IDing metals with the GS5-Part 1

[bakergeol]

Well folks the GS5 has been out for almost a year here and just about nothing has been posted about metal ID. Perhaps it is time that some of us discussed our thoughts on this. Speak up folks I need input.

I am dividing this up into two parts. The first section here deals with basic settings which I use. If you GS5 users have a better way of doing things- Speak up. I am always learning. The second section I will post after this and is way out of the box - really in left field.

I assume the standard beach mode is GB mode at the 3:00 position(pulse delay 10) in high trash beaches? I also assume a lot of nugget hunters run mainly in PI mode(ground permitting)and use GB for ID? Small low conductors(high value gold rings small pull tabs, small lead)will produce a high tone here. There is a size limitation here. My 9 gram gold nugget will produce a high tone here, whereas my 13 gram nugget a low tone. Most iron as well as high conductors as well as intermediate sized low conductors will produce a low tone here. To determine if your low tone is ferrous at this position just move the GB position to the 10:00 position. If you receive a low tone here it is non ferrous. My 13 gram nugget produces a low tone here.

OK iron. Everyone knows iron is erratic in sound and commonly produces a double blip. With the 10:00 and 3:00 positions you can get a handle on iron. OK how about the exceptions? Tin can lids produce a major high tone in the 3:00 position but moving the GB clockwise to the 5:00 will produce a low tone. They should not be an issue as the signal strength is huge compared to what a small low conductor should be. Signal strength is important. How about those pesky bottle caps which produce a high tone at the 3:00 position. As an experiment I bought a portable RTA down to the beach to see if I could distinguish a nickle from a bottle cap. Using reverse discrimination(advancing the pulse delay from 10 to 25)small low conductors should produce lower signal strength. Well I was able to distinguish a nickel from a bottle cap on the RTA screen, however I couldn't do it by hearing alone. Either the response was so minor that my hearing did not pick it up or I was not keeping the same level above the target(Hmmm. bungee cord?)This would only be effective on the smallest low conductors as my 13 gram nugget did not produce a signal decrease. This is just food for thought.


HH
George

 

[Mr.Bill]

Hi George

You may find that most salt beach hunters would be using the unit in the standard PI mode, switching to GB/ID mode to ID.

On the beach the GB control most likely would be between the 7 O'Clock to 12 O'Clock settings. All the beach's I tested it on, fully counter clockwise was the best setting. I say best, I mean best for maximum sensitivity, not ID'ing. I haven't put in the time with it to learn the ID part very well. George K. is the one that's good with that. He does very well beach hunting, and relic hunting with the GS5

Later
Mr. Bill

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks George for the information you've provided and Eric Foster for making the GS5 and Mr. Bill for your great service and help.

George, I'm like you, I'm fascinated with a Pi having a decent ability to ID metals. Sure we have quicker and cheaper VLF detectors to use for this type of hunting but we know the future detector will be a pi, We are willing to take the time and effort of using Eric's GS5 Pi for other reasons other than gold nugget hunting. No question about the unit, it really stands above the other Pi's for nugget hunting & beach hunting including relic hunting.....Last week, My first trip out to the beach scored a small ladies gold ring, Small 10k gold ring but none the less it is gold.

I took the GS5 to a park today, Tried to score a gold ring digging up low conductive signals and ended up learning more about the unit for the most part. The more I use the GS5 the more I get comfortable with the unit, It really does an excellent job with the audio discriminating ferrous metals or high conductive signals.

Ended up with,

8 nickels,
12 bottle caps,
8 ferrous targets,
38 pieces of low conductive targets ranging from bits and pieces of pull tabs and other low conductive alloys,

Now, These are park finds and the GS5 was able to avoid most iron targets and it did correctly ID higher conductive signals which I was able to avoid.

I ran the GB at 3 pm with the delay at 10uS which for me appears to be the better settings for this type of hunting, Not one penny, dime or quarter did the GS5 respond as a low conductor, A few iron pieces did fool me including a deep vehicle's motor valve stem. The hair pin I should have caught, It had a solid signal high-high with a soft double signal beside which was an indicator of a hair pin.

The deeper low conductive signals came in clear as a bell, Even the deep bits and pieces of pull tabs gave the correct high-high signal. It's a fun detector to use and learn.

Thanks again,
Paul (Ca)

 

[buttondigger]

I use the pulse delay control to help eliminate ground and salt interference when using the straight PI mode.. I use the GB/ID mode when hunting land sites.Might as well that is what it is designed to do.The straight PI mode has no ground balance. I find very little difference in depth between the two modes. Also I feel this is not a detector that discriminates but gives you info based on tone, size of conductor. You will dig some iron, but not much if you have good hearing.I feel the possibilities are endless. This is not a Minelab which runs on auto pilot. It is totally set by the user. Want to disc out the tone of coins?? Check out my other post. Good luck, Tex Kinsey, aka " The Heat" By Virginia Beach Surf Pirates. Button digger in the Civil War community.

 

[Eric Foster]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the report. I have found that some hardened steels do not give the expected ferrous response, so that is likely why the motor valve fooled the detector. One of the ferrous objects is a ring, and this would be difficult too, as would the bottle caps. Hardened, flat and circular, or rings of ferrous metal, all have a dominant eddy current response, rather than a magnetic decay. Sometimes you can force the magnetic decay, if the object is not too deep, by tipping the coil on edge and drawing it over the target signal. This results in the coil field being parallel to the object, rather than cutting vertically through it. This minimises the eddy currents and maximises the magnetic signal. Non-ferrous targets won't do this.

Eric.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Eric,

For the coil tip.... Now, I know in the future to tip the coil on edge and drawing it over the signal to bring the coil field parallel to the target, This will help eliminate some of the hardened steels.

With the coming summer months summer ahead, I'll be hitting the beach more often and still continue to relic hunt with the GS5. May use the GS5 next week at an old 1850 gold mining town up in the mountains, I'd like to get me a gold coin from an old gold mining town using the GS5.

Thanks again and HH, Paul

 

[bakergeol]

Thanks Paul,Tex,Eric and Mr. Bill
This was the input I was seeking. I appreciate the tips and suggestions guys.
I am still learning as I go along. I revisited an old mining camp site here in Colorado. One signal puzzled me. It produced no response on my Ferrous Hound (magnetometer)so my FH was telling it is not iron or steel. It produced a high tone on the extreme counterclockwise GB position so it was not a small high conductor coin. It still produced a high tone at the 10:00 position so it was not a larger low conductor(I was initially thinking very large bullet). Yet it produced a low tone on the 3:00 GB position which said it was not small lead,AL, or gold. Guess what it was? It was a small brass Civil war era button.
I guess I have to rethink my GB position for small brass determination.


Thanks guys
George

 

[buttondigger]

It is in between low and high. I tested many of my civil war relics with it. Some brass buttons and large brass buckles and plates with lead fill read with this tone. My GP would read buckles as a low high only which means you would have to dig large iron to find buckles and plates, Good job on hearing the conductor. I heard this tone with no button manipulation. Just balanced the ground in the id mode and did the testing. The GS5 rocks the GP only rolls. Tex

 

[bakergeol]

I never noticed that before. This third tone would I imagine be for the larger coat size brass buttons as well as large brass.
Yes you simply can not confuse the larger deep iron for any large nonferrous object with the GS5. This not only benefits relic hunters but nugget hunters as well.

HH
George

 

[buttondigger]

No bottle caps, no pull tabs, some small iron, and eight Confederate buttons! Of course they could have been Yankee buttons. Damn Yankee's!