Question about hunting tot lots.

[Ray(Ca)]

I have noticed that there are a lot of small kid play areas (tan & bark with climbing bars) near where I work. So I thought that I would give them a shot with my Golden during my lunch hour and see if maybe I could find a nice gold ring. I don't hunt these types of areas so I was wondering where you set the lower part of your disc at. Another wards should I just set my disc just above nail and accept foil? Or should I set my disc just below 5c? During todays 1st tot lot hunt I dug allot of foil as I had my disc set just above nail and I was wondering if any of you experienced tan bark play lot hunters have found anything in the foil range that was worth while. I'm used to working barren (so called hunted out) areas for deep coins and don't normally hunt jewelry so any advice is appreciated.

Ray(Ca)

 

[tabdog]

For small gold jewelry in tot lots, the Golden does very well.
You can get good depth using the all metal mode.
Disc mode ID's better, but a combination of the two modes
works well for me.

The 5.75" concentric coil is more sensitive to small gold jewelry.
It is probably the best choice. The 7" concentric works almost
as well. The 4" will be a little more sensitive, but much less depth.

Quality headphones are the most important accessory. I don't
mean cheep $50 Whites or $50 dollar Fisher headphones. Get
a set of Killer B's. Their the best. Only $76 and free shipping.
Gray Ghost and Rats work well also. Killer B's are Killer though.
With the $50 dollar ones you have to pay shipping and you get
junk to use. Believe me, it's worth every penny.

If you want to find small gold in a tot lot, it's not hard if it's there.

Remember, recoveries can be made quickly in a tot lot. Sand and
gravel usually only takes pushing with the foot to uncover targets.
I found 129 coins in 40 minutes one time and some jewelry in the
process. It was an extremely clean tot lot with pea gravel.

Here's pics from that 40 minute hunt showing all recoveries including trash.
That's real gold my friend. And there's more where that came from.

Here's how you do it.

Set your discrimination all the way down. No notching. Gold can be missed
if you don't do this.
Set your sensitivity as high as you can stand it. When getting close to metal
objects and reinforced concrete, you will need to lower your sensitivity.
If conditions are too bad you will need to back off those settings until you can
hunt OK without too much falsing. Remember raising your coil while IDing can
help ID the target.

Dig all good signals and some of those iffy ones. You'll learn those by digging.
Or in most cases by pushing sand or gravel with your foot. You may have to
chase said target a little. Using a pin pointer may help some.

If you do this with your headphones, after a while you will become so good,
you won't need much discrimination any more. You become the one who
decides when to dig. Your brain becomes the discriminator.

That will increase your skill, your confidence and your quality of finds. It will
also teach you much more than anyone like me can tell you.

You know what to do. No excuses now. You just have to do it. I think you'll
be glad you did.

HH,

 

[rmptr]

Ray, I think most the gold is in Arkansas...

Here in my part of CA there is plenty of foil...

I start discrimination at about 1 1/2 and turn it up to 2 if I'm still getting too much foil.
I never run it higher than that...

Some foil will come in as nickels, so what r you gonna do?
Pretty much, nickels & tabs ARE rings...

...I've found ZERO, ZIP, NADA gold, rings, or valuable jewelry in quite a while...
Tabdog has got me whupped!

I dig plenty tabs & nickels.

rmptr

 

[Gene]

I would dig everything that you believe isn't iron. There is a lot of small gold in the foil range from what I have seen.
Most probably wont do this and if you get to a place that only has nickels and trash that's the tip off for me.
Hunt that area very carefullly and digging all signals that are above iron. You might just be surprised.

 

[Pap]

I thinking Tabdog is sneaking out of Arkie land and hitting my tot lots in PA cause pickings have been pretty slim around here as well. Maybe we need to keep an eye on his movements. I am digging nickles though and that usually is a good sign.
Pap

 

[tabdog]

Seeing that the Golden has an ED 120 discriminator, It already naturally discriminates a lot of small iron. Even the Vaquero with an ED 180 rejects iron. Don't believe it? I can prove it.

I can promise you that some gold can fall in the iron range. It doesn't sound like iron, but it comes along so seldom that you wont be ready for it unless you know the difference. The way to know that difference is to dig thousands of those types of signals. It's like paying your dues. Also, all it takes to mask gold is an ordinary staple. Then your gold is going to sound just like iron. That's where it will hit on the disc also.

As for aluminum, it doesn't sound like gold a lot of the time, but lots of times it does. Know the difference? I do, usually. I been paying my dues.

If it is so easy to dig, and such a good chance to learn something, why not go for the gold?

If you haven't started finding gold. Why not start now?

It's not hard. Why does every one resist finding the gold

HH,

 

[tabdog]

I love to hit on nickels.

I guess because it used to be so hard, but now it's easy. Plus, any nickle signal could be something special.

HH,

 

[rmptr]

This, is in direct conflict with my previous post above.
Maybe one day I'll learn...

I just read test results at another website, testing a pile of gold rings against a metered metal detector of good quality.

20% of the rings showed as a round tab
30% showed as rectangle tabs
35% of the rings showed as foil
10% showed as nickels

(YES, I rounded out the numbers.)

It is pretty much further reinforcement that my own efforts to dig less scrap in our trashy parks is costing me the ability to recover gold rings.

It's actually pretty bad news, because there's a loaded pistol within reach and I'm afraid I might reach over, on a whim, and grab it to shoot myself in the foot as I sit here at the keyboard!

There is no substitute for digging all targets.

 

[Elton]

n/t

 

[tabdog]

I recovered a small gold pendant. It had very little gold in it. It just bairly responded. I was using a Cibola and it was in the iron range, but was very small. That's a clue.

Turned out to be a strawberry shaped pendant with more than 70 small diamonds.

I like my diamond strawberry and I'm glad I dug that Iron signal

HH,

 

[tabdog]

n/t

 

[tabdog]

n/t

 

[tabdog]

n/t

 

[Tinfoil]

My golden is one of the old ones so here is how I hunt the Gold. Since the larger amount of gold, percentage wise, is from round tab down to 0 dis. On some chains you will get the iron nickle tone. If you do, dig it. Sort of a bouncy iron nickle tone. Set your Dis. all the way Counter Clockwise. This will give you a little more depth a long with a little super tune by turning up the threshold all the way. Set it so the notch will cut out everything above round tab and Zincs. You can't notch out the high tone. Did I say how much I hate Zincs. You have to play with the wide/narrow notch sw. and the notch width knob cause some of the machines are not set a like. Do not do this in the air. Bury the round pull tab and I mean the one with the beaver tail off the round tab. There a a lot of machines you can tell a round pull tab with a beaver tail still attached. That is another lesson though. You want to do it with just the round part and no tail. Now don't no one get on here and say how I am missing the heavy gold rings that fall in the pull tab range above round tab. I know that. I just want to be digging the area where the biggest percentage of the diamond rings are found. Remember you are in a tot lot not the beach. Use the small 4" coil or the 5.75" coil. Dig the nickle iron tone, nickle zinc tone and zinc tone. If you want to dig the high tone by all means do it cause it gets a little boring digging all that trash, OOPS I mean gold signals. Now remember this is a secret so don't be blabbing it all over the place OK. : : Later Jerry aka Tinfoil

 

[rmptr]

Thanks Tinfoil.

I just grabbed a ladies engagement ring out of my box... I'm going to start setting my machine with it, instead of using nickels.

Somehow the lincoln memorial has become something I'd rather not see again FOR LIFE!

 

[Tinfoil]

That way you get the high tones, round pull tab, and below. You have to play around with the notch knob and the notch switch to get it set up that way then mark the notch knob setting. : : Later Jerry aka tinfoil

 

[rmptr]

Well, I DID verify my Pantera against a ladies engagement ring...
My setting of 2 on discrimination and 5 for the notch got me this pile of scrap in a VERY trashy park.
I feel it's a respectable blend of foil, tabs, twist-offs and even bigger aluminum with clad mixed in.
Even pulled up a small 925 from an inch deep. Get the backhoe!
This is not a sports park... It's a party function place. Many barbeque's and maybe 40 picnic tables.
We can get to 115 in the summer, so you can bet there's plenty beer drinkers here!
I had passed that same ring by my old sabre with the CS on it and only got 2, maybe 3"max for the air test... NOT GOOD!
GREAT soil hereabouts... I've dug many from deeper, but it concerns me.
Maybe it could be tuned better for that coil?

 

[tabdog]

Nice ring,

That's about what my last few looked, but without the ring.

If the ring you air tested the Sabre with was the silver ring, you should get well over 3".

Or was it the small gold ring? They can be real hard to get depth on.

HH,

 

[Ray(Ca)]

I usually set my disc just below 5c when I generally hunt an area for coins with the Golden but have been setting it just above iron when working the tot lots recently. I have been digging a truck load of foil digging in the lower disc ranges and was just wondering if anyone was finding good targets in that range and it appears that people are! I have been using the Shadow super 7 coil on my Golden and it feels like I'm prospecting and some of the smaller pieces of metal that I'm digging are the size of small BB's. I can't believe the sensitivity that the Golden has for micro metal for not having a manuel GB. So I will keep digging that foil and try setting my disc lower (in the iron range). I'll also post that Gold ring that I'm going to find!

Ray(Ca)

 

[rmptr]

Yup!
There's just so MUCH foil in some of the parks, or areas of them, that you just gotta increase the discrimination!

I think first to escape would be fine chains, then tabdog diamond earings and such.

They are certainly a prize, but the bucks are really in a substantial heavy bodied Au ring.

Of course everything else adds up quite nicely, and there's no substitute for a 4kt diamond, but we're trying to beat the odds here...

I've heard that after the war, when times were good, and folks spent summers at the beaches, there would be beachcombers going up and down the beaches sifting, with a screen, to recover valuables. THAT'S how to get everything!
With a MD we are attempting to forego MOST of that work and increase our probability of finding a valuable trinket with a minimum of digging.

It's nice to remove all the debris from a site, and the hazardous things we all find, from time to time, but I'm really there for MY entertainment, AND the bucks.

I was once a prospector, and professional miner. I did NOT get into metal detecting as a hobby.

I would hazard a guess, that even those who strongly declare this to be a hobby run a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly tally of value they have recovered and would certainly not hand their hoard to you in a bag and claim they were only detecting for the entertainment.

Wandering about for exercise is pretty much for those who chase balls!

Seems I've gone off on a tangent, once again...

Think I'll swap out my batteries and give it another shot!