Some Vaquero Advice :detecting:

[farmer]

Here is something I came across when I was researching about the Vaquero for gold hunting.

"Setting the machine on one of the front desks, James produced a large nail and gold nugget and a piece of mineral (simulating mineralized soil) used to ground balance the machine. Now, you won't find this procedure in the manual, but it is a surefire way to transform this user-friendly little detector into an amazingly effective nugget machine. An added bonus is not having to worry about digging a lot of small iron objects. The key to this tuning method is in the discrimination control.

After turning the machine on and setting the sensitivity at 10, James turned the discrimination knob counterclockwise past the all metal mode until the knob clicked. The machine was now in the threshold-based all metal mode. He then adjusted the threshold tone to a comfortable level. At this point, James ground balanced the machine using the piece of mineral. The Vaquero was humming a nice smooth tone in the all metal mode. This was when I became really impressed. James smoothly passed the nail over the coil and Wham! The machine sounded off. Next, he passed the gold nugget over the coil. Wham! A nice smooth solid tone. Now, he rotated the discrimination knob clockwise until it clicked out of the all metal mode into the discrimination mode and passed the nail over the coil

 

[Ism]

depending on the size of the nugget, that can severy reduce the detection depth.

 

[icrsaa]

I hate to be a nay sayer, but there are all kinds of minerals that respond in many different ways. Different nails respond differently and nails respond differently depending on how they are presented to the coil. Besides that the coil should be swung rather than the object.If you want to nugget hunt, stay in AM, ground balance properly and set sensitivity as high as you can stand it. HH, crs

 

[Minas man]

The article that you found is from the Tesoro website under Field Tests then Vaquero and it is company owner James Gifford that is setting up the Vaquero.

 

[Ism]

Farmer,

It looks like you got beat up for sharing helpful information. My response wasn't intended to refute the knowlege you shared, it was just to reveal the trade-off when using disc over all-metal mode on the Vaq for prospecting.

If you have a small gold nugget or even a lead pellet you can see how the detection depth is affected by simply turning the disc on at its lowest setting. With the 5x10DD using a 1/2 gram nugget, my Vaquero goes from 4" all-metal to 1" with disc switched on. I was certainly disappointed with that revelation.

 

[mike5853]

Here ya go - maybe these will help

http://www.metaldetector.cc/index.asp?PageAction=Custom&ID=104

http://www.metaldetector.cc/index.asp?PageAction=Custom&ID=107

Good hunting
Mike