SORTING THE SMALL SPECS

[SCROUNGER]

Here's another question for 2300 owners. Today i got eight specs with one being perfectly round and honestly smaller than 1mm in diameter. The detector picked it up about 6-7 inches down, fantastic. The problem i have is sorting them from the soil once detected. Is there some way to quickly and reliably sift out these tiny specs. When they're so small and deep it can take 1/2 and hour to sift through the soil and find them. Any ideas?

 

[Wally69]

I like to pinpoint the target with the SDC and then use a fiskars scoop. Shaking the soil violently should get it to the bottom. Then I reduce by 50% at a time until I see yellow ( most times it is bb shot, you need to keep your fingers together otherwise the slippery suckers tend to roll away)

One of the best tips I got was to heat the scoop and flatten the bottom, it makes chasing the fine stuff into the scoop much easier.

For big loud signals, I use my magnet and/or a pinpointer once out of the hole.

 

[SCROUNGER]

Thanks wally69, some of these specs are so small that they come out of the scoop sooner than the dirt they're with. I'm locating them in the soil initially by sound but after than i confirm somethings there with the threshold lights. Unless the nuggets is in fine quartz/gravel and shallow it becomes hard for me to pin point in dirt down deeper, so i take more soil in the scoop to locate and then the fun of sorting begins!! That's when it takes so long to isolate. Would a pin pointer work on tiny specs?

 

[Guest]

6-7" down? 1mm in diameter... Got a photo?

 

[Teemore]

They can be a bugger to actually get at times, if it's flat and comes out of the hole on its side the signal can almost disappear.
Don't believe a pinpointed is much good in those situations ..... just slowly work through it once the target is out of the hole.
Sometimes when I've confirmed it's out of the whole I break that soil up into 3 or 4 smaller heaps and recheck with the detector, that way you're working with a smaller amount of dirt.
At least you're hearing then, that's sometimes the hardest part.
Cheers T.

 

[Bacchus]

Gday Scrounger

I made the blue of buying a pinpointer thinking it would help me pinpoint the tiny stuff the SDC turns up , in the end it sits in the back pack waiting to pinpoint the big one yet to be found. A good scoop and plenty of practice on small leadshot has the sorting time down considerably , some of the guys say the whites is ok on small gold but I reckon good scoop technique is the quickest way to sort

Cheers

 

[Redfin]

Best to use a reasonably flat scoop. preferably the one with ripples.
Works a treat with the 2300.

and yes, heaps of small ones that deep

 

[SCROUNGER]

Hi Zuke _Lynzy, last time i tried to post a pic Ramjet had to do it for me. I'll try again tomorrow night to post a pic and see how i go. I couldn't believe how perfectly round and small the spec looks. Like a miniature 'gold' buckshot. I pinged it in amongst three recent deeper detector holes. It took me a number of goes to confirm there was actually something down there. I presume it was hard to confirm a signal because it was round with a smaller surface area?
Teemore and Bacchus, thought that may be the case regards the pinpointers. I'll just need to refine my retrieval technique.

 

[SCROUNGER]

Redfin, that's the same scoop as i'm using but those are bloody big nuggets compared to what i'm locating and trying to retrieve! I've found nothing that goes close to those yet unfortunately.

 

[Guest]

Get the target out of the ground first, completely out of the hole. Learn where abouts the coil sounds off on the target. For my SDC its approx 25mm in from the outer edge of the coil. I use the 12 oclock position of my coil and 25mm in from the outer edge to pinpoint the targets location. I can get an approx location by using this method and start scooping dirt from that area.

As Wally said earlier, whom converted me to using a scoop: Scoop of dirt, bit of a side to side shake to get heavies at the bottom, wave scoop over coil, repeat till the target is in the scoop. Then its a game of elimination, remove 50% of the dirt into your hand. Re test scoop if its still in scoop repeat process. If not signal present in scoop, tip scoop dirt out and place hand dirt into scoop, repeat till target is found.

After plenty of practice, which comes with SDC territory you will have retreival down to less than 30 seconds most of the time.

My Minelab pinpointer is usless on tiny, tiny bits of gold but works fantastic on larger metal items.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

RS

 

[SCROUNGER]

Cheers RS,
All good advice, that's what i'm doing mostly. I think i just need to refine my initial pinpointing with the coil to start with to eliminate taking soil that's to the sides of the target.
Thanks all, appreciate your help.

 

[silver]

Us treasure hunters in the old days before pinpointers would(if we were onto something tiny)pour the dirt across the coil from just out of signal range above and wait for the coil to tell us that it had landed, put the rest to the side and find the target in the last bit of dirt that fell on the coil.

 

[kurrajong]

I check each dig from the hole and if it is clear sweep it to one side
Repeat until the target is in the pile.
Then halve the pile and sweep the waste half to one side.
Keep repeating until the target pile is small.
Then I use my secret spoon, made from the flat hard plastic of a 20l oil container to sweep low over the coil .
Eventually the scrap ends up in my grubby little hands and then in the pill bottle.
It is pedantic but usually I take no more than a minute to get the target in the aforementioned grubby little hands.

Time swinging means more gold is my motto.

 

[Brumble-Gum]

I heard of a gentleman who had this problem with a 705 at Clermont on mullock heaps. He simply put his small concentrated dirt into a bucket and panned off at the end of a day.

 

[Ridge Runner]

Here's another question for 2300 owners. Today i got eight specs with one being perfectly round and honestly smaller than 1mm in diameter. The detector picked it up about 6-7 inches down, fantastic. The problem i have is sorting them from the soil once detected. Is there some way to quickly and reliably sift out these tiny specs. When they're so small and deep it can take 1/2 and hour to sift through the soil and find them. Any ideas?

G'day Mate, That scoop is good but you need the Falcon MR 20 pinpointer for specks, I use the Whites Bullseye II because it Runs at 36khz all the others run between 11 and 14ish, You can put Riffles in your scoop by using A Hot Glue Gun and when they wear out just re do them.

Good Luck,, John

 

[Heatho]

I heard of a gentleman who had this problem with a 705 at Clermont on mullock heaps. He simply put his small concentrated dirt into a bucket and panned off at the end of a day.

I was thinking of doing the same BG to save time and dig more targets in a day, might give it a go next time I'm out having a swing.

 

[SCROUNGER]

Hey Zuke_Lynzy,
Not sure if this has worked and the pic is up. If it has, you can see that the round spec is actually about 1.5mm, not 1. Went out again today determined to be a bit more aggressive with my sorting, rather than worrying about losing one every now and then. seems to have helped.
Good suggestions all, like the idea of panning off at the end of the day, but i don't think i'd have the patience to wait and see what's there! Thanks.

 

[user 4485]

don't think i'd have the patience to wait and see what's there!

I'm sure that I couldn't. Also if you did that you'd never know whether your onto a run of small gold or just bird shot or even where you got what from?
With practice it gets quicker & I like to see what it is, where it is.

 

[Guest]

don't think i'd have the patience to wait and see what's there!

I'm sure that I couldn't. Also if you did that you'd never know whether your onto a run of small gold or just bird shot or even where you got what from?
With practice it gets quicker & I like to see what it is, where it is.

Me too. I would hate to have a pan full of tacks and bird shot at the end of the day! When I get that first piece for the day the ears sharpen up and that location is meticulously scanned for more gold.

I ll be out your way (Windeyer) next week mbasko with wife n dogs for a short break. Ill try and scam as much detecting time in as possible. :/

Cheers

RS

 

[SCROUNGER]

Yeah, it's amazing how finding the first piece concentrates the mind in the search for others. Good point as well about knowing that you're actually getting gold and from what area it came.