15 year old economy cars and not new expensive sports cars and luxury sedans, there may not be very much expensive jewelry to be found. When the beach is crowded, look at where the people are, where they may shake off a ring or earring and see how many people are actually wearing good jewelry. You may be able to make observations to help your odds a little, but it still takes a lot of patience and work to get the gold.
Cheers.
tvr

 

[togamac]

and under that pure black/grey clay that was sticking to everything!

I was convinced this underbelly would hold lots of yellow metal, no way anything was sinking into this stuff in a hurry

I've said this before on this forum so excuse me for repeating myself. In bomb disposal school I learned that bombs dropped from an airplane would be found about 5 feet deep in sand and over 100 feet deep in clay. Now I know that coins and rings aren't dropped from airplanes but could it be that they have migrated deeper in the clay???

And what the heck is a TDI?? I thought they were a clean diesel engine.

 

[sonnar28]

You did quite well your first time out with a pulse machine. Using a pulse is much different than using a VLF machine. With the pulse you must have very good coil control to get maximum depth; with my VLF machines I can get careless with the coil and the machine will take up the slack. Not so with a pulse, you will lose depth without excellent, constant attention to sweep speed, coil height, sweep length, feathering the ends of each sweep. The optimum sweep speed may vary depending on your settings.
The really deep signals are just tiny murmurs within the threshold or small changes of the timing of the beats of the threshold.They are like ground noises but are reproducible There are various ways to push the machine to hear the deeper targets, but these can be hard to hear using the stock headphones. You might try wearing a cowl of some type to block out the wind/surf sounds. I ended up doing a Pel tor modification to my Dual Field to hear the faint sounds better.
I strongly recommend that you get Clive Clynick's books "The White's Surfmaster PI Dual Field: An Advanced Guide" and" Pulsepower! Finding Gold at the Shore with a Pulse Induction Metal Detector".
The White's TDI Pro (ground balance off) with Black Widow headphones is what I use when I am looking for pure depth. it is not waterproof but is easily chest mounted with a Jimmy Sierra harness. But digging trash at 2 1/2 feet gets old pretty fast.
You have the natural curiosity of a good pulse hunter, all you need is practice and patience - the gold will come.

 

[dewcon4414]

Gray clay bottoms where im from means we got some river movement..... normally giving us a cut or two.... and some good older finds. Another reason you need both a PI and VLF. There will be times a VLF is just a better choice to hunt an area first with. Also, when we do get lots of movement..... it dont just move the good stuff..... odds are even with a VLF you will be digging a LOT more targets. Not sure you would want to use a TDI in the water since its not waterproof..... and id think with the salt water adjustment needed you wouldnt be getting that much depth over the DF anyway. However.... you can change coils with a TDI or a Sov. Some people have a lot of patience to always use a PI. In my location..... its more about the recent drops and covering a lot more ground which a VLF does better...... then when conditions and competition reduces the targets you bring out the PI. I think before i bought another PI, id spend the money on a used Xcal.

Dew

 

[UKSEEKER]

Thanks all for the replies, I need a bit more patience it seems. I have been busy with work but I will be getting out and about and hopefully posting some better finds very soon

Thanks again.

 

[Goldstrike]

Ditto all the above comments. I wonder what the history is on the stretch of beach your detecting? Was/is it a popular beach in the past? because in order to find gold, my opinion is it has to have had beach goers and sunbathers either in the past or present. If it has always been a lunar surface i.e. rocky and unappealing to the masses at the base of cliffs maybe? the chances are slim you will find good targets. Random coins maybe but slim pickings. Don't give up though because 10 hours isn't much time detecting and although some guy's make it so easy in the utube clips and on the forums, you never know how many long hours they sacrificed to get that gold ring etc;. Good luck and keep swinging....the gold is out there waiting for you!!

 

[GeorgeinSC]

UKSeeker I have been working our beaches hard in the months of July, August and so far in September. I usually am at the beach two or three times a week and most of my hunts last 6 or 7 hours. In all those hours of hunting I have been lucky enough to find three gold rings. One was a nice mens 18K wedding band and the other two were small Ladies rings. I have found a few sterling silver rings and some cheap rings that are made of tungsten or titanium.

The beaches that I have been working get tens of thousands of visitors each summer. During January and February I picked up a few small rings but nothing from March to July.

It sometimes takes a lot of long hours of hard work to locate even one gold ring. The You Tube videos make it look easy but that has not been my experience. Make sure you are hunting an area where there is the probability of a gold ring having been lost.


However when a nice gold ring appears in the scoop the investment of all those hours seems to be worth it.

Good Luck and HH.