Had an Ah Ha moment today which lead to some testing

[nagov]

This bored landlocked hunter had to get out today even though it wasn't at a beach... I prefer beach and water hunting but didn't have the two hour drive in me today so I went out dirt hunting. Wasn't doing any good, just a typical clad day along with daydreaming of the beach while listening to the GT sing.....digging only 180's so I could increase the clad count and I heard a high tone. Checked out the Ron's Meter and there was a 180 but then turned into a 145 then back again to 180..... Ok dummy, this may be a learning target...... wake up. Well when all was said and done, the detector and the meter didn't lie to me, there were two targets 3" apart just laying in the long grass...... one clad dime and one rectangle pull tab. I had to swing really slow to get the two readings to separate, a fast swing would mix the tones and the meter would bounce between the numbers dependant on the direction of the swing.

This lead me to do some testing on the numbers of different targets when I got home.... Yeah, I know I could read all about it in the sticky's above but it isn't the same for me. I can read something and until I do it myself, it just won't click in this head..... So the wife and I went out back with my finds and did some testing.... various sized rings, sinkers, pull tabs and bottle tops..... Yep, the medium silver ring hits a hard 180, pull tabs around 145 but then it got interesting..... different sized 10k and 14k rings came in at various readings, one of the smaller 14k rings was scratchy and I told the wife that I wasn't sure I would have dug it in the dirt. So my testing lead me to the fact that.... once again, you better dig everything, otherwise you will pass up some good finds.

Also, from looking just at the raw numbers compared to the size of the rings, generally, the 10k's ring out higher than the 14k's (more silver and copper?) but the largest 14k ring I had came in the highest of all the rings which lead to the wife asking why???? So my answer was it had the most copper/silver per volume since it was the largest target... Am I right on this one or is there something else I didn't account for?

Anyway, this is just some ramblings from someone that can't wait to get back to the beach.

HH everyone

Cliff

 

[gear box]

Cliff,nice job on the AH-HA moment. You discovered that going slow really is important. And it becomes even more important when looking fo deep old coins that have sunk to a depth that some detector's can't even pick up or in trashy areas. But the Sovereign can, if it is given a chance to see both targets, and that will give you the operator a chance to hear both tones. It can only do this if you swing slow like you discovered with the dime and pull tab. Sorry, can't help you on your question about the ring's tho.
Good luck Gary

 

[Critterhunter]

Did that ring that gave the broken signal have an odd shape to it? Meaning, did it have a lot of holes or "webbing" on it? Or was it not a complete loop? Because in our testing of over 100 gold rings only a handful would give a sick sound and not lock onto 1 or 2 numbers as you swept over them. Those rings were always a broken loop, or had many numerous holes in them, or in particular had fine "spiderwebbing" in their pattern.

 

[nagov]

Dang Critter, maybe you are on to something.... here are pics of the ring. It isn't round, slightly oval AND it has a webbing design on it. IF that is what was causing the scratchy sound, I may have passed up lots of good targets in the dirt.... I pretty much dig all at the beach.

 

[dewcon4414]

Some diamond rings will also give a scratchy signal. As far as your 10 k vs 14 K .... the more the gold sometimes the lower the reading just because of size, density, and it being close to the salt setting of the machine. Silver and copper mix you would think would give it a higher tone..... where as nickel might not.

Dew

 

[Ron from Michigan]

Interesting observation,most old parks here if I decide to find a silver coin can be found on most of my hunts,but at the expense of gold.To find gold I usually dig all targets just below nickles and above,example 140-180.Dew makes a point I'm probably missing a lot of gold by not going even lower.There is a lot of gold still to be found on land because most of us will get lazy and cherry pick.Thanks Ron

 

[Critterhunter]

What we found was that about maybe 7 to 10 rings out of roughly from memory 120+ would give a sick sound and not lock onto 1 or 2 digits, but rather varied by 3 or more. These rings were mostly ones that had fine webbing (thus numerous holes between that webbing) like a spiderweb. A few others either had a cracked band or had many holes drilled into them. I think what happens is the coil detection field gets scattered by the uneven pattern of holes in the ring. Just like why fine gold chains don't hit well on a Minelab.

As to where rings read, yep...same K ring but bigger will read higher due to the copper/silver/whatever content mixed in the gold presenting a larger target. That's why a shard of a aluminum can will read lower on the scale but a whole can can give a big coin signal. More surface area to up the conductivity. The K value also comes into play. Lower K= more higher conductive metals mixed with the gold.

We also found that white gold rings would often read much lower than you would think based on their K value and size, due to I guess whatever they mix with white gold to make it look that way. Most be a real low conductive metal mixed in with it I guess.

 

[Furious T]

With regard to the relative "height" of the numbers on rings, I think it basically comes down to a few factors: The size of the ring; the shape and regularity of the ring, including whether or not it is broken; and the metallic make-up of the ring. With regard to the last (metals used), as well as gold, ring "manufacturers" have used copper, silver, Nickel, Platinum, Palladium and even iron. At one stage, copper was a preferred metal to alloy with gold as it was easy to work with and cheaper than silver...however you ended up with rose gold...to enhance the snob value, this rose gold was sometimes electroplated with a thin layer of yellow gold...so if you find an older ring that has some yellow gold showing and some rose gold showing, it could be one of these older rings. Of course the different conductivity ratings of the metals alloyed with the pure gold change the conductive properties of the finished product, ie. the ring we find. e.g. Nickel is used in white gold to help make it "white"...so we can expect that white gold rings will give a "lower" signal than a ring of the same size and karat value in yellow or rose colour. Hope this helps. JMO.

 

[mike5853]

Yup - broken rings will give a broken or scatchy tone as well as reduced depth by as much as 40%.

 

[Critterhunter]

That's why Minelabs will hit even the thinnest of gold rings at just about as deep as a silver coin, because the complete band of the ring is a complete circuit, so it presents a big picture to the detection field. But the many links in a chain are tiny and not really connected to each other, so there isn't any kind of connected "big" target for the field to see. That's why I don't care for machines with high fine gold sensitivity, because the ones I owned chattered up a storm in trashy areas loaded with bits of foil or other tiny junk. Often they'd bang solid and hard and I'd dig hoping for a ring only to find tiny little flakes of aluminum and such. I'd rather have a machine that either ignores that tiny stuff or makes it sound sick, because IMO the most gold lost is rings and so I want to be going after that. Besides, takes a lot of tiny gold earings to equal the scrap weight of even a thin gold ring usually.