Question on galvanized steel

[RedSpey]

Okay...I'm really getting sick of digging deep and coming up with garbage. I had a good signal yesterday and started digging: 4" beeped again, 8" beeped again...16"!!! All I found was a galvanized nail about 1.5" long!! The thing that I am confused about is that I had my Tesoro set to the maximum DISC. I thought that was only supposed to pick up silver. So, is steel or galvanized steel similar in feedback to silver? I really do not want to dig 16" holes for every nail I find. In this rocky soil it took me 20minutes!! Please help the newbie.

RedSpey

 

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[omnicognic]

On my machine, galvanized metal comes in as coin (sounds like a nickel or a penny on my beach hunter) as far as the penny is concerned, I don't think they call `em zinc pennies for nothing and zinc is what they use to galvanize metal! I'm not sure why it sometimes sounds like a nickel, perhaps it angle in the ground. HH omnicognic 8)

 

[lonewolfe]

Some things you can never disc. out,

ever rusted iron will read like a quarter sometimes because,

the iron content in it starts to degenerate, leaving the other metals behind that don't dissolve as fast as the iron (therefore) the detector picks it up and reads it as something other than iron.

There is NO 100% in detecting,

only time & experience will help you in the long run, and then sometimes,

even the pro's get fooled!

HH

Lonewolfe

 

[Monty]

If your machine was picking up a galvanized nail at 16 inches I would suspect that your real target was somewhere in your dirt pile. Sixteen inches to pick up a nail is a loooong ways for any detector! At what depth did your machine indicate the target was located when you first picked lit up? If it was showing a target at say 6 inches and you didn't find amything at six inches, I'd only go about an inch deeper and if I still didn't find the target I would check my dirt pile closely to see if I had picked up the target and didn't see it. Another problem you may be having is that you may not be pinpointing accurately. Until you master pinpointing, you can miss a lot of targets, I know I did! Practice, practice, practice. JIM

 

[RedSpey]

Sorry about the long wait in this one. I scan my dirt piles and rescan the hole often. I guess I could have missed it, however. My detector is a Tesoro Vaquero, it doesn't have an LCD readout. It doesn't tell you depth, or what kind of object, etc. Probably a little complicated to start with, but I figure if I can get used to this one all the others will be a piece of cake. Just a couple of days ago I picked up some square nails, quite rusted, at 8" and they gave a loud signal. I was thinking tin can. I guess I'm still in need of that practice, practice, practice (and it's over 100 degrees here)!! Thanks to all for the help. I've found a few things I'll have to post, including a pistol cartridge from an old ghost town that was destroyed in1894. I wonder if the bullet killed a man? Yikes!

RedSpey

 

[Monty]

All my detectors have LCD redouts to some degree and I forget that there are a lot of good ones out there that don't! JIMg