Help using an old detector? Wilson-Neuman, Inc.

[Sevilon]

Hello,
I have never used a metal detector before. I am a teacher in Colorado, and today a little girl in my classroom lost a charm from her necklace today- a charm that holds extremely important sentimental value to her. Our playground is covered in shredded wood chips. We searched for it, with no luck.

I remembered that my husband bought a metal detector at a yard sale many years ago- I don't think we ever used it. Well, this evening we found it in the basement, put a couple of new 9V batteries in it, and it seems to work fine. Well, it works except I have no idea how to actually use it.

I have the owner's manual, but I still don't really understand what I need to do. I got it kind of working- I put a quarter under the wood chips and kept playing with settings until I got it to "locate" the quarter, but I think I am doing something backwards- the detector was making a constant sound, and the sound would stop as I went over any metal. Isn't it supposed to be the opposite of that?

It is a Wilson-Neuman Inc. New Daytona II (2)

Anyone able to help me figure this thing out? Thanks for any help!

 

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[Sevilon]

What I am not understanding is:

-Which setting should I be using? (All Metals Normal? All Metals Ground Cancel? etc.)

-How do I set the depth? I'm guessing it's the black switches on the back side, but there are 2 of them - if it says "set depth to 5", how do I do that using two switches that go to a total of 5?

-The "10 turn tuner" turns endlessly each direction- how do I know how many turns it has gone?

 

[Slingshot]

First question - Is the charm gold, or silver? If gold, then you will want to set the machine up in the ALL METAL MODE, small gold charms are very difficult to detect, and more than likely you will have to dig a lot of other metal items in your search. If the charm is silver, then you would want to set the machine up in NORMAL COIN MODE, silver is much easier to detect than gold.
I've never used this particular Daytona machine, I have used some of their other models and the one you have was considered a better quality machine when it was new, and am just saying how I would go about getting it to work as it should.
10 turn tuner capacitors are a pain to work with, but are very sensitive. Turn it on, and while holding the coil about 3 - 4 feet up in the air, turn the tuner clockwise until you just hear a very faint sound, then turn it about another 3 turns, put coil near ground and tune for smallest sound. On the depth, for 5 inches, slide the first selector to the 3, then the other to the 5. If you want less than 4 inches of depth, then adjust the right switch to 0, and the left to 1,2, or 3 inches, whatever you want. For All Metal, set switch to A, and Index to 2 on the right side, for Normal Coins set switch to B, and index on 2 on the right side.
Give that a try and see if it works better. Since it nulled on the quarter, you have the 10 turn adjusted to the negative side, it will work like that, but you might loose some sensitivity, and it will drain your batteries faster since the tone is on all the time unless you are over metal. I would suggest fresh batteries, unless you put new ones in when you started. The cheap carbon zinc Dollar Store batteries should work with this machine, and will probably last about 10 hours of actual dig time.
That is a tough machine to start with, so hang in there. You have to realize that in the day that machine was made detectorists expected to spend 100 hours of actively using their machine to actually master it's full capability.
Good luck in your quest!

 

[Sevilon]

THANK YOU very much for the help! The charm is silver, and it's actually fairly large- almost the size of a quarter, but thin.
I will take your advice and look again today. I truly appreciate it!

First question - Is the charm gold, or silver? If gold, then you will want to set the machine up in the ALL METAL MODE, small gold charms are very difficult to detect, and more than likely you will have to dig a lot of other metal items in your search. If the charm is silver, then you would want to set the machine up in NORMAL COIN MODE, silver is much easier to detect than gold.
I've never used this particular Daytona machine, I have used some of their other models and the one you have was considered a better quality machine when it was new, and am just saying how I would go about getting it to work as it should.
10 turn tuner capacitors are a pain to work with, but are very sensitive. Turn it on, and while holding the coil about 3 - 4 feet up in the air, turn the tuner clockwise until you just hear a very faint sound, then turn it about another 3 turns, put coil near ground and tune for smallest sound. On the depth, for 5 inches, slide the first selector to the 3, then the other to the 5. If you want less than 4 inches of depth, then adjust the right switch to 0, and the left to 1,2, or 3 inches, whatever you want. For All Metal, set switch to A, and Index to 2 on the right side, for Normal Coins set switch to B, and index on 2 on the right side.
Give that a try and see if it works better. Since it nulled on the quarter, you have the 10 turn adjusted to the negative side, it will work like that, but you might loose some sensitivity, and it will drain your batteries faster since the tone is on all the time unless you are over metal. I would suggest fresh batteries, unless you put new ones in when you started. The cheap carbon zinc Dollar Store batteries should work with this machine, and will probably last about 10 hours of actual dig time.
That is a tough machine to start with, so hang in there. You have to realize that in the day that machine was made detectorists expected to spend 100 hours of actively using their machine to actually master it's full capability.
Good luck in your quest!

 

[Captain Caveman]

Good job with the help Slingshot!

And Good Luck to you Sevilon! I truly hope you find that little girl's charm! If you can't find it, you may want to consider posting your city and state on here in hopes that a more experienced metal detectorist in the area would volunteer to meet up with you and help find it. Just a thought....

 

[Carolina Tom]

If it is silver and the size of a quarter, it shouldn't be too hard to find.

Using that detector is like building a clock, when you need to know what time it is.

IMO, your best bet is to contact the local MDing club, and have them send a couple of people over to locate the charm. People contact our club on a regular basis, wanting assistance. Everybody is "into" it, so they all parade out to the site, and usually recover the lost item.

Cryer777 is correct, if you are near a decent sized city, then certainly a "local" TNetter ought to be step up.

Best of luck to you.

 

[Sevilon]

I FOUND IT!!

Thank you so much for your help- I followed your instructions exactly, and we headed out for an extra recess to go treasure hunting- took a little while, but we did find it. A very happy little girl today!
The added bonus is now I kind of know how to use the metal detector- might have a little fun with it!
Thanks again!

 

[bottlebum]

Nice job finding the charm.

 

[Captain Caveman]

Congratz!!! I was really pulling for ya!