Iron masking

[Ken from Atlanta]

Are there any machines out there that can overcome iron masking to any degree? My ace will not pick up a coin under a piece of junk and it has problems with really trashy spots which I seem to be in a lot.

 

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[dewcon4414]

to some degree yes. Ive used the DFX and now the SE and if you use a smaller coil and speed up the recovery speed i do pretty well in some really really trashy areas. Ive been hunting an old mountain park here in Casa Grande, AZ that was built in the 40's. Its had so much metal trash and glass that they even raked mounds of it. But among all those bond fires and nulling i still managed 2 silver mirks and a half dollar. Its not an easy task considering im using the standard coil. I just run a fast recovery and just disc out nails. Everything else is noise. You have to be willing to go slower and really listen thru the noise for those desireable tones.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

If you just want to see under a nail or two, get any of a number of 2-filter machines, like various Tesoros, the Whites classics series, etc... If you need to see under 2 or 3 nails, you'll have to get an old-school TR machine, like the Compass 77b. In each case, you can pass up nails alone, but still get a signal on a coin under those nails (with less depth, of course). With the 2-filter discriminators, you'll still have variable disc, ground balance on some, etc... But with the 77b, although it sees through a lot of iron, you'll loose all ability to TID (ie.: foil and silver dollar all sound the same), loose ability in bad ground, and they're a bear to balance.

The rule of thumb is: the deeper seeking the machine is, the worse it is for "averaging" "seeing through" etc.... (ie.: more masking)

 

[rdi]

Ken Minelab GT (for land) and (Minelab Excal) for water are the only machines I've found so far,for overcoming iron.....example ,with the GT you can put a dime on the ground with a nail on top of it and get a good signal, nail only you get a null...I pretty much only hunt the water....the GT is my wifes and she has found some great stuff.....I like Garrett Infinium LS to use when the water has been worked hard or sanded in.... in my opinion the Minelab GT is the best Detector at this time for many hunting conditions.......Rdi

 

[Farmercal]

My Minelab Explorer II sounded off on a penny at a closed down school and while I was retrieving the penny I first found a rusty nail, then the penny. I guess you could call that iron masking.

 

[muleskinner]

I've had similar experience with my sovereign. And when the coin you find below is in the 1800's, you really become a believer. It does pay to learn setup however.

 

[MEinWV]

The older units were great for finding coins under iron. The ones that had a Metal/Mineral control knob could be set to ignore ferrous minerals(iron). The control was seperate from the discriminate knob. My old coinmaster 2D could see through a bunch of scattered nails and still pick up the coins, without using discrimination.

Good luck!....................HH

 

[Ken from Atlanta]

Yeah I had a coinmaster back in the 80's and I seem to remember getting a lot of coins in junky areas with it. Is it just something to do with the frequency they operate on?

 

[Tom_in_CA]

For those referring to the old machines with "metal/mineral" knobs, don't confuse all-metal "TR" with "TR disc.". They were 2 different beasts. The TR disc could NOT see through iron. It was only the all-metal TR modes that could do it. Ie.: they would skip over nails (as long as they weren't humongous nails) all day long without making a sound. But if you put a coin under the nail(s), they would give you a signal of a conductive target.

But that was where the benefits ended They only got 4 or 5" deep max, were a bear to keep balanced, had no form of ground-balancing (simply didn't work in mineralized ground/states), and had no other form of TID (foil and silver dollars all sounded alike).

The last of the all-metal TR machines ended in the mid 1970s, when VLF all-metal became "all the rage". All metal VLF went WAY deeper, and could be tuned to go into any ground, no matter how bad the minerals. Sure, they didn't pass iron, but by then, TR disc. was passing iron just fine, so why bother with all-metal TR anymore? There were very few in those years who recognized the difference between "seeing through" (all-metal TR) and "discriminating out" (TR disc.).

I'll never forget when, in 1980, a lot of us smug jet-set hunter had the latest motion disc, TR-disc, etc... when they tore out the sidewalks of our old-town district. Along comes a guy with a nearly 10 yr. old 77b, with NO discrimination. We dismissed him as a dinasour. Imagine our surprise when he spanked everyone else out there in that nail-riddled environment. I remember asking him "how'd you do it?". He would only say "this 77b doesn't pick up the nails". That made absolutely no sense to me, at the time. I mean, afterall, my discriminator is "passing up" nails too, right? It wasn't till later that I began to see the difference between "seeing through" vs "discriminating out".

 

[Charlie P. (NY)]

"Null" can mean "blind" as you explain above.

I have a pavilion in a local park that was recently re-roofed and the nails scattered around are aluminum. Now that is a tough environment, not that trashy iron is any "gimmie".

Small coil spot for certain.

 

[Ken from Atlanta]

I bought the Ace simply because it was all I could get away with spending without the GF raising a stink. (What do you need THAT for?) Of course now, she's noticed how much fun I have and has seen the cool stuff I've found, and I'm kicking myself for not laying out an extra hundred or so. Since I'm not really able to spend enough to buy a better machine until later this year after all the upcoming moving is done, I'm thinking about getting the 4.5" sniper coil as a way to get by until I can upgrade my equipment.

I've also called my mom back in Il to see if the old whites machine is still there

 

[Julesway]

Oh u mean CG mountain?


Ive been hunting an old mountain park here in Casa Grande, AZ that was built in the 40's. Its had so much metal trash and glass that they even raked mounds of it. But among all those bond fires and nulling i still managed 2 silver mirks and a half dollar.

 

[Iron Patch]

No, no detectors will see through iron but some when using little to no dics. are good at seeing a very small part of a non ferrous target and will tip you off with a slight change in sound. You need the full package to be very good at this. (Detector with settings that can do the job and lots of experience)

 

[Michigan Badger]

Iron masking is a problem for every detector.

Metal detectors have neither brains nor ex-ray vision.

Some detectors do a better job than others at nulling out or masking trash targets so the operator is unaware of their presence. But any time one masks out anything some deep or nearby good targets will most likely also be nulled out.

Trash and iron rust changes how a target reads and sounds in the ground.

The only way to get coins and jewelry out of heavy trash is to hunt in all-metal mode and dig all signals.

In heavy trash the best method is a small coil working very slowly.

Most of us can't hunt in all-metal mode so we must hunt for those good targets that just happen to be far enough away from heavy trash to pick up. We miss a lot more than we think.

 

[Hardy]

This also depends on what type of hunting that you do , I want the nails and large Iron as these may turn out to be Awl and

and a trade axe , Get use to what a Nail sounds like and all the Sweeter sounds may bring you the GOODIES

 

[Woodland Detectors]

No, no detectors will see through iron but some when using little to no dics. are good at seeing a very small part of a non ferrous target and will tip you off with a slight change in sound. You need the full package to be very good at this. (Detector with settings that can do the job and lots of experience)

EXACTLY! I dig some sweet 1700 nails that sound like deep silver!
And I have the full package.

 

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No, no detectors will see through iron but some when using little to no dics. are good at seeing a very small part of a non ferrous target and will tip you off with a slight change in sound. You need the full package to be very good at this. (Detector with settings that can do the job and lots of experience)

This description best fits my hunting style. I will get an iron signal and if the tone has a slight non-ferrous change in pitch, I know something is mixed with that iron. This can be described as those "iffy" signals also.
Dave.