Frustration, need tips.

[firedigger]

I hiked in today to find this 1900 school foundation today. After three hours of digging cans and pop tops, I decided I must be doing something the wrong way. Any tips on how to deal with large amounts of trash that I know is covering this great site? How would you guys tackle this? Need strategy.

 

[liftloop]

Get the trash out of the way,start further away from the building circle the foundation try to figer out were the play ground was,under all the big old tree I would search,
is their any old house foundation near by they walked back then.I hope that help.I'm sure your troy shadow will find you some then good keep at it.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

When you say "cans", I assume you're talking about aluminum cans, and not old iron/tin cans, right?

Because if you mean aluminum cans, then welcome to the harsh cruel reality of metal detecting: certain items share conductivity TIDs. An entire aluminum can, can sound like a quarter or half or whatever. Of course you might be able to discern that it is a larger signal (size wise) than a coin-sized target.

But if you mean iron/tin cans, then you are doing something wrong. You should easily be able to pass rotting iron cans no problem, with your discriminator.

As far as "pop tops" (I assume you mean pulltabs) then ... again ..... welcome to the harsh cruel reality of detecting. Pulltabs and related aluminum sized objects read all over the mid-scale of the detector's TID. Like in the range of nickels, gold jewelry, certain tokens, etc... You can pass them, and go strictly for high conductive copper and silver coins, if you want. But this would start to falter if you're talking very deep targets, since deeper silver and copper coins waffle around on the TID's.

Based on the pix you give (a jungly forest bottom terrain), it appears you're going to have stuff be really deep in the underbrush crud. And based on the description of cans and poptops all over (sounds like kids go there to party), I'd say you need to find a better place to hunt. One-room school house sites are often a "bust" anyhow. Prior to the 1920s, kids just didn't carry change. So unless the school house was used for other adult purposes (grange hall, church, stage stop, etc...) my experience is that most 1 room school houses aren't that productive. And if I started to hunt one full of junk like you describe, I'd just cross that off my list of places to reconn.

 

[Sandman]

Listen to what Tom says. I've hunted many old school houses and only occassionally gotten a wheatie or indian head cent since as Tom says kids of that time didn't carry change like the kids of today. A dime could buy a loaf of bread, etc. You could find other things like pocket knives as the boys all played Mumbly Peg. They can't take a knife to school now and many don't even know what a pocket knife is for. I was never without mine, a Lone Ranger and I lost it in some bushes.

 

[Frankn]

lets see, you had to hike in which means it's off the beaten path. You ran into a field of cans and pop tops.
There's a distinct possibility that that is not the school site at all. Frank

 

[Swartzie]

I would just keep coming back. There's bound to be something there. Work it for a couple months. If anything you'll get a good hike in.
-Swartzie

 

[firedigger]

Thank you all for the advice. It is all aluminum trash, so good to go there. The hike in is not as far as it sounds, 1/4 mile. I do know it's the school, I have aerial photos from the 50's and 60's when it was rotting down. In it's last years the dirt roads to it were still there, so I know the trash is from years of weekend "park and drink" gatherings. Based on all the advice, I'll give the playground area a shot after removing some trash, maybe dig around the steps then consider moving along.

Thanks again

 

[jeff of pa]

Full disc & a day of Cherry Picking.

IF You find some intresting "Cherrys"

Start Backing off a notch or 3 each time you
start coming up low on finds.

This should help you not feel overwhelmed

 

[deepskyal]

I'd probably give that site one good day and move on.

Old foundations are more my forte and can judge pretty quickly whether it's worth my time or not in the first hour or so.
Your pic tells a thousand words. Things are going to be deep from years of leaves falling...real deep!
If the ground is perpetually moist, you could get lucky and hit some old silver or copper. I was in a soggy area yesterday and coins were blowing my ears off from the halo effect of being in a wet area so long. Even a nickle rang hard and solid on my machine which is pretty unusual. That fine line between nickle and pulltabs...I was able to clearly define it as a nickle. It came out black as coal.

But that underbrush is a killer. Your detecting is going to be very limited swinging. Unless you want to clear some areas, lots of work...

If the brush wasn't so bad, I'd say along the steps where kids would sit and eat lunch on nice days...but that looks like a disaster there.

And don't forget...everything that is there now probably wasn't then. Those bigger trees may have just been saplings then...good place for kids to play near.

And one other thing I noticed around here...if there is remnants of a road....people drove back in them areas to unload their trash. So you might not be just finding drinkers droppings, you may be finding someones household garbage.

Al

 

[Swartzie]

I'd probably give that site one good day and move on.

Old foundations are more my forte and can judge pretty quickly whether it's worth my time or not in the first hour or so.
Your pic tells a thousand words. Things are going to be deep from years of leaves falling...real deep!

I don't know if I agree with things being deep in the woods. Most the stuff I dig in the woods have been more shallow than stuff in the grass. It doesn't make sense I know, but most my digging has been in the woods and it has not been real deep. I think the leaves that fall just break down over time so not much remains of them. I mean if they kept pilling up then eventually the foundations in the woods would be covered up.

-Swartzie

 

[dragon6banger]

smaller coil