Another Infinium beach hunt!

[Goldpick]

Took the Infinium out for another run yesterday, got there just as the tide was turning, but still with a few troughs in the beach to explore. Had a couple from Victoria approach me interested in the PI machines, so had a chat for a while with them leaving happy that they had gained some new knowledge on the detecting world.

This time rather than taking out the 8 inch mono coil, which can be a bit cantankerous at times, and very sensitive to detector cable movement, I fitted up the 5x10" DD eliptical coil and was surprised with how well it ran. Depth wasn't an issue, still had me digging some quite deep holes, but nest of all, it was quiet as a mouse all day and very well behaved - no issues with EMI nor falsing from cable movement. I was very impressed with the performance of this coil, so much so that the mono will stay home next time.

Didn't find any great valuables, some coins, a bling hair comb, a toy Mitusbish Ralliart Pajero, tons of sparklers & bobby pins, and the smallest target was a weeny copper rivet about 7 inches down, so small the pinpointer had trouble finding it. It still makes my mind boggle over the amount of rubbish deposited on our beaches on a daily basis, probably the most annoying is people drinking beer, and lazily burying the cap next to where they are sitting.

Here's a pic of all the finds and associated rubbish, and by the way, the big gold coin on the right is made of chocolate :lol:

 

[Joshwasere]

Yeah mate bottle caps and pull tabs are the worst, they are always building up in my trash bag!

 

[Coyote]

I never leave the beach without a few tent pegs. Not only do I find screw caps and rip tops but the empty cans buried in the sand.
That Comb could be worth a fortune or not Heaps of trash.
How long was you out for?

 

[Goldpick]

Probably about 3-4 hours, only working a 4-500m section, I was doing the low tide gutters, and the missus was doing the dry sand where people usually setup their towels. I'm not too disciplined with my hunting, tend to wander all over the place at times.

 

[Goldpick]

Yet another hunt from tonight, and a very happy one with my first ring find, being an amethyst & diamond 925 silver ring. Also a few coins, 18 tent pegs, never ending piles of sparklers and bottle caps, and a lovely unused durex condom! Started at about 10pm and finished around 1.30am, and nearly lost my car in the process, had to walk back about half a km to find it.

 

[Heatho]

Sweet find, must have had a wide smile when it came out.

 

[Goldpick]

Yes, I did a little jig on the beach in celebration, was a reasonably recent drop by the looks of the condition. Will be hammering the beaches whilst this heatwave keeps up.

 

[TTKooAu]

Hey Goldpick,
very nice ring find. Was it in a gutter?
Thinking it belongs to the girl who belongs to the boy who belongs to the unspent durex

 

[recfisher]

I really like finding those toy cars.........13 days into the year and still no toy car find for me
Congrats and keep up the good work getting the rubbish of the beaches.

Rec

 

[Goldpick]

I think there was a fair bit of rubbish left over from New Years, hence all the sparklers etc, the low tide last night wasn't very low at 0.9m, but by the end of the week it will be down to 0.2m, good for water hunting and checking out gutters and ripple strips.

The ring was found in dry sand 3/4 the way down to the waterline, there were no exposed gutters due to the 0.9m low tide unfortunately.

I don't mind cleaning up the junk on the beach, so long as there is the odd coin amongst them to keep things interesting. Will have my Whites Coinmaster GT to use in the coming weeks to do some more selective dry sand hunting, and try to discriminate out some of the sparklers, foils and annoying Calipo ice block lids!

 

[kawman]

I think there was a fair bit of rubbish left over from New Years, hence all the sparklers etc, the low tide last night wasn't very low at 0.9m, but by the end of the week it will be down to 0.2m, good for water hunting and checking out gutters and ripple strips.

The ring was found in dry sand 3/4 the way down to the waterline, there were no exposed gutters due to the 0.9m low tide unfortunately.

I don't mind cleaning up the junk on the beach, so long as there is the odd coin amongst them to keep things interesting. Will have my Whites Coinmaster GT to use in the coming weeks to do some more selective dry sand hunting, and try to discriminate out some of the sparklers, foils and annoying Calipo ice block lids!

very interesting... Keep an eye open for banks of sand that have been washed down by storms ect from very old dunes ect.. The black sand from them can sometimes hold some very fine gold and platinum.. Was mined up and down the coast in the early years... Gotta get me a detector...

 

[Goldpick]

I always look out for old towel marks and detecting around them for any reasonably recent drops, unfortunately that also equates to recent drops of beer bottle caps - lazy buggers! About 1.30 in the morning the wind started to whip up a fresh layer of sand over the foot tracks and towel impressions, so that was a cue to go home and get some sleep!

 

[the duck]

Love the ring its a ripper your doing a great job well done

 

[trenchfighter]

hey goldpick, how do u find the straight shaft? I havnt tried it yet.

got the little 8 on at the moment, but if im running the 10x14 DD, i move the housing back a little further, to counter its weight, works pretty good, if anything, u gotta gently push the coil down.....

 

[Goldpick]

Its not too bad, it actually came with the Infinium, so I've never used the stock shaft. It tends to balance out pretty good with the 10x14" mono, and even better with the 5x10" DD & 8" mono. I can swing all night with the 5x10, the large mono tends to get a bit heavy after a while, whilst the 10x14" DD is just a heavy sod of a thing. Tried using the large DD tonight, but found it had shielding issues on the plug connector for the coil, its one of the older ones with the silver plug vs the newer ones with the black plugs. At least I can get this stuff repaired locally for a good price, and the coils are cheap to buy compared to other PI machines.

The main problem with this straight shaft is the wobble on the centre connection, causes havoc with the mono coils, as you may know you, you really have to strap the cable down tight to prevent falsing, the wobble certainly doesn't help. I have been looking at those straight shafts on ebay with the black anodised hardware and camlocks for the connections to prevent any movement, a full carbon fibre Anderson shaft would be the ultimate one to own, very light units. Meanwhile, I've ordered a shaft clamp from the US to stiffen up the middle connection.

Carbon fibre Anderson shaft and lower rod - $200us not including shipping

Regular Anderson long shaft - $150us not including shipping

Rods by plugger ebay shaft - $155us including shipping to oz

 

[Goldpick]

After having a bit of withdrawal from not doind a decent detect lately, I took the infinium down to the beach for another try of the low tide troughs and some dry sand detecting. Lots usual PI junk (64 bottle caps, 14 tent pegs), but managed to find a chain with a tigers eye pendant, gold plate earing loop, large brass masonic ring, gold stud earing, a long stainless chain, and some odd coins including a Donald Bradman 20c piece.

There were so many targets that I could have spent all night there, but will have to wait for another night to cover some more ground. I am still really impressed with the 9x10" DD coil, for such a small coil, it certainly gets some depth and is very sensitive to small items, great coil for any Infinium arsenal. I am really getting used to the various sounds from this detector, trailing signals, multiple hi-lo's (bobby pins) screaming hi-lo's (bottle tops), mutliple lo-hi's (sparklers), screamer lo-hi's (tent pegs), and so on.

At first it was a real learning curve using this detector, but now that I have a few hours under my belt, I am really enjoying it. With DD coils, it really doesn't require much ground balancing to get it running very quiet on the beach, certainly less than the mono loops, it pretty much runs dead silent apart from the background threashold.. I also love the fact that you can drop the infinium anywhere (in salt water, wet sand), and you don't have to worry about it being totally waterproof.

 

[Goldpick]

On another note, I took the bung large DD coil to be checked out at the Gold Mining Centre, thinking the falsing was due to shielding issues (when touched, the plug would false), turns out it is one of the original batch of coils that had crapped out internals in the coil itself. It would have been replaced free of charge at the time by Garrett as it was a known issues, but is obviously out of warranty now.

I don't really use it much anyway, mainly due to the weight on the straight shaft, but I still have the smaller DD coil, and two mono loops to use. The large DD coils are pretty cheap to buy from the US at around $160, some sellers will post here if you can find the right one that will ignore Garrett's rediculous policy on not selling outside of the US.

 

[trenchfighter]

Nice haul GP! lol, Its good when you can decipher the sounds of the LS aye, I just wish i had the courage to say to myself "its a bottle cap, i wont dig it". Still dig it anyway.....
I know what you meen by the ruggedness of it, find a target, you can pretty much DROP IT anywhere and dig.
As for the DD coils, im finding im using them less and less also, cause the mono's i can get to humm pretty much everywhere iv been up here in qld, get occasional falsing, but hey, i can live with that.

 

[Goldpick]

Yes, I still dig a lot of junk, get the guilts if I leave crap lying around, so I just dig it up and then bin it.

 

[Goldpick]

Tonight I sent back to the same spot that I found all the coins with the Ace 250, with the Infinium, only to find that the ocean had re-deposited sand over the eroded cut in the beach dammit! :lol:

Then my rechargeables went flat (Infinium goes beserko when low on power), that's the only problem with rechargeables, when they go flat, it all happens very quickly, despite a good showing of power from the Infinium's battery check - lots of cursing and swearing followed, lucky no one was out there at that hour! Headed back to the closest servo and picked up another 8AA batteries, and recommenced detecting.

It really is amazing what you find on the beach as each layer is eroded away and how much the beach changes over a short period of time. The four clamps were very deep, probably about a foot and a half, nothing else exciting to report unfortunately, other than a few sinkers and berley cage, copper stud earing (was gold plated), usual bobby pins, key, nuts, bolts, washers, sparklers, tent pegs, and $2.30 in change - typical PI detector targets.

Am thinking that winter will be a welcome sight, to strip the beaches of a few layers to reveal its treasures!