New Floating Sifter ready for the hunt...

[Sir Findalot]

Hey Guys

I thought i would share a picture of my NEW Floating Sifter Put it together this afternoon took about an hour all up PVC 65mm a few cable ties and some Gal mesh with 6.5mm square holes
I hope it will do the Job, I hope to get out Saturday and Put it through its paces, my Excalibur 11 is due to arrive Thursday (Fingers crossed) anyway any comments or criticism would be appreciated

Happy Hunting

 

[deepdiger60]

Looks good after the target is in the scoop just dump in sifter makes finding easy if your in chest deep water , you might lose earing studs . Jim

 

[Critterhunter]

When I'm water hunting I just shake the scoop under the water to wash out the sand and leave the target behind. On the dry beach though I just scoop the sand up and dump it onto the ground. I then check it with my GT and if the target is in the sand I scooped up then I break out my Pro Pointer and find it. Much faster than trying to find it by hand in the sand, and less work and time then trying to shake the sand through the scoop on land to leave the target. Others might have better dry sand or scoops with bigger holes to where just shaking the scoop to get rid of the dry sand is faster than dumping it on the ground and checking, but on my dry beaches and with my scoop that's more effort and time then just dumping it out.

 

[Ron from Michigan]

Sir Findalot,cool idea.If it works you may have made a good invention.HH Ron

 

[Sir Findalot]

Critter Hunter Firstly it was sad to hear about your husky we have a Husky ( Isis) and I really feel for your loss. Her nickname is Woolly)

I am not sure how I will go with the Floating sifter but I figure the faster I can recover targets the faster I can move onto the next one. I have researched a Local beach and actually spoke to a guy that has recovered over 60 Gold rings but has only been in the water knee deep so I am hoping that there are still plenty in the deeper parts.
I use the same method on the beach s you but don't use my pointer and recover its pretty quickly.

Will keep you posted on its performance and usefulness

Cheers

 

[Sir Findalot]

Ron

I hope it was not a waste of time but I figure it was not a bad idea..

Thanks

 

[Critterhunter]

Thanks for the kind words about Sky. I finally got a few pics of her emailed to me from my nephew and I'm finally strong enough to actually look at them. Strangely he took these pics just a day or two before the morning we found her badly sick. My nephew must have had a sub conscience thing going on in his head that gave him the idea to take pics of her. Below you'll see them, and in the one she's in mid short howl, one of the many ways she loved to talk and tell you stories. The other pics shows her blue eyes well. Prettiest eyes I've ever seen. She looks a bit ratty in the pics because she was in the process of shedding. Normally her coat was much prettier than this. Yesterday I saw a lady with two "regular" looking huskies, not the wolly or long hair type like Sky. Anyway, I asked if I could pet them and she said sure. Neither dog gave so much as one "word". Sky would have been talking up a storm because she loved to do that when meeting people. For sure I need to get another one that talks like she did. I hear many do.

Anyway, didn't mean to sound like I was knocking your idea and good job on building that thing. I've toyed with that idea of making one too. You just never know if a new method is going to save you time or effort until you try it in the field, so you might very well find you can recover targets even faster than shaking a sand scoop in the water and such. Let us know how it goes!

 

[OldBeechnut]

Very Nice! I have a few and in the right place they really make a difference...she should serve you well...

 

[Sir Findalot]

Critterhunter

What a great looking Husky, ours is the shorter hair version but also loves a chat

I will keep you posted about the use-fullness of the sifter

This is our Isis great dog very clever..

 

[Critterhunter]

Beautiful dog there. I see it's got one blue eye and the other brown or green? That's curious that many Huskys have two different color eyes like that. Yep, many people thought Sky had border collie in her or something or English sheep dog (or something like that), but she had papers to prove she was pure husky. Some call them long haired huskys while others call them woolies. Only problem with that beatiful coat is that when she shed it was a major mess all over the house. Like I said though, she was in the process of losing her thick winter coat and that's why she looks a bit ragged in the pics. Her summer coat also wasn't so thick as this.

Let us know how that sifter works out. If you find it to be a time saver I might make one myself.

 

[hershey1]

Good looking job. I don't use mine in the ocean but it sure is handy in these fresh water swimming areas that have mud and rock bottoms. Get out there and fill er up. HH

 

[Sir Findalot]

Critter Hunter

I know what you mean about the hair we have polished wooden floors and we also have a Japanese spitz (also long haired and sheds like its life depended on it, So we have Hair ( Tumbleweeds) rolling around the floor constantly. what do you do ! just part of the joys of animals.

Just a few questions about detecting do you sell the gold items or melt it down or just keep them, and do you have a water proof pin pointer and do you or would you use it it the ocean or its just not needed?

I have bee tracking my Excal it will arrive tomorrow all ready for the Saturday Morning Hunt.. cant wait..

 

[Critterhunter]

In the past I've always sold my gold. I used to just cash it in at local shops but there is a large mail order refinery (called something like ARI or something) that most of the beach hunters in the beach forum use. That one and Midwest, but more seem to prefer the ARI or whatever place. They only skim I think 2% off the current stock market price of gold and give you the rest back. They even have a jeweler who will buy various precious stones if you want to sell them. Some say the price on that is pretty fair and more than you'd get from a local jeweler, but if you want to keep the stones they will remove them from the ring and mail them back to you. Search for "best place to sell gold" or words like that in the beach forum and you'll find the place I'm talking about and remarks about it. One tip- It's useless to insure your rings when sending them through the mail. If you don't have a receipt for the purchase of the ring then you can't collect on it's value from what I've read.

As far as pin pointers go, I don't use one in the water. On the beach I do, even though I use a long handled sand scoop, because I find it easier to just dump the sand on the ground and then use my pin pointer to find the target after I've spread the sand out some with my foot. I prefer the Pro Pointer. Best hand held pin pointer I've ever used and worth every penny. Some will stick it in a zip lock bag with the air burped out of it for hunting in rivers and such. Others even vacuum seal it in one of those food storage bags. Still others have waterproofed it by putting rubber cement over the speaker hold and LED light, and then putting a bigger o-ring (the Pro Pointer already has one) under the screw on battery holder. A friend has a waterproof Vibraprobe but it doesn't perform nearly as well and the auto on/off function is a real pain IMO when I've used it.

Most people water hunting on beaches don't bother with a pin pointer. Just not needed when you are just moving the scoop around in the water to wash out the sand and leave the target. My friend only uses one in river hunting where the bottom is bedrock or gravel and a scoop won't work. In that situation you use a screwdriver to pry targets out of cracks or just your bare hands to find stuff laying on the bottom in depressions and such. In that situation he uses a pin pointer, especially to zero in on stuff stuck inside of cracks in the bedrock.

 

[Sir Findalot]

Critter Hunter

Thanks for the Info, My Excalibur arrived yesterday and my Pluggers 3 piece shaft and Knob guard and Hip mount belt arrived today, Today I went and bought a Alkaline battery pack as a back up a 240 volt charger as the 110 is no good here in Aussie also a Minelab finds bag. So tomorrow morning at just before low tide I will hit my local beach hopefully with a great result. as its the middle of winter here I have also had delivered a wet suit gloves and reef boots.

I will take the sifter with me and se how it all performs, Will add a post tomorrow night with the outcome.

 

[Critterhunter]

No problem. Question...Did you research your add ons for the Xcal by skimming the sticky for accessories in this forum? Just hoping all the digging I dig to post every accessory I could find is going to be of use to some people, otherwise it was a lot of work for nothing.

 

[Sir Findalot]

I did search through the Forum for all the info I could gather re; Shafts batteries and the info was fantastic your time was definitely not wasted

saying that I do have a question on the Hip Mount set up.


I am right handed and hang the unit on my right side with the lead for the coil facing forward and the headphones lead facing backwards ( naturally) I have the Knob guard ( Pluggers) installed it's on the outside (so its not against my body) I figure if its going to be knocked it would be from the scoop or something from the outside in not inside out.. ( I thought this makes sense) The issue I have is that the knob guard does not really line up with the knobs when its on this way but does when its mounted on the inside near my body ( But this leaves the knobs exposed from outside knocks

Any clarification on this would be Appreciated.

Now to my first outing This really is a different beast to The whites MXtT Pro and the delay of the signal is really strange at first. Saying that after an hour in the water I didn't use the sifter as it waves were a little high I managed to find 1 and 1 only modern coin and 10 or 12 ring pulls Not really the outcome I was looking for but as the Forum says its a big learning curve and the only way to master it is practise. So my wife and I are heading up the coast next week end to a very popular beach to try our luck there, this time I should be able to get 3 or 4 hours in depending on the tides waves etc.. I did get the extra battery pack Alkaline as a back up so I think I am pretty set..

 

[Critterhunter]

I'm sure somebody will chime in about your question. Just wanted to say the delay is not really so much a delay. At first I felt that way with the GT but in fact it's just that you have to get used to the slower response. It's not a delay. Tip on sweep speed. For sure swing slow. The slower the better for depth is what most people say, although you can swing faster and still hit some pretty deep stuff. Slow on other machines means one thing. Slow on all Minelabs is about 4 seconds per sweep or slower even.