Sanding Down Bottom Of SEF Coil To Drop Weight?

[Critterhunter]

I can't find the thread again so I'm starting to think I imagined reading this, but I could have swore I saw a thread where somebody dropped the weight of an SEF coil a whole bunch by sanding off some of the excess epoxy on the bottom of the coil. I remember being amazed at how much weight he dropped. I think he said he then re-protected the bottom with spray on bed liner material. If memory serves and I didn't just dream this up it had dropped the coil down to like 16 ounces. If anybody remembers reading anything similar please point me to it. I just spent about twenty minutes trying various search words to located that thread but no luck.

I wouldn't even think that would be a good idea unless you knew for sure just how deep the windings and pre-amp on a Minelab coil were buried in the epoxy. I've got a 15x12 on the way and while I don't think I'll need to do this I'm still curious about that thread.

 

[XT18000]

VERY BAD IDEA!!!!!!!!!! Use a SWINGGYTHING to help with the weight if needed.

 

[ashmonkey]

That's a bit extreme, at best you will weaken and shorten the life of the coil. Has to be one of the strangest ideas /modifications i have ever heard on a forum

 

[thinkin2]

I think what you may possibly referring to are threads where people have talked about slightly roughing the bottom of the coil (only slightly) and then using the bedliner to coat the coil for protection instead of using a coil cover. The reason they do this is to prevent water and sand build up between the coil and coil cover and it's not because of the weight but rather to prevent erratic or false signals. I have never heard of anyone doing what you mention. Sanding off even all of the epoxy on the bottom of a coil would do much of nothing concerning weight that would be noticeable. At least I wouldn't think so. I have to say what the others have said about this. Don't do it. --Jerry

 

[Critterhunter]

I'm not planning on doing it. The coil cover alone from what I hear is 3.5 ounces so you can save a good bit of weight by just removing that and then spraying the bedliner on if you need to. I'm simply curious if I did in fact read a thread about doing that in this forum a while back. It's one of those deals where I'm not going to rest until I find that message. Sort'a like not being able to remember a person's name and it bugs you all day long.

 

[Critterhunter]

Found it! But it wasn't the way I remember. It's a message on another site where a guy built a homemade 15x12 for his Sovereign that weighed only 16 ounces. Glad because that was driving me crazy. In either case, it's a great site to read up on homemade coils and other mods for detectors. Here's the thread where this guy is talking about how good his homemade coil is and a little detail on construction and using the preamp. There are some heavy hitters on this site building custom coils for just about any detector you can think of.

http://www.geotech1.com/forums/showthread.php?p=81793

 

[Cal_Cobra]

That looks like a pretty darn nice coil the guy built for his Sovereign (and you can't beat the weight).

SEF coil weight is always the number one complaint, I wonder why their so darn heavy?

 

[Critterhunter]

I just got the 15x12 SEF for my GT and it weighs only 28.7 ounces with coil cover. 25 ounces without coil cover, which is .6 ounces lighter than the 10" Tornado with it's cover on. It's not nearly as big looking or heavy as I had pictured in my mind, though I haven't swung it yet. If I find it needs a little less weight after using it a while I'll probably remove the coil cover and spray that bedliner on lightly to drop it down to just under the 10"'s weight. It's already roughly 3 ounces lighter than the WOT from the weight I have for that at 32 ounces, which I'd have to assume is with a coil cover on.

I noticed they put the mounting hole on it so that just a bit more of the coil is towards the back rather than the tip. I'm guessing this should help the balance factor. IE: More coil towards the front would probably put more stress on your arm. It's still for the most part centered but I believe they did this for good reason. You can see some photos of it with the 10" coil laying on top of it in the Sovereign forum under a thread about larger coils. Very impressed with the quality/looks of this coil and the vast majority of the reviews from people on the net say it's the deepest coil on coin/ring sized targets they've ever used. Most prefer it over the WOT.