Hunting in the woods.

[Bishop2012]

I found this out in the woods and thought it was interesting. The strange thing was it was showing up under Ferrous Coin as two signals. One right around 12-32 nice circle and the other way down in the bottom right corner. I checked everything twice and it was the only thing there. Gargantuan old black walnut not far away so I'm thinking maybe an old house place many years ago.

 

[Jason in Enid]

Nice old axe! I would clean that up and preserve it for sure. As for the reading, that is big and LOTS of rust. I'm not surprised at all that you got a false hit from it.

 

[Bishop2012]

I thought it was cool! Do you have any suggestions on the best way to get the rust off without breaking it apart? It's fairly fragile.

 

[Bishop2012]

The location was really interesting. Did some more exploring and found an old sub surface bricked area. Also found an old well/cistern with a ceramic lining. Also a bunch of early 1900s bottles everywhere. Unfortunately we're in the process of getting about 12+ inches of snow.

 

[Jason in Enid]

I thought it was cool! Do you have any suggestions on the best way to get the rust off without breaking it apart? It's fairly fragile.

You could try electrolysis, but that will depend on how much metal is actually remaining.

 

[Bishop2012]

I'll give it a shot. I saw some guides on setting it up. Hopefully I can manage without electrocuting myself.

 

[Jason in Enid]

Don't forget, after the electrolysis, you need to boil it in wax for a good couple hours to make sure all the water is removed and it's sealed against new moisture.

 

[Kieth-Tx]

Agree with Jason. Heavy scaled rust is a kind of wildcard and will confuse any detector. My Tejon is amazing when discriminating a signal.....except for scaled rust. Will fool it every time.

 

[glenn3-88]

DON'T TRY THIS BUTTTT.
I found one last year in the woods behind my brother in law's house.
He didn't want it so I brought it home and was just that rusty. Built a hot
fire out of wood in the yard. Had it in an old tractor rim so a lot of the heat
reflects back into the fire creating good red hot coals. Dropped it in the fire
and kept feeding wood on it and left it all night. Nest day I took a pitch fork
and fished it out of the still hot coals and set it aside and let it cool down to air
temperature. Sold it on the Bay for 70 bucks. Turns out when I burned off the
rust there was a very sought after name that made them only for logging business.
The head on it was huge. Think it was about 6 lbs before I wrapped it for shipping.
It was black when I got it back out of the fire and I just left it that way but you could
still see the logo. The edge had rusted badly but for the most part it was all there.
Very Very thin on one side and later learned it was a "rail" head.

 

[Des D]

Bishop,

That's a very typical response / meter appearance of Ferrous Coin

What happened is: FC "interpreted" the piece as 2 'eddy current' sources. No. 1 - the axe No. 2 - the rounded end where the 2nd eddy current had a great time running around in circles.

Des D

 

[JJ]

I would lean towards glenn's method, probably before electrolysis, but that's just me. Instead of setting your old tractor ablaze in the back forty, try throwing it in your oven and use the self-cleaning feature. After a few hours, all outter corrosion will turn to ash and it will be taken down to bare metal. I have never done an axe head but have had great success cleaning and restoring heavily corroded cast iron pans using this method. A little steel wool scrub in the sink will be required after to clean and remove all debris from the nooks and crannies. You will want to apply a light oil coating afterwards to stop and prevent future rusting. This is safer than electrolysis. Good luck, JJ

 

[Bishop2012]

Very cool! I never would have thought of that! I wish I hadn't messed with it when I found it because I accidentally chipped a piece off the blade. Oh well live and learn I guess. I don't plan to try and sell it anyway. I need to work on my interesting find collection first.

Thanks for all the suggestions!