Detecting slag laden sites

[deepskyal]

Being from the Steel City, I've been encountering a problem with historic sites around the old mill towns. Slag...and an over abundance of it.

Over the years, most of my detecting has been outside the limits of the area but with a busy work schedule and health issues, I've concentrated my research to more local areas.
Problem is, with over a 100 years of steel making from so many steel plants, slag seems to be in every old site I hit.
An old civil war camp..littered with slag, an old rail station, slag...slag fill for some yards, used for roads with the excess falling where old foundations are....

It's crazy. You should see the mountain of slag where I work!

Drives the detector crazy, can't seem to disc it out because of the varying metalic compounds of it, smaller coils don't help....

Is this a lost cause? Is there something I can do to somehow get thru this crap? Without losing lots of depth or goodies?
Anyone find a detector that can wade it's way thru it?

Just hate the idea that so many potentially good sites might go to waste because mills didnt care where their byproducts landed.

Al

 

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[UncleVinnys]

Yeah, they use slag for the rocks underlying railroad track in much of the country.
It often looks like meteorites too - could have sworn I found a meteorite,
then realized it was slag. :P

 

[Coin Digger]

I know what you mean, it's very frustrating.
I found an old railroad house that was used to pump water from a nearby river into a trough for the steam engines to scoop up as they raced by. In doing my research I found out the place was later used to produce tokens. I thought bingo this is going to be great!
Well it wasn't great, it was littered with metal shavings. Come to find out from an old man that lived next to it, it was also used as a machine shop before it was boarded up.
I was able to pull a few tokens out using a small coil on my F2. Not trying to sell you on the F2 but I've found the F2 to have a very fast recovery rate and it handles trashy sites well.
Look for a machine that has a fast recover rate and small coil.

 

[Old Town]

I have run into this too. It was too much for me. No fun getting such interference. Even my E-Trac couldn't sift through all the iron junk. This was along railroad lines. Old abandoned lines. Maybe some places just ain't meant to be searched.

OT

 

[liftloop]

We have slag piles around hear from the copper mines,there profitable. an iron slag as well.

 

[deepskyal]

I know what you mean, it's very frustrating.
I found an old railroad house that was used to pump water from a nearby river into a trough for the steam engines to scoop up as they raced by. In doing my research I found out the place was later used to produce tokens. I thought bingo this is going to be great!
Well it wasn't great, it was littered with metal shavings. Come to find out from an old man that lived next to it, it was also used as a machine shop before it was boarded up.
I was able to pull a few tokens out using a small coil on my F2. Not trying to sell you on the F2 but I've found the F2 to have a very fast recovery rate and it handles trashy sites well.
Look for a machine that has a fast recover rate and small coil.

I might try that next time I'm out. I can change the recovery rate on the Vision. Just something I never had to fool with before. You may have something there.

Al

 

[maipenrai]

Wow! you are lucky, only 100 years of slag. I have 350 years of slag, and even the beach is slag under the sand. A lot of nice places to hunt here, since its very old, but the slag just kills the fun, and as you said, everything is slag, roads, parks, and even my house is built on a swamp, filled with slag. Most old buildings here are made from bricks, that are made from slag!