would it do me any good.....

[bbwwbb]

As some of you know, I have a very trashy yard. If I set to all metal, I pick up 30-40 targets per square foot. Obviously this makes things very tough, and masks signals from the deeper of any sort.

My soil is almost completely sand, and is very soft. How much of a help do you think it would be to drag some of the trashiest areas (mostly nuts, bolts, washers, welding slag, and small bits of scrap iron) with one of the very strong magnets available at harbor freight and similar places?

I'm not expecting to get rid of it all, just some, I can do it now, and as I till the ground for grass planting next spring.

thoughts?

 

[Butch in Colorado]

...this way you get a new toy (magnet) to play with and you clean out your yard of a bunch of metal.

Actually it really depends on how much you have. If you really have a lot of magnetic trash, then it would probably be worth the purchase.

However, you are new to your detector and all that trash is a really good opportunity to teach you how to learn the discriminate features of your detector. You may not want to pass up this opportunity to get to know your machine a bit better as you clean out your yard and unmask all those deeper targets.

And ummm, how do you pronounce bbwwbb?

Welcome!

 

[Ed SW Fla]

.... nail size targets from grass roots and very shallow.

Go slowly, use a good target ID machine, at low / no discrim, select the targets you want to explore. With discrim, you won't be bothered by so much noise but you'll give up some depth. Since it's your own yard, you have all the time in the world to search it. Just cover it a few sections at a time and dig most everything as iron / steel can mask deeper better targets. JMHO

 

[BJ in Okla.]

Do a 4 foot square, remove the sod with a shovel.
Dig out about a foot or 2 of dirt and use a home made sifter and sift the dirt, use your detector and see if you can find anymore targets.
Put the dirt back and then put the sod back and water it good and move on to another spot.
Just a thought.
HH...BJ

 

[bbwwbb]

also worth mentioning, there is no sod in these areas. This was an old sand driveway, very loose sand. I guess sifting it isn't it a bad idea either.

 

[General Ray]

my opinion and please don't take this wrong, you asked what we thought and here's my thoughts. You would need a very large magnet to pull most surface stuff let alone anything buried under ground if you could find one, you'll get the nails laying on top of the ground but you won't get much if anything that is buried. Roofer's use large magnets to pick up their roofing nails at the end of the job and they do pretty good but leave many behind and these nails are not buried, seen it happen many times.

A sifter would work great also if you are willing to dig up your yard, inch by inch and most of all have the time to plus the back to do the work, your talking about alot of work with a sifter and from the picture's of your yard, your looking at months to get the job done, not much fun in that unless your finding gold coins

Your new to the hobby and I know how you feel, (We all felt the same way at first) but Bret never forget it's just a hobby, a metal detecting hobby, when you start using magnets and sifter's and bull dozer's you really miss the thrill of finding a cool treasure with a metal detector, remember how your little 4 year old felt digging up those old cars with a $10 detector, thats what you would miss not to mention the bad back from all that pick and shovel digging, sand or no sand

You have a 4 inch coil on your detector, perfect coil for digging in trash, take it one target at a time and in time you will be amaze at how fast you can clean your yard up plus as a added bonus start making some cool finds plus most important you'll be (learning how to use your machine and putting in the hours with it to learn your new Metal Detector) after all Bret, your new hobby is Metal Detecting, not earth moving, way to much work bud, takes the fun out of fun

Good luck with what ever you decide Bret , grab your detector and your 4 year old and head for the front yard and dig one target at a time and enjoy and learn plus this spring you will be tilling the yard so you get to do it all over again and find some more goodies

Good luck
General Ray

 

[bbwwbb]

Well said.

Worth thinking about.

Thanks, and I *do* have all the time there is to dig up the yard.

thanks.

-b

 

[General Ray]

n/t

 

[todd[ma]]

iron you can sort out but aluminum ya cant.it always sounds like a silver coin.find other spots to hit[[not so trashy] and practice in your yard to know the machine.layer by layer you'll find the goods...and learn the machines reponses.before ya know it,you'll be diggin' the good stuff.

 

[therick]

n/t

 

[HARRY~]

n/t