Yesterdays digs in frozen ground.

[Kyboy]

Shovel was strained yesterday. It's tuff chipping away at the frozen sod. Spent the day hitting different places on our farm. I dug a square nail in excellent shape. It was a measured 10" deep, and my explorer 2 told me it was anything but iron from all directions. That's the first time I've been thoroughly fooled....well maybe not the first . Found a variety of items from modern to mid 19th century. Lead is everywhere and I dug what looks like a large sinker, and another large chunk of lead. The .69 caliber three ringer and round ball was nice too. Suppose to rain for the next three days...that should thaw me out.

 

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[WHADIFIND]

Could the square nail be made of something besides iron?

Good digs. Nice to be out.

HH!

 

[BosnMate]

I have a rope tensioner just like yours, but the main thing I want to do is agree with you about being fooled by square nails. Square nails are made of wrought iron, so that must have the machines fooled. Modern nails are steel, with different amounts of carbon and nickle in them I guess, and perhaps that's what the machine is looking for. Anyhow my MXT loves square nails.

 

[Kyboy]

Its hard to tell by the pic, but the nail is iron. But man its in good shape. They made this one out of the good stuff I guess. I might add that it was found about 30 yards from where a 1840 farm house used to stand. Theres sooo much clutter in the ground its hard to detect. There are two cisterns that are filled up. One is filled with bricks and the other my father said was used to dump dead hogs and garbage into. The old root cellar is filled with old junk too...basically this old homestead was used as a dump from the 1940's on. The rope tensioner is from 1903 army training. The three ringer was probably late 1861 picket post. The cartridge is dated Frankfort Arsenal Sept. 1903 (F A 9 03). I love digging out there because you never know whats going to come out of the ground.

 

[WHADIFIND]

Its hard to tell by the pic, but the nail is iron.

Just curious because you said it didn't ring up like iron. I found one once that did that, turned out not to be magnetic so I checked. It was a brass nail! Never heard of that before, but anything's possible I suppose.

HH!

 

[Kyboy]

Brass square nail? That's neat....I checked mine and it's ferrous. Of course it rings up as iron on the Explorer now, since I pulled it out of the hole. Halo effect fooled me and FBS technology. Which is fine...I love suprises!

 

[granthansen]

Good for you! You went detecting no matter what! Nice finds.