Gear-Dog

[Calvin.Coin]

The deluxe digging kit is stuffed with tools, but I don't carry them all the time. Usually just a long metal screwdriver to loosen hard ground, a short plastic trowel to wave dirt past coil, a pocketed pouch for dug items and the detector. What's your basic kit?

 

[Xtina]

As a newbie, I haven't really gotten together much of a kit. So, since I'm detecting on my own property, I load my truck up with stuff & go with it. Into the bed I throw a small shovel, a hand trowel, hand wipes (gets nasty out there), a sharpshooter shovel, my detector & a smallish hand pick. I've got to learn not to be so aggressive with the hand pick, because I wound up breaking up some china pieces into small pieces while I was trying to dig up the head of a hoe. I also take some bottled water, so I can clean up stuff I find on site.

 

[BosnMate]

It depends. Usually I have a carpenters pouch, the leather nail pouch with two pockets and places to hang stuff. I have the probe in the one pocket, and all finds, junk and all goes in the large pockek. There is a screw driver and ice pick, and where the hammer hangs, a trowel digger (I don't have a Lesech) jams into that, and I have a knife for digging on the belt also, especially if I don't had the trowel. Granted, the pouch had to be butchered up for the ice pick, screwdriver and probe to fit. But depending where I'm going and what I'm doing I might have a small or full sized shovel, perhaps a small pick if the ground is really hard, or at the beach a sand scoop that I let drag in the sand behind me, which lets me know where I've been. I don't use re-chargeable batteries, I buy bricks of batteries from CostCo and always have extra's on hand, and the Kirkland brand isn't all that expensive and last quite a long time. And if I forget the batteries, some can be purchased in most any little old country store.

 

[Calvin.Coin]

Xtina, I like the idea of a bottle of water in the truck to clean the finds. I always have water to drink, but had been waiting to clean my finds till I get home...actually I usually find stuff that doesn't need much cleaning (scrap), LoL! Whenever I detect away from home I use my truck as my base of operations and it holds all sorts of tools. I've thought of rigging up a container to one of the lug-nuts so that I could fill it with gravel/clad and tumble it all on the rough roads home. Shiny coins!

BosnMate, hahah, I've gone through several tool-belts before finally settling on just the right side portion of one strung onto a padded belt. It has all-sorts of neat divisions inside to keep things organized. I also (like you) shove the plastic trowel (modded with magnet on end) into the steel ring that is normally for a hammer...sometimes my mason's hammer goes in that slot if the ground is abnormally hard. There is also a loop that the screwdriver slots into.

I forgot to add that I also have a mint container with cotton-balls (for nice finds) and a telescoping pen-magnet...it's a strong little sucker! At the truck (and visible in the gear-bag in above pic) I keep a larger magnetic sweeper. I use it in parking lots to clear a small section of junk metal before I start detecting.

I love accumulating digging gear, but I also like to travel light and efficient when actually detecting. I use the detector in my left hand (I'm RH) and when I hit a target I crouch down and dig with my right. I switch my grip on the detector and hold it by the stem in LH. All dirt is always removed from the hole and moved to the left where the detector determines if the target was in the last scoop. I use a plastic trowel and when the detector beeps I swirl it like a gold pan and there is the metal. This screwdriver/plastic trowel technique works even in hard-pack gravel and caliche, but you'll end up with some blisters.

enjoy the hunt,
cc