How does a Metal Detector register the difference between ironstone and small pieces of steel

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Hi Buoys & Gulls,
Just wondering if any one knows anything about The Goldseeker 12000 VLF /TR/3D.
Just acquired one for some exchange of welding rust repairs.
Tried the internet & search bar on PA but not much info about the creatures.
Interesting old relic `i` must say.
Cheers Bush.
 
goldierocks said:
So easy to remove the black coating - a rinse in weak hydrochloric acid would do it, and will not touch the gold. Just don't use aqua regia!
Click to expand...

After he declined my kind offer :lol: I told him to give them a soak in brickies acid. They came out nicely.
I don't play around with acids much at all these days with the kids around. Can't go to the shed without at least the 4yo following me.
Aqua regia would be a definite no go for me full stop. Nowhere near set up for using that or reclaiming the gold. :p :lol:

p.s. just a caution to. Cleaning an old shed up last year & found some Alibrite that was leaking out the container. Don't know how long it had been there, looked like years, but the original container appears to have deteriorated.
 
Sorry guys `i` didn`t mean to interrupt you were All on a Great Roll of information above.
Keep going invaluable info i must say.
My Q could be answered later at your discretion.
Cheers .
.
 
Bush said:
Hi Buoys & Gulls,
Just wondering if any one knows anything about The Goldseeker 12000 VLF /TR/3D.
Just acquired one for some exchange of welding rust repairs.
Tried the internet & search bar on PA but not much info about the creatures.
Interesting old relic `i` must say.
Cheers Bush.
Click to expand...
Can't help with the 12000 Bush but you might be able to use the 15000 manual to help a bit?
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.minelab.com/__files/f/4108/Inst%2520Manual%2520Goldseeker%252015000%2520Website.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiXgpfR2-3tAhWGyzgGHRr4BtEQFjABegQICRAB&usg=AOvVaw3GC1ms8oV7nOmQn0qdIyRA
Someone like Reg Wilson or Nenad might be able to help with it?
 
Their both Top Blokes .
Thank mbasko ~i` know i`m sometimes a bit impulsive.
Keep going with the above Great stuff.
 
Deepseeker said:
I had a piece just last week from near Rheola, about the size of a large pea. It was dark rusty brown like an Ironstone, and the 5000 loved it loud and clear. However, when I turned on the Iron Reject function and set it to 10, it didn't reject it :/ The Iron reject works as I had been using it on and off all day in a trashy area.

Thinking that maybe there might be some of the good stuff inside, I brought it home with me to test with a magnet (I took the magnet off of the end of my pick handle some time ago, as it was interfering with the NF 25" DD-X as I walked along and it hung down off of my belt near my feet).

When I got home, I got out of the car and took it over to one of our raised garden beds where I use a larger rare earth magnet as part of the system I use to hold the shade cloth down. I was some inches away from the magnet when the rock flew out of my hand and stuck to the magnet. I binned the rock and walked inside, still none the wiser as to what that was all about :|
Click to expand...

Hi DEEPSEEKER,
I just had a thought on your Strange Stone Phenomena.
Is it possible you just tossed a Stoney Iron Type of Meteorite ?
Could be worth digging it back out of the rubbish bin & getting someone to check it out. :Y:
 
I'd prefer not to go there thanks Bush, seeing as our bins got emptied this morning :lol: 8.(

Who knows what it was. I've heard so many people say that the Iron reject on a 5000 is everything from dubious to crap, that it may just have been that it was reading it wrong in the settings I was using or something. Thanks for the suggestion anyway.
 
mbasko said:
Iron stone & steel aren't the same or similar compositions.

Basically iron stone contains iron compound/s in various levels over 15%. Depending on how rich in iron compound it is it might stick to a magnet but won't signal on a detector. Other pieces will signal on a detector & are commonly referred to as hot rocks.
Most sedimentary rocks contain iron to some degree but not enough to be "iron stone".

Steel is a man made alloy that is predominantly made from pure iron & carbon.

p.s. metal detector timings & ground balancing/tracking is designed to remove most of the ground signal. It will also remove some of the target signal too but steel & other metal targets being pure metal will still have a good signal.
That's why it's important to maintain a good ground balance (fixed or manual) or not keep waving an auto tracking detector over a faint signal. If your ground balance is out it can mask faint signals or auto tracking can in some cases balance it out.
In short & in most cases if the ground balance is good it will remove unwanted noise from the ground effects but leave a clear target response on metals.
Click to expand...

Confirmation Please in relation to Auto Balancing comment above.
Would it be fair to say if a faint signal of gold was detected and you wave the coil over too many times in Auto tracking the target signal may get cancelled out.
Also does the sound signal vary from iron / steel targets compared to Gold / Silver / Alloys or other metals.
Prefer this answer more so in relation to the SDC2300.
 
mbasko said:
goldierocks said:
So easy to remove the black coating - a rinse in weak hydrochloric acid would do it, and will not touch the gold. Just don't use aqua regia!
Click to expand...

After he declined my kind offer :lol: I told him to give them a soak in brickies acid. They came out nicely.
I don't play around with acids much at all these days with the kids around. Can't go to the shed without at least the 4yo following me.
Aqua regia would be a definite no go for me full stop. Nowhere near set up for using that or reclaiming the gold. :p :lol:

p.s. just a caution to. Cleaning an old shed up last year & found some Alibrite that was leaking out the container. Don't know how long it had been there, looked like years, but the original container appears to have deteriorated.
Click to expand...

Yes, brickies acid is hydrochloric acid.
 
Bush said:
mbasko said:
Iron stone & steel aren't the same or similar compositions.

Basically iron stone contains iron compound/s in various levels over 15%. Depending on how rich in iron compound it is it might stick to a magnet but won't signal on a detector. Other pieces will signal on a detector & are commonly referred to as hot rocks.
Most sedimentary rocks contain iron to some degree but not enough to be "iron stone".

Steel is a man made alloy that is predominantly made from pure iron & carbon.

p.s. metal detector timings & ground balancing/tracking is designed to remove most of the ground signal. It will also remove some of the target signal too but steel & other metal targets being pure metal will still have a good signal.
That's why it's important to maintain a good ground balance (fixed or manual) or not keep waving an auto tracking detector over a faint signal. If your ground balance is out it can mask faint signals or auto tracking can in some cases balance it out.
In short & in most cases if the ground balance is good it will remove unwanted noise from the ground effects but leave a clear target response on metals.
Click to expand...

Confirmation Please in relation to Auto Balancing comment above.
Would it be fair to say if a faint signal of gold was detected and you wave the coil over too many times in Auto tracking the target signal may get cancelled out.
Also does the sound signal vary from iron / steel targets compared to Gold / Silver / Alloys or other metals.
Prefer this answer more so in relation to the SDC2300.
Click to expand...
That would be fair to say although IMO with an SDC it would be rare (but not impossible).

With the first auto tracking PI (SD2200D) the tracking was either on (tracking) or off (fixed). In tracking Minelab said once it picks up a target it should stop auto tracking but if the signal was faint enough, & the coil was repeatedly passed over the response, it may not be recognised as a target but rather ground noise so could track out. They recommended switching from tracking back to fixed when it was thought a faint target response was heard. Switching back to fixed prevented any real targets being tracked out with ground signal.
Auto tracking has been refined through the models from the SD2200D to GP & GPX series including tracking speeds etc. It's my opinion that this further improved against the chance of it happening but it still could. So the recommendation of going to fixed when using tracking has remained as a safeguard. (Most would use fixed on SD/GP/GPX machines anyway particularly from GP3500 on with the advent of the quick track button).
I'm pretty sure that with the advent of the SDC (& GPZ) that Minelab have refined the Auto Ground Tracking (AGT) to a point where tracking out faint signals is unlikely allowing the SDC to be a fulltime AGT detector. I still wouldn't be 100% sure that it wouldn't track out faint signals so I always recommend to minimise passing the coil over what might be a faint target response & scrape some debris/dirt away to see if it brightens up. With the SDC it gives a good response on even the smallest flychit pieces of gold down to <0.01 gram so the chances of tracking a target response out when being careful to not overdo coil sweeps & scraping the ground away is pretty minimal IMO.
I know some people believe the SDC quick track button doesn't do anything but this is one area I believe it is worth using. i.e. if you get a faint signal scrape/clean the general area then off to the side, away from where the faint response is believed to be, perform a quick track before sweeping over the faint signal again. Repeat until target recovered or dismissed as ground noise.
IMO doing that "resets" the tracking back to the surrounding ground & any metallic response should remain even if faint.
Hope that helps Bush & hasn't confused the issue. On nights at the moment so the heads a bit fuzzy :lol:

By the way even though Minelab say the SDC can "discriminate" metals by tone I would never trust this. You might be able to tell by signal tone in a lot of cases but IMO not all. I've had signals with the SDC (& other detectors) that I swore would be a nail or bit of tin etc. turn out to be gold & vice versa signals I thought would be gold turn out to be a big fugget!
 

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