Few questions from a noob

[JmCraz8]

I just recently bought a bounty hunter tracker iv, and tomorrow I plan on hunting an old homestead probably dating late 1700's early 1800's still standing on our property. Should I metal detect in all metal, tone, or discrimination? When you have a homestead intact and standing do you hunt inside of the home on the floor? The homestead I'm going to hunt is 1 story tall and has two fire places with a huge yard with a creek flowing through it. Thanks.

 

[Kentucky Kache]

If that machine has ground balance, I would try all metal mode. If you find the place too trashy for that, then you can adjust, using the least discrimination as possible. On the inside, you want to cover every inch you can cover...floor, ceiling, walls...everywhere. You can either discriminate out all nails that may be present, or you can judge where they are located by their sounding off your detector, and by the signal they give. You could just invite me to help hunt that place.

 

[deepskyal]

Beings it's on your property and the building is still standing, I'd go all metal outside. The worst you'll find maybe is the trash pile somewhere out back and that can be a good thing. One man's trash.....
Try to find the old laundry lines....had to hang their clothes somewhere...big trees they may have had picnics or kids played......around the walkways, porches, look for depressed areas where a garden might have been......

If it's an old family place, maybe you can dig up some photos of what it used to look like.

Detecting the floor inside can be a hassle if you don't have a small coil. Nails every 16 inches at least, maybe wires, old gas lines, etc.

Keep us posted on your finds and good luck.

Al

 

[relichunters]

I would suggest not detecting the floor, if your coil touches near any nails it's going to sound off, you'd get frustrated quickly.

Go with all metal mode outside. Dig every single target no matter what.

 

[Hoze513]

On the the outside I would dig everything since it is such an old place. Just imagine all the old stuff, toys, and relics that is just laying there waiting for someone to discover. Also I would hunt in all metal mode.