Been there, done that. I lived.
I have a confession to make, also. My probe is an ICE PICK. Yeah you read that right, an ice pick. But only the Old Hickory brand with the long, slender, tapered shaft that's as sharp as a needle. I know that makes your pucker factor rise by a factor of ten, but I've been using this method for over 30 years. I go to a machine shop that I have access to and get on their ceramic wheel, and spend about 20 minutes grinding the tip to a nice rounded end instead of that nasty needle tip, and I use a high-powered magnifier to inspect it until I'm happy with it. It gets better with use, but usually just about the time it's where I really like it I break the
thing. So I buy them a half-dozen at a time, rework the tips, pull the shafts out of the handle and use a 2-part expoxy to keep it secure and stick it back into the handle.
I love my ice picks and would be lost without them. I carry spares at all times. I curse like a drunken sailor when I break one and feel like breaking the neck of whomever was in charge of quality control that hour at the ice pick factory. My ice picks are the only probe that gives me the FEEL that I need. It'll penentrate easily but it's stopped easily. I'd swear that I can feel a gum wrapper at 10 feet but unfortunately the probe is only 4.25" long when I'm done with it. It's extraordinarily easy to pop a shallow target out of the ground with my ice pick. It also makes for much fun walking back to the car when I'm done detecting, I hit a squirrel in the butt with it once, almost got a bird hopping on the ground once, and am adept at sticking it into a tree from quite a distance. And no, that's not when I break them. It's when I try to use it as a pry bar instead of a probe.
Of course, there have been times when I got frustrated at trying to find a pinpointed target that refuses to be found (that usually ends up being a ring or ring of a beavertail pulltab) and I have to be careful not to jab the pick around like an angry woodpecker if I get teed off. So out comes the All-Pro trowel and I dig.
Anyway they say confession is good for the soul and I figured this post was the place to do it, sorry to stomp around on your post in the process. Bummer about the dime, but sticking anything harder than a straw into the ground to probe or dig is going to cause damage at one point or another to a target. Anyone who hasn't done it simply hasn't done it YET.
Steve
