From top to bottom:
Hot rock, stainless steel, few 70’s decimals, sinkers & roofing nail heads, copper nails, live .22 bullet, and a mystery brass valve.
Down at my local beach, a woman said there was a regular detectorist covering the area. I’d already suspected as much.
I’ve got a few spots to check yet before I give up completely.
Found a tonne of those hot rocks, very frustrating, probably iron, not heavy enough to be silver ore.
Sorry for putting my junk on display again, perhaps before the year is out I’ll be able to reveal my jewels, but for now I’m a detecting eunic
Suppose its my own fault using a gold detector for coin hunting, good evening.
Good post and pics. Fully agree on the hot rocks … I’ve found my fair share of em and in some quite random places at times. Extremely frustrating, probably on a par with pull tabs.
Keep at it the good stuff will emerge when you least expect it. Is that a tropical island in the bottom pic? It could be worth a wee look.
Thanks.
At least these rocks were very black, thats why I put one in the picture ( though the blackness didn’t show). Also found several old style pull tabs in bushes, so maybe my competitor didn’t check the more difficult areas.
I’m going to have a play round at home to see if I can discriminate those hot rocks - I need some practice with my settings, think I’ve been forming some bad habbits.
I do have a permission where people had picnics when silvers were still about.
No that is not an island, though someone could figure out my location from that photo
I do still have a small island to check. Which I’ll try to do tomorrow.
Found a road bridge, for a road that was never completed.
But… foreground entrance had massive interference, there was lots of ground noise on the bridge, and the area is a feral drinking hangout
Locals drove down and began taking photo’s of me and my car, I had a chat to them and they said the area has a lot of crime & drug dealers (it’s a dead end road), they still seemed suspicious even after I explained who I was and what I was doing.
Finally got to my island, hell of a climb to get on top.
That is how high I was up (my spade is where the ground is), practically climbed down in the dark, wouldn’t have been so bad, but I was lugging a spade and huge metal detector up & down.
Ended up going too late in the day, next time I’ll get there as the tide is going out, early morning.
Beautiful up top.
Mostly bottlecaps, pull tabs, but did find the top of a pre 90’s can near the edge.
There was a strong deep signal to go back for, as the spade was useless, the roots of the large trees are holding the entire thing together, and I don’t want to cause any erosion. Next time I’m taking a trowel for some serious mole tunneling between tree roots.
Took out a fair amount of gorse plants too.
It was quite dangerous up top as the sides are overhangs ready to go at any moment when someone walks too close to the edge.
I’ll be taking my rope & grapple hook when I return (need to get in some practice with it), and should help me get up & down safely too. Because of the erosion I’ll do a thorough detect around the base, I did spot one signal, but was too dark to be bothered with it.
I wasn’t really meant to be doing this,but decided to have a scrounge.
Started getting a few interesting things, then felt I should grab a nearby spade, used a long iron bar instead & lucky I did, cause that is when the glass tube came out, right where I would have slammed the spade in. I believe the tube is off an old milking machine/apparatus.
Was easy digging, as it’s mainly filled with junk & kikuyu mulch.
Few nice bottles.
There were some scollop shells (undersize? naughty, probably a collection of shells).
Very nice piece of rounded coal too.
A machete blade, its quite thin which made me think it was a piece of scrap metal at first & due to the sharp angled blade end. But then I saw the notches where the handle goes.
I’ll see if I can get it functioning again.
The cast iron spanners are very interesting, just need some CRC, sanding and should be usable.
When I fix these things up, I’ll start up Before & Afters forum post again.
Actually can someone tell me which side of the machete to sharpen, long, or short and end?
Machete blade looks like it may have been a Parang in an earlier life - just for something different.
Sharpen the long edge.
The ring with holes is out of a bearing I think
Closeup of the perforated thing lower right of the Number 6 please.
My pick is the Willow Pattern(?) ceramic egg-cup. That would go in my cabinet, everyday item but seldom found. Looks like an older piece.
@mudwiggle All yours if you want it. Need to find at least 3 remaining pieces. It’s about 60% complete. I’ll let you glue it together. (I applied a bit of magic tape to pieces)
great pics,what detector or you using sounds like you have a minelab gold detector perfect for the beach,get to the nearest popular beach and dig everything you might have the edge on depth,good luck
Thanks. Yeah I got a gpx5000, but I made in waterproof
I’m going to test out the hot rocks at home, see if I can eliminate them from my signals.
Usually I can’t be assed opening up my waterproof case, it’s a tough thing to open & shut, and I’m often covered in muck.
I can handle most areas fairly well with a bit of regular ground balancing.
My disillusionment has caused me develop some bad habits. Lately I’ve been trying all sorts of locations around a particular beach, though now I know some small areas that I will target hard for 8 hours.
I’ve been getting a bit out of practice with all my settings options too, need to read up on them a bit more.
Hi GP
Beach hunting can be pretty tough on the moral at times…I’ve headed for home with my tail between my legs on numerous occasions!
Sand seems to be the main enemy I find. I think to be really successful you have to know how to read the beach and keep a good close eye on it, and on a regular basis, to know when the time is right to hit it. Something I’m no good at
I wonder how the GPX would go on some inland hunts?
Maybe scouting around the edges of some parks, under low lying trees and bushes, banks and higher ground, along the sides of a creek or river etc. And dig everything till you get the feel of the tones, could be interesting what pops up.
Nah, I just find junk.
Well I did a little in land near the beach, there is a park.
I got around the trees & big trees. But found out some other guy had been in, probably with one of those silver seekers (tells you want the metal is). I was only pulling up nails & a little copper.
I probably can go deeper than my competitor, but after digging a 30cm deep hole for aluminium can I begin to feel metally drained. Then after 20 of those I begin to lose my mind.
I’d love to get out everyday, but it’s a 5km walk each way to the beach (occaisionally I can get a drop off). Worst is the walk back, tired, with only junk & cold.
All good preparation for my trip though.
Planning on leaving in November or 2 weeks earlier if I can. Till then I’ve got to sell a lot of my stuff & sort out some storage for the rest. It would be nice to Winter over in Nelson, but I’ll probably come back to Thames, do a little detecting (at least for the first year).
That is another reason I haven’t been detecting too much away from home.
Oh today the power was off, and I was able to detect previously nightmare interference corner of farm. Sadly only junk, wire etc. I found a few indicators, around livestock races of all places, only dug some marker plugs, as I was rushing to detect before power came on. Will dig them later.
they are guys here digging rings at 20 inches and more with that detector, its either nuggets or beach with that, parks will drive you nuts,hit the beach get yourself a monster scoop from ebay you will need a strong one,
Ha ha yeh I bet! It’s a bit like fighting around tree roots and big stones for what seems like an age, only to pull a tear tab from the hole! Keep at it something super cool will be right around the corner😃
The upcoming trip sounds like a real adventure, good luck.
(at least for the first year).