Anybody ever do pit dig detecting in dense nail beds?

[TrpnBils]

With the detecting season winding down I'm getting plans together for next year and this is something I've considered doing for awhile but never got around to. I have some very, very dense iron nail beds that have produced well in the past couple of years but are becoming harder and harder to pull good targets from. I know with close to 100% certainty that there are still good targets to be found at these sites, and they're unused farm fields that I pretty much have my choice of digging techniques short of bringing in heavy equipment to move soil around. I'm considering next year maybe doing some pit-style detecting where I would dig out maybe a 3x3x1 foot area, clear it of nails, and then detect the remaining soil.

Has anybody done this and achieved good results? Everything we've found here has been shallower than 6" but I know the nail bed goes deeper than that, and it's DENSE even with a small coil on my CTX....wide open screen sounds like a solid low tone in some areas. I feel like we've cleared much of the big iron out (lots of axe heads, pieces from an old wood stove, even dug a CW bayonet there a couple years ago).

What do you think?

 

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[highnam]

Done it, works great. A sea of nails and woodstove pieces can often be a site of a building fire...I hunted a row of 14 burned bunkhouses in a logging camp and found hundreds of buttons, suspenders and other clothing related items.

 

[smokeythecat]

The shovel gives it all away. I use an actual old time shovel when digging a camp or hut site. These are disintegrated Civil War huts, with sometimes a small pile of rocks or maybe just a hump or even a flat spot in the woods. So the machine finds one non iron target, in around 20 nails or bits of ration cans. So I take a few shovels and see what's there. Out pops the bullet or CW button, a BIG magnet on a stick makes it easier to sweep some of the stuff out of the area, then comes the machine again, then pinpointer. Sometimes you get mainly nails, but most times there is SOMETHING of interest there too. Ash is a good clue you're in the right spot. I do keep some of the better looking nails. My max holes are 3' x 3' x 1' deep. At that point I seem to run into undisturbed earth and it's over.

 

[TrpnBils]

Done it, works great. A sea of nails and woodstove pieces can often be a site of a building fire...I hunted a row of 14 burned bunkhouses in a logging camp and found hundreds of buttons, suspenders and other clothing related items.

Great - I'll definitely give this a shot then. How do your items come out after a building fire? I don't think there was one here because the coins and buttons we've pulled have all been in good shape. I have hunted two other fire sites that the coins came out looking partially melted and, in some cases, concave. A friend of mine dug a Franklin half at one fire site that you could've eaten soup out of, and dug a barber quarter last week at another fire site that was bowl-shaped too. I pulled a silver Roosevelt at one site that I thought was a cob at first because it was so odd looking, but it turned out to just be melted and what looked like bubbled.

The shovel gives it all away. I use an actual old time shovel when digging a camp or hut site. These are disintegrated Civil War huts, with sometimes a small pile of rocks or maybe just a hump or even a flat spot in the woods. So the machine finds one non iron target, in around 20 nails or bits of ration cans. So I take a few shovels and see what's there. Out pops the bullet or CW button, a BIG magnet on a stick makes it easier to sweep some of the stuff out of the area, then comes the machine again, then pinpointer. Sometimes you get mainly nails, but most times there is SOMETHING of interest there too. Ash is a good clue you're in the right spot. I do keep some of the better looking nails. My max holes are 3' x 3' x 1' deep. At that point I seem to run into undisturbed earth and it's over.

I figured this would be a similar approach to CW hut detecting (which I've never done myself but have seen). I have used big rare earth magnets at this one site before but generally just in regular plugs to sweep for nails. Mine is spherical and I have it inside of a 12" piece of PVC which is capped. When i flip the tube over, the magnet falls, and the nails come right off. I might head out to this one site here on Thursday of this week. it's supposed to be 45 that day and I think the ground will be workable.

 

[cudamark]

If you find any good targets, I'd just go ahead and sift the area. That way you get everything.

 

[TrpnBils]

If you find any good targets, I'd just go ahead and sift the area. That way you get everything.

That's something I've never tried before. What size mesh do you recommend using? I've heard of people doing this in dirt basements and places like that, but never seen it done in a field. The area I'm talking about is probably a half acre site with the hot spot being about 15x40 feet or so. I'm going to focus on the center of it first and see what happens. This site has produced two half cents, about 6 or 7 large cents, a bayonet, dozens of buttons including a couple of eagles, and various other coins (mostly indians) The grass is still high there right now, despite a couple of frosts and light snows, so this may be my only way to detect it thoroughly before spring when the grass is knocked down again.

Actually I've only ever hunted this field about twice with my CTX - all that other stuff was with the Etrac which is slower and doesn't handle iron as well. Since heavy iron pushes the ferrous number of good targets up past the "normal" conductive target range, I'm excited to get in there again with a lowered iron bin and see what happens.

 

[cudamark]

With finds like that, I'd sift it. I use a homemade classifier/sifter. I made it out of 2x4's and screen mesh. The upper section is a removeable 2'x2' square box with chicken wire just to remove the big stuff. Underneath is 1/4" screen to trap the goodies while letting the dirt fall through. I sometimes use a big old speaker magnet to remove the iron targets. Just drag it around on the mesh and use it to mash some of the dirt clods too. The ground has to be dry however, or it will just gum up. Like you mentioned, I'd start in a hot spot, maybe where some of the good finds were, and go out from there until you run out of good targets.

 

[b3y0nd3r]

Tom D did:

The Painful Truth by: Thomas Dankowski

 

[TrpnBils]

With finds like that, I'd sift it. I use a homemade classifier/sifter. I made it out of 2x4's and screen mesh. The upper section is a removeable 2'x2' square box with chicken wire just to remove the big stuff. Underneath is 1/4" screen to trap the goodies while letting the dirt fall through. I sometimes use a big old speaker magnet to remove the iron targets. Just drag it around on the mesh and use it to mash some of the dirt clods too. The ground has to be dry however, or it will just gum up. Like you mentioned, I'd start in a hot spot, maybe where some of the good finds were, and go out from there until you run out of good targets.

Dry ground could be a problem right now, so that might need to wait until spring/summer. On the other hand, this entire project might be put on hold...I've been working a permission at a really old, historic property and may have finally lined it up. Problem is it's being auctioned off in a month, so if I'm going to hit it before the ground freezes that might have to take priority.

 

[TrpnBils]

Tom D did:

The Painful Truth by: Thomas Dankowski

Yep - that's the article I read that made me start thinking about this in the first place! Sure seems like a lot of work but if Tom's results are any indication it will be worth it

 

[SD51]

Let us know how you do when you get to tackle that project.

There's a small section (20' by 20') of ground in a part that I get 4 to 6 pull tab signals for every sweep of the coil. Next spring, I'm going to grid that area and dig every signal. Got to be some goodies hiding in that trash pile.

Got the idea from an article in Charles Garrett's book, "Successful Coin Hunting". This couple wanted to determine if there was a coin spill pattern around this ancient oak tree at an old school. They gridded out a 15' by 30' section and after 9 hours, they found 49 coins, one gold ring and 685 pull tabs.

 

[TrpnBils]

Let us know how you do when you get to tackle that project.

There's a small section (20' by 20') of ground in a part that I get 4 to 6 pull tab signals for every sweep of the coil. Next spring, I'm going to grid that area and dig every signal. Got to be some goodies hiding in that trash pile.

Got the idea from an article in Charles Garrett's book, "Successful Coin Hunting". This couple wanted to determine if there was a coin spill pattern around this ancient oak tree at an old school. They gridded out a 15' by 30' section and after 9 hours, they found 49 coins, one gold ring and 685 pull tabs.

I should take a look at that book again. i have it at home but haven't looked at it since I bought it a year or so ago and read through it. Looking at something like that makes me want to see the end result of how chewed up the yard was after the fact.

 

[TrpnBils]

Let us know how you do when you get to tackle that project.

There's a small section (20' by 20') of ground in a part that I get 4 to 6 pull tab signals for every sweep of the coil. Next spring, I'm going to grid that area and dig every signal. Got to be some goodies hiding in that trash pile.

Got the idea from an article in Charles Garrett's book, "Successful Coin Hunting". This couple wanted to determine if there was a coin spill pattern around this ancient oak tree at an old school. They gridded out a 15' by 30' section and after 9 hours, they found 49 coins, one gold ring and 685 pull tabs.

Do you happen to remember where that part is in the book? I looked through it tonight again and couldn't find it, although I'm pretty sure I remember reading that last year when I got it.

 

[highnam]

Everything here was found among a sea of nails....the burned logging camp bunkhouses (1912) I am hunting had fire hydrants installed so even some early plastic pieces made it through the fire. Found over 300 metal work buttons...some were pretty toasted but some where in great shape...definately worth poking around and doing some test spots...clothing related items are a great sign

 

[TrpnBils]

Went out last night and dug two pits and at a foot it was still loaded with nails on the bottom so it will be a lengthy project. Other than some ceramic I didn't find anything, but I forgot to grab the 3x3" rare earth magnet I was going to take with me so it was taking nails out by hand. One eye opening thing was when I took a dime out of my pocket, put it down in the removed dirt pile and covered it over with about an inch of dirt...NO signal among all the iron! Crazy that I ever found anything in that mess, but there are so many places for things to be hiding if it's that bad.

 

[b3y0nd3r]

Here is some motivation: About two years ago, a public park was being remodeled. They dug down 14 inches. I went over it 5 times with all three coils of the ctx and found some neat things, but nothing old. The place was loaded with nails nulls and falses. I was ready to write the place off, when the foreman come over to me and told me they were going to remove another two inches during the week. I thought that it wouldnt make a difference so I forgot about it until by accident, I was driving by two days later as the sun was going down. I figured I would do a quick check.

What I found was amazing. Just two inches removed and my finds were: my first large cent, a crotal bell(intact) 6 nickels including Vs and buffs. 12 wheats and 6 indians. All hidden beneath a two inch layer of nails that the ctx couldn't lock onto.

no silver, either someone beat me to it or, the area was that poor or, there was more hidden.

 

[TrpnBils]

Here is some motivation: About two years ago, a public park was being remodeled. They dug down 14 inches. I went over it 5 times with all three coils of the ctx and found some neat things, but nothing old. The place was loaded with nails nulls and falses. I was ready to write the place off, when the foreman come over to me and told me they were going to remove another two inches during the week. I thought that it wouldnt make a difference so I forgot about it until by accident, I was driving by two days later as the sun was going down. I figured I would do a quick check.

What I found was amazing. Just two inches removed and my finds were: my first large cent, a crotal bell(intact) 6 nickels including Vs and buffs. 12 wheats and 6 indians. All hidden beneath a two inch layer of nails that the ctx couldn't lock onto.

no silver, either someone beat me to it or, the area was that poor or, there was more hidden.

Nice - you ever go back and get anything else?

 

[b3y0nd3r]

they filled it the next day