Water Well/Cistern Treasure

[1320]

I need some advice from some of you dredgers...first a little background. ?I am in the process of exploring some old water wells that are 25 feet deep and still full of water. ?Anticipated targets would be on the well floor or bottom and could be such items as coins and/or bottles. ?The advice i'm searching for would be the best way to recover those targets. ?I have no interest in diving or entering the shafts, wet or dry! ?Would the equipment used in dredging for gold be of benefit? ?I think I may need two types of recovery devices. ?One that is delicate as to not break glass and one that is powerful enough to suck or pull coins off the bottom. ?I expect lots of trash; ?twigs, branches, rocks, pebbles, sand, silt, mud. ?I have addressed some of the trash issue with various hooks, buckets and magnets.

Any advice or website links or shared experiences would be appreciated tremendously.

 

[Chris in BC]

A normal dredge would not be able to run without a seperate water supply within feet at ground level. Look into an air lift, same idea as dredging except you pump air down to the intake and draw up from the lift, there was some discussion awhile back on another forum, will try to find it for you, Chris

 

[1320]

Thanks Chris, please advise if you locate the previous thread.

 

[nick1878]

Your going to have to get wet. I have done this some years ago. Only the water was about 2 feet deep, however the silt on the bottom was also about 2 feet deep. So Detecting wouldnt do much good and dredging might work it it can suck up all the muck. I lost my shoes several times trying to walk around down there. didnt find anything. Good thinking though.

 

[PYRATE]

if the bottom of the well is 25' below ground and the well is full (top of water is a few feet below ground) you can use a strong shopvac to suck light material (organic matter, clay etc.) off of the bottom of the well.

Lower a camera and lights to the bottom to see what remains. (Velcro cheap vid camera in a bottle & lights in another bottle then attach to weight for cheap dive camera setup able to handle 25' of water)

if I read wrong and the water table is 25' below the ground surface, forget this idea (water can only be lifted by vacuum about 30-35' before it begins to boil at ambient temperature & a typ. shopvac usually won't pull a 10' column)

 

[Hoser John]

A dredge will work with 2 suction types--a suction nozzle at induction tip and a powerjet at the recovery point. Stay dryhahaha can't have your cake and eat it too. Dry well ??down ya go with a detector or actually wet too but your a gonna need to be at the bottom or forget it as plugup from debris and over sized rocks will kill your op in mere minutes-ain't saying don't.... just get mean and go fo it-no guts=no glory-John