readings 11:37 guess what it was!!!

[MEV]

Rusty nail,yes it was a rusty nail, this is the fourth time it happens, why???

 

[sube]

What settings are you using . Some nails well read good square nail mostly because back in the day refining was not as good as it is today copper zinc and other impurities will be left in the ground as the iron rust leaving a good halo target . . bent nails read better and give a better cursor than long nails that's because when you sweep them it's the same signature both ways. Without knowing your settings hard to tell . sube

 

[Jason in Enid]

maybe you haven't learned how to spot their signature? Don't get me wrong, there will always be nails that sneak through, but you should be able to ignore the vast majority of them by looking at 1) target trace, 2) VDI stability 3) pinpoint location

 

[JFlynn]

maybe you haven't learned how to spot their signature? Don't get me wrong, there will always be nails that sneak through, but you should be able to ignore the vast majority of them by looking at 1) target trace, 2) VDI stability 3) pinpoint location

Now you must have learned 2 & 3 with the ETrac ;-)

 

[Larry (IL)]

In addition to the other suggestions, most rusty nails will not give a good reading when scanned at 90 degrees while a good target usually will. When in doubt, dig it but after you learn what to listen and look for, your rusty nail saves will drastically drop. I can usually tell just from the pinpoint, a nail will almost always pinpoint right on the nail but in search mode, you get the best signal off of the pointed end of the nail, sometimes and inch or two from the pinpoint location.

 

[Jason in Enid]

maybe you haven't learned how to spot their signature? Don't get me wrong, there will always be nails that sneak through, but you should be able to ignore the vast majority of them by looking at 1) target trace, 2) VDI stability 3) pinpoint location

Now you must have learned 2 & 3 with the ETrac ;-)

As a matter of fact, I did!

 

[CT Todd]

All good suggestions on how to ID rusty targets. If you don't dig 11/37 because you think its iron your nuts. These machines are great but it's just the way it is. If you pass the occasional 11/37 then you're also going to miss some winners. Dig

 

[Johnnyanglo]

Typically it is an unstable 11/37 that gives away the presence of iron. The 11FE jumps up to 30Fe or bounces about - iron. It could be deep non-ferrous too, so you have to watch for the tell-tale clues.

 

[nolanation]

In this case, the 11/37 is not the signal you are getting, it is the FALSE signal the iron is giving. Obviously, if it is a real 11/37, you would probably dig it. I don't think anyone was telling you not to do that. Common sense there. Iron gets easy to identify. I like to make a complete 360 around the target if I am at all unsure, and if it sounds like iron most of the way around, it more than likely is. Don't rely so much on the screen, pay more attention to the sounds. That will help you out a lot. Iron does not like to pinpoint well either, and from my experience, tends to pinpoint outside of where the target should be. Good luck.

 

[Overvoltage]

I set up an alternate pattern with a completely open screen (NO DISCRIMINATION). When I have an iffy signal I will switch to the open screen. If it is iron it will almost always identify as such with the open screen.

 

[AngelicStorm]

I had a rusty nail hit in at 12 - 36-38 yesterday from all angles. Like Sube said, maybe the refining was not as good back in the day and there are other metals in the mix. Most of the time you will know if it is a nail based on the stability of the TID.

 

[jas415]

I would add this: The numbers are pretty much the last thing I use in the 'dig or no dig' decision making process and by then I usually have my mind made up. Target tone, target location on screen, size, shape, repeatable in different (90 and 180) directions and pin point location all provide you with better information IMHO.

 

[Jason in Enid]

I had a rusty nail hit in at 12 - 36-38 yesterday from all angles. Like Sube said, maybe the refining was not as good back in the day and there are other metals in the mix. Most of the time you will know if it is a nail based on the stability of the TID.

It has nothing to do with the quality of the steel in the nail. Humans figured out how to make high quality steel a LOOOONG time ago.

The main culprit is the rust halo around the target, the second is the shape. Detectors love 2 shapes, round and long. Iron rings and tiny washers sound REALLY good to detectors because of the shape of the return field generated. They also love long objects, even more so when they are pointed upward slightly in the ground.

Metal targets do not reflect the energy from the search coil, they become charged by it. When they have been charged by this energy field, they radiate their own energy back and their shape and orientation play a huge role in this. Nails (long thin items) push that energy more out the ends than the middle, so it gives off a different signature than a flat, irregular chunk of iron. This is also another way to identify them before digging. Very often they pinpoint in a different spot than they detect.

 

[nolanation]

I agree it has nothing to do with the quality of steel. I would check the screen last, as the sound I find to be more important. If you run across a nail that hits a high tone every degree of a 360 degree circle, there is either something good in the hole with the nail or you have found a the holy grail of nails, because I have dug 1000's of targets with the CTX and have never had that happen.

 

[Daniel Tn]

There is a slight problem with ignoring the hits that sound good but only repeat from one angle of approach.

That being...good targets sitting right on or beside trash will sometimes only read good from one angle and sound bad from the other angles.

I dug a mercury dime Saturday that did just that. I could only get a signal from one direction, but when I hit that little sweet spot, I could get a repeatable signal that ranged from the upper 30s to 41 on conductive side and it had sweet audio. But I could go 90 degrees to it and not get that tone at all. I dug it just to see what it was, and like I say, out came a very shallow 1942 merc dime in a hole with a piece of can slaw. I was running in combined audio with Sube's settings and tones. The can slaw was giving a low tone and the dime was giving the high tone but I could only get the dime from one direction. I imagine the same thing happening with iron/nails in the mix too.

As long as the occasional reward of a silver coin is to be found by digging those one way hits...then I guess I can live with digging a few bent nails.

 

[KinTN]

..... you have found a the holy grail of nails.....

....which will be known as Excalibur, and will no doubt be buried firmly in the Canslaw.

 

[AngelicStorm]

I had a rusty nail hit in at 12 - 36-38 yesterday from all angles. Like Sube said, maybe the refining was not as good back in the day and there are other metals in the mix. Most of the time you will know if it is a nail based on the stability of the TID.

It has nothing to do with the quality of the steel in the nail. Humans figured out how to make high quality steel a LOOOONG time ago.

The main culprit is the rust halo around the target, the second is the shape. Detectors love 2 shapes, round and long. Iron rings and tiny washers sound REALLY good to detectors because of the shape of the return field generated. They also love long objects, even more so when they are pointed upward slightly in the ground.

Metal targets do not reflect the energy from the search coil, they become charged by it. When they have been charged by this energy field, they radiate their own energy back and their shape and orientation play a huge role in this. Nails (long thin items) push that energy more out the ends than the middle, so it gives off a different signature than a flat, irregular chunk of iron. This is also another way to identify them before digging. Very often they pinpoint in a different spot than they detect.

I agree it has nothing to do with the quality of steel. I would check the screen last, as the sound I find to be more important. If you run across a nail that hits a high tone every degree of a 360 degree circle, there is either something good in the hole with the nail or you have found a the holy grail of nails, because I have dug 1000's of targets with the CTX and have never had that happen.

Well, I was just reasoning with Sube since there seemed to be no reason besides a halo in the hole. I've known about iron halos since the beginning of time.

What happened was that I was getting this very nice solid 12 - 36-38 at what sounded like a 4-5 inch depth tone. I thought that maybe I had an Indian Head Penny in the hole because it sounded to good to not be something worthwhile. I dug a small plug to rule out something very small and it still was sounding off. I then searched the hole and got no signal from my pin pointer so I got back up and started changing angles. I am telling you the thing sounded perfect from all angles!!! I dug the hole deeper and found a rusty bent nail with no flat top. Yes, I know how those flat tops will do. I swept the nail over the coil to hear my detecter tell me it was iron and that there had to be something else in the hole. I cleaned the hole out and pin pointed all around. Nothing. I swept the detector over the hole. Nothing. So halo it had to have been.

 

[sube]

Jason in Enid . This is from the moderator from the whites v3 v3i forum here on findmall .Yes...the typical composition of old square nails is significantly different compared to modern round nails and they sometimes show as a good target.

When the ore was smelted to make square nails, little to no separation of the different types of metal alloys was completed. The ore often went from the ground to the nail; every type of metal that was in the ore is in the square nail. So as square nails age, the iron corrodes away leaving behind all the noble non-ferrous metals like copper. So the longer in the ground or the older a square nail is, the better it looks to a metal detector.

In ore processing most all the different noble metal are present to some degree or another in trace amounts. For modern round nails, the smelting process is much more elaborate. They separate and keep all the noble metals for resale at much better prices. You really are getting only iron in a round nail. As the iron corrodes away, noble metals are not there to make the signal better with age. However, the signal is so strong and polarized (magnetically) it can often still be difficult to reject.

Square nails are more difficult to reject compared to round nails, as the noble metals within the square nails alloy enhance the square nail signal both with and without age.

In summary, square nails are mostly iron with whatever other metals were in the ore. Round Nails are just iron. sube

 

[MEV]

Wow!! thanks for your response guys, i will try that

 

[electricmetal21]

It could be, that when you detected the target, there was a zinc penny in the ground next to the nail. And, you were picking up the zinc penny along with the nail.

After I dug the nail, I'd recheck the hole and make sure there was nothing remaining in the hole giving me an 11/37 signal.

Than I'd recheck the pile of dirt I dug out from the hole and make sure that there was nothing remaining in the pile of dirt giving me an 11/37 signal.