Heading for the water, my new scoop coming... soon

[grahamp]

Looking forward to doing some "wet" hunting, i live on the east coast of England as in photo, but hope to visit the Med for some serious hunting.

I decided to make my own scoop which is only a cardboard template at the moment, i made the templates for a local engineering to copy for me, I decided on 2mm (ns4) Alu plate, i hope this will be strong enough, Estimated

 

[gobble-gobble]

n/t

 

[grahamp]

Hi,
length = 12" height =51/2" width =7" and 48" X 1 1/4" Pole, cant wait to get it.

 

[Maui Mike]

Nice creation... good luck with it decied on the hole sizes yet?

 

[grahamp]

Nice creation... good luck with it decied on the hole sizes yet?

mmm, thats been on my mind a bit, i initially thought 9/16" cos thats par for most American Scoops.. but im wandering if 1/2" or even 7/16" would be a better choice, as to avoid smaller items falling through??

 

[Maui Mike]

well.. thoughts... need to be small enough for the smallest coin you might catch not falling thru... dimes here.. what you might get? thats all.. i guess we all know that ear studs may go thru..and the hunt continues if they plop out..

 

[tonyweston]

hi Graham ,
just reading your comments about scoop hole sizes , I have just had my most recent scoop custom made with 12mm holes and it works brilliantly, sand ,small pebbles and shells empty out the scoop much faster leaving the target much cleaner in the bottom ,
my old scoop had only 8mm holes and i had to dig through a half full scoop of crap to find my goody , and I got many cut fingers from the shells to prove it ! ! !

Test Report ........... bigger holes ......empties scoop faster,...... gets you onto your next target faster thus more productive .......saves your valuable hunting time .....lighter on the arm to lift and recover the scoop when it is not half full of ......no hunting for your coin inside the half full scoop.......no shaking the heavy scoop to sift away contents .........

down side ... you may lose the odd small ear stud through the bigger holes ( so what ) ! they are normally only junk costume bling anyway ,YES I have in the past strived to find them in the past by trying to keep the contents in the scoop , walking out of the water and emptying the scoop onto the wet sand then finding the said small item by seperating the spoil ......... ( then finding bling after all that messing about !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) no thanks dump it and move on
go for the big holes Graham
h/h Tony

 

[pejeci]

I will definitely make the lip of the scoop longer!!!

 

[grahamp]

Thanks for the info tonyweston, I did actually phone the engineering shop yeterday and asked him to reduce the hole diameter from the planned 9/16" to 7/16" which is actually 12mm

The way i figured it is that if i wasn't happy with the smaller hole size i will still have the opportunity to re-drill using a stepped and dedicated drill bit.

Next step will be a dedicated beach machine, shortlist = Whites PI pro and Excalibur, will probably get the latter....