F2 over redbrick, need advice

[Tajue17]

I belong to the group "find my stuff" and this morning I tried to help a girl find her lost earing. the location is Cambridge, Ma. just steps from Harvard university and the side walks are very old and topped with red bricks which have about a 3/8 gap thats about 1/4 to 3/8 deep with basic soil in between them. this morning it was snowing so the ground had about 1/2" layer already on it. right when i tried to run the machine it was jumping all over the place,,,,, I turned the senistivity down all the way and still it was out of control. I put in fresh batteries this morning but I'm thinking it was that brick which i never detected over,,, what do you guys think.

 

[IBdiggin]

Maybe the baking of the brick in an oven has something to do with it, I don't know. Seems things around an old campfire get's pretty jumpy also---

 

[mudpuppy]

Yeah...maybe iron clay or something in the brick ..I dont know, but old bricks sound off for me too..that might be one impossible thing to find...
Mud

 

[WhatTheBeep]

Did it jump into every range? If not, try notching out what you can, especially iron. I'd guess the earring might fall into the "foil" range?

 

[Tajue17]

Yes it was jumping everywhere, immediately when I turned it on it was worse than looking over wet salty sand... maybe a better machine where you can block out every number that comes up would work but it was jumping all around iron and I think the gold would of been low around the iron reading.

 

[mudpuppy]

Yeah...I tried to find a guys gold wedding ring in a mess like that a few years ago, problem was, the ring broke, so there was at least two halves of it, and both went flying...I tried my CZ20 as well as my F70 to no avail...just could not distinguish or disc out or anything...and I am pretty dang good in the trash...you know those little parts were going to be in the same signature of the brick...little earring like Whatthebeep said, prob in foil/high iron and masked by the big sounds...

If she can give you the other matching earring to use as a tell...tie it onto some dental floss and toss it in there in the bricks to do some sort of set up if possible, that would be about your, and her, only hope...it may have even bounced outside of the walkway, but &*$#...this is a tough one!...
Mud

 

[ArizFlash]

The red coloring in brick is usually iron oxide. The F2 has a pre-set (fixed) ground balance and cannot overcome the iron mineralization. A detector with user adjustable ground balance is needed to detect this location.

 

[sprchng]

Just like on a wet salt water beach by the time you ground balance out the wet sand/bricks you may well be tuning out the ear ring as well. How large off an area has she narrowed it down to? Try detecting just the edges and use a shop vac in between the bricks. I saw a piece on TV where some guy was actually making a living mining the cracks in NYC for lost gems and precious metals! Who knows what else you might find in there.
How attractive is this gal ?

 

[Dave J.]

Some fired red bricks can be pretty "talkative". And, as another forum denizen has mentioned, cracks between bricks can collect bits and pieces of metal.

--Dave J.

 

[Tajue17]

good enough,, thanks everyone for the posts. I know now to be careful of this red brick.

 

[salmonriverhotrock]

Not sure what coil you are using but try the smaller 4 inch or raise your larger coil and make adjustments accordingly over the brick with her other matching ear-ring as the test piece. If it is too small, you may not detect it at all anyhow.