Aluminium

[JAN1]

Has anyone any idea what I am doing wrong.
I have had an explorer for two years now which I purchased as there are tons of ferrous metal bits on our beaches which it does a good job of ignoring however when detecting all tones and all display readings usually turn out to be bits of alu, ring pulls can bases or melted possibly from aircraft, I could spend several hours digging and end up with a bag of aluminium
Things have got so bad that I only use it on land sites. After two years have still not found anything worthwhile
My main beach detector is a Detector pro wader with which my best days are 158 coins, 200 fishing weights and a gold sovereign, not on the same day.
There is no point in going to other beaches as they are mostly all infected with aluminium.
Any help would be gratefully received.

 

[dewcon4414]

If you are looking for rings and small gold there isnt a lot of ways to avoid those items. Have you got Andys book? Read hes recommendations for beach hunting and using a pattern. You miss a lot of coins and other items you might dig in a park..... but the pay off is you arent digging crap and gold pays more than a penny anyway. Also you cover more beach and spend less time digging. A lot of people just are afraid to use patterns, but they have their place. Also when you get a hit... raise your coil and size the target.... if its large you can bet its not what you are looking for. Like it or not sounds like you are digging those items needed to find rings.... you just need to narrow the window so you arent digging or listening to other targets. Gold rings to me does have a distinct tone and doesnt bounce around as much as can items. When you first start using a pattern you feel like .... did i miss something. Well ya you did.... but you dont get mentally fatigued in a really trashy area. The reason gold is worth so much as raw gold and for us jewelry is its hard to find. Also try increasing your manual sensitivity to say 29 it seems to target smaller targets close to the surface. In the dry sand many of the jewelry targets arent that deep..... now in the wet sand where there is water movement.... those suckers can be down there really deep.... but there isnt as much junt there to dig.

Dew

 

[JAN1]

Thanks for the information but as I live in Cornwall I don't know about Andy but I shall try the sensitivity at 29.
The only problem with deep items here is that the tide may go out a half mile but the water table is only a couple of spits down so it is difficult to dig fast enough to get the items as the hole fills in very quickly. My wife is retiring soon also so maybe she will dig!!!

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Have you tried going strictly only after beach erosion has occured? High tides combined with harsh on-shore swells/waves, erodes the wet-sand inter-tidal beach away. You can tell when there's cuts, scallops (inverted "bowl"-like shapes where the sand has been scoured out), steeper slopes, or wet zones that invert further into the beach than normal. When mother nature is doing this, she will often-time remove all the light stuff, and leave only the heavier targets. So kiss all aluminum globules goodbye, as they are washed out into the ocean, leaving only the heavier coins, jewelry, fishing sinkers, keys, etc.... It's like mother nature's giant riffle board or sluice-box Once you gotten a taste of that, you will never return to dry sand hunting again

Problem is, it doesn't happen that often. And you have to know what weather/ocean conditions you are looking for, study the surf reports, tide charts, etc.....

I know beaches near me, that I too could dig 100 aluminum globules (created when people pitch aluminum cans into beach bonfires) to any 1 coin. But on that SAME EXACT BEACH, after the right erosion conditions occur, I can dig 100 coins and related targets, without ever digging a piece of light-weight aluminum junk.

 

[sgoss66]

Hey JAN1 --

As for "Andy," dewcon was referring to Andy Sabisch -- one of the gurus of the Explorer line of detectors. His book, The Minelab Explorer & E-Trac Handbook, is sort of the "bible" for Explorer users. You can get it here...

http://www.sabischbooks.com/books.htm

Steve