Any "Tesoro Sand Shark", experience, opinion?

Excuse if this was asked before but,
Been offered a fairly Mint "Tesoro Sand Shark" for what I think is a decent price.

While I've plenty experience with "Tesoro", I've not handled a Sand Shark.
My beach use has been with Minelab's in the main, their "Sovereign's", "Explorer", "E Trac", "CTX" and the "Excalibur" of course and the PI aspect of it with the SD's and GP's to GPX'
Also used a British "C-Scope" PI that I found to be 'very dull' and [ seemed to have a null spot for gold ] Null = a drop out - not good on gold.
A "White's PI" and on and off thru the years a couple of lesser known PI's (for example Location Technology)

My Q.s are:

* Is the Sand Shark any good?
* Deep?
* What's the Iron Disc like?
* What's the deal with the O-Ring? Are spares available?
* Can it be repaired now that "Tesoro" have vanished from the market?

And the "Tiger Shark" - I note that's a 12.5kHz VLF but, which is / was best in Salt Water? Is one or the other 'best' in freshwater?

Any opinion welcome and thanks for looking.

Des D

Des,

Been using the Tiger Shark in fresh water for years, does great, better than my Excalibur because Excal is locked in salt mode.

I’ve only heard negetive reports for those trying to use the Tiger in the salt.

I’m not going to comment on the Sand Shark as I’ve never owned one however I’ve heard that it’s more suited for the salt.

Aaron



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/2019 10:03PM by Aaron.

Des, I own about every beach PI ever made. The SS is no barn-burner; compared to the SMPI, Beachscan, SeaHunter, and HHPI it is the least sensitive of the lot. The primary reason is the sample delay is 22us, most everything else is 15us. But that also makes it incredibly stable in & out of salt water, other units often exhibit a breathing effect. Another negative is the spiral PCB coil design, it would be a better machine with a traditional wire coil.

I sped my unit up to 15us and gained almost 2" depth on a nickel. It's still stable.
The box design is solid, but changing the batteries exposes the guts to salt. I once bought a used SS that had salt damage, easy fix. BTW, I have a full schematic.
The O-ring is off-the-shelf.
There is no iron disc whatsoever.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2019 08:51PM by Geotech.

I ran the sand shark one summer, it runs a smooth threshold compared to the scratchy threshold of whites pi.
It got ok depth, maybe because of all the black sand here.

Hits hard on small targets, as I found a few tennis anke bracelets and small toe rings
Never dunk it, only low tide hunts. It was fun to use.

Thanks everyone for some good input. I haven't pulled the trigger on it yet as still undecided about it?

Des, it is a fun little machine to work with but within the confines of what Geotech said in his post. Big downfall for me were those coils, mine kept leaking and had to be sent back to be replaced. Eventually I moved on to Minelab products for water use but still miss that Sand Shark and the ease of use in the water. Can you get coils repaired with Tesoro now? I have no idea what their future holds....if there is a future.

Cliff

I found a little trick that can work with the Tesoro coils for the water machines to add weight to the standard Tesoro coil and or stop the leakage. Get a Tesoro coil cover used with the widescan for the solid coils. It is much higher . You mix up some potting epoxy , [theepoxyexperts.com] it has a bit of filler in it so its just a bit heavier.

Condensed instructions
Fill the coil shell with epoxy, to desired level, gently push the coil into the shell, just below the top edge of the shell. Then fill the shell covering the coil with another top layer of epoxy..

The MAX MCR epoxy mixes up nicely with just about zero bubbles. And those bubbles disperse when the epoxy is poured into the shell.

The above works well if you have a Tiger Shark with a bad coil and you can'f ind a replacement. Its an easy way of finding a used cheaply priced standard Tesoro coil work.

DeepTech Vista X with 3 search coils.
Works for me

Tesoro's are world beaters in fresh water but stumble in salt water enviroments...

I recently read a interesting post from well respected water hunter (since the 60’s), that according to him, the problem with the Tiger Shark and salt is people have the sensitivity wide open.

The veteran water hunter didn’t state how much he needed to dial back the sensitivity....

I’ve never taken my Tiger in the salt and really haven’t heard anything positive from those who have.

I been using it in the fresh for close to 10yrs, never a problem w it, and really enjoy it especially w the Whites upper rod.

Aaron

how does it compare with the deus with an antenna ? n shallow water

I had the antenna for years, finally used it last summer.

Using the DEUS in 18kHz sounded like a great idea especially for small gold.

It worked really good, WHEN it worked.

The signal became choppy, in/out for up to a few seconds once I got into water above my thighs, (I’m 5’8”).

Had the end of the antenna right next to blue tooth coil, and the other end was always out of the water.

The box was in a water proof cell phone box, hanging around neck.

IDK...maybe the coil can not transmit through more than 3ft of water.

I’m going to fab a chest mount strap for my GMP for shallow fresh surf this year

Already posted this before, like to know if anyone tried this w the DEUS and what results....

Aaron

i have the deus antenna setup for using in water this year when rivers are lower and will post results later in summer..

only tested it in the rain water tub so far and seems stable at 3 feet