relics amongst iron

Found a site that was former paper factory that used old clothes to make paper. They stripped off buttons, clasps and fasteners and threw them out. Recent earth work by canal society has put this in detecting range. They are about 2inches down in heavily compacted soil. I have been using an SE with 8 inch coil, just creeping at snails pace in all metal and digging all mid tones-they are all copper and brass. All are 1850-1881. Have @100 from 30 foot square area. A pinpointer is a must as they are thin and caked into dirt. I have in line probe. Would an F75 pick out the rest that I know are being masked by the iron? If so how would you precisely pin point them for removal. Would the 3D with in line probe be any better than explorer to get the rest out?
I already have a number of people who want to buy these things.

Many folks would be surprised that plenty of copper & brass targets will register as a 'mid-tone'. This holds true for all tone ID detectors.
The CZ and the Explorer w/8" coil will perform nearly identical in this type of iron dept. The Explorer may lead the pack just a little..... as you can adjust the amount of iron Disc you choose. At the site you are hunting.... I would place Explorer on "Iron Mask" minus thirteen (-13)..... and hunt for the "mostly repeatable" signals. Use 'Audio 1'.... as it's close to 'real-time audio' with minimum filters.

.....Now,,,, The F-75 will far surpass the CZ/SE in this type of environment. For proof; COMPLETELY SANITIZE the dirt of all NON-ferrous targets with SE. Then.... if you can borrow a F-75,, place Disc on '6' and mandatorily use MONOTONE (1) only. Hunt the exact same area with F-75....listening for 'mostly' repeatable monotones. It'll be noisy and difficult at first.... as you go through a steep learning curve. No... you will NOT find "the rest" of the masked non-ferrous targets; however, you should DOUBLE the amount of non-Fe targets. And.... if you have time...... find these non-ferrous targets,,, do not dig them up,,,,, and swing the SE over them to give it a second chance. ((( Keep in mind,, you'll be giving the SE a unfair advantage under these circumstances,,, because you will ALREADY have established the non-ferrous target pinpoint location ))). You will most probably find yourself purchasing a F-75 after this scenario.
And if the area is littered with iron as you say ...(sign of a good hunting site!) the F-75 will fail to pinpoint in most cases.... as would ANY/ALL other detectors. If there are a few nails and a non-Fe target under the coil... the pinpoint function will pinpoint the strongest composite of ALL targets combined... and NOT the non-ferrous target only. Find the best 'short-sweep' monotone audio resolution for pinpointing purposes. You'll learn that the pinpoint function is not needed. This holds true for any brand detector in nail/iron infested sites.
Wish I could give training on 'hunting in the iron'..... as words on paper can not do justice..... nor paint the proper picture. There are many things that folks have not discovered about the F-75, thus far.

Tom

I do not have any one I know of in my area that has an F75 I could try. I believe you when you say it is faster in iron than SE. I went back today to detect site again before too much or gravel gets too hard to dig through. Put it on iron mask -15 and went from 16 manual sensitivity to 16 semiauto. New targets started popping up in prreviously gone over area. I am convinced there are a few thousand of these articles in this area. The sunray probe is a must as I find many by scanning top of ground with it, and retreival in the caked up mess that you dig requires it. If the F75 had a sunray probe it would be powerfull for this kind of work. Ray at Sunray said he probably will make one but he is still recovering from a blood clot and make take him a month or two to get back to full swing. I dug a multiple sounding cut off noise today to see what it was and had 2 fasteners and a piece of steel in the hole. The iron was a plate that had a key hole cut out for the old skeleton keys! My dig pattern reveals a building or room that was @15 by 30 feet. The iron was right on an outside wall.

I will probably order an F75 but to use in in this area I would have to mark the targets and use the probe on explorer to get them out of this caked up mess. It would be an awesome place to put the F75 to the test. I get alot of iron nulls and I know by just probing with the sunray in an area I have so sound with coil that I am missing some targets. For now I have plenty to keep me busy with the SE especially after tweaking the settings.

Thank you for your helpfull information on all of this.

Keep hitting it hard.... and with different settings, until that dirt no longer produces non-ferrous targets. Try different directions.... and different days of differing soil moisture content. The non-Fe targets will begin to thin out. ..... If it's a 'average' heavily nail infested site (like most old sites that's missing the structure) are.....,,,,, you will most probably recover approx 2% - 3% of the non-Fe targets. The F-75 should uncover/unmask approx 2% more non-Fe targets. Doesn't sound like much..... but that's DOUBLE the amount of all previous hunts on that same dirt. Yep,,,, this is also to say that you will have only recovered approx 5% of all the non-Fe targets. If you EVER have the opportunity to excavate or bull-dose the site..........,,,,,,,,........ then hit it again with a metal detector,,, it'll seem like you NEVER detected it before. Masking is that bad!

Tom

I have recovered 150 relics of which 120 are worth @$6.50 each. If the F75 would give me at least that many more it would almost pay for itself at one site. I am still retreiving a few targets each time out. However over three fourths of the site now has a thin layer of gravel on it for a parking lot. eventually a good portion of it will be undetectable, however there was another mill very close to it that is in wooded area that I can work when weeds and bugs let up in the fall. Digging so many targets on different days, different settings and moisture conditions has been a real educational process. Looking forward to see what the 75 will do when I get one.

Brad

I wish you the best on getting more of those buttons! Have you considered trying a "lesser" machine with a small coil? You would be surprised what they can do.,, And Dave J would be the first to admit a small coil is a necessity in that type of environment.

Tom

I think you would be surprised how well the 7-11 stock coil ..... T-2 and especially F-75 would/could do. And yes,,,, most definately a smaller elliptical DD coil could perform wonders in Fe carpets. A 4"x7" ..... mandatorily ELLIPTICAL DD...... and not a 5" or 6" concentric..... as this would defeat the purpose of extremely enhanced adjacent target seperation characteristics.... the primary (and nearly only) intent of smaller coils.

Tom

I have an F75 coming in this Thursday. I believe what you say is true as I have found out with Gold Bug on microjewelry. The one area that is @30by 30 is very quiet now from SE. I did get 5 targets out of one hole as the sunray probe found more after the first 2 were removed. I am excited about seeing what the 75 will do with the settings you gave me to use. I was wrong about the mid-tone sound of brass and copper relics...it is a low tone. To date I have dug 200 items of which 120 are nice enough for collection pieces. I have a number of old places close to home I can hunt that are iron infested.

This would make a good article for one of the treasure magazines after I finish with it. I have pictures of site and the historical markers, but it will be sometime in future as I have much more fun ahead of me and don't need to tip people off to this. Took me 2 years of research to find it. Only 5 miles from where I live!

Brad

Brad,

If you can place Disc on '6' and mandatory monotone for the rest of the F-75's life (except for a very few extenuating circumstances) and start your learning curve with these settings,,,, you are in for some surprises. And if you can start the F-75's life with a Sens setting of '82'...... this would be a good start also. This setting happens to be where the T-2 piques (max performance),,,,,, but, , , fortunately, the F-75 can then be 'Sens boosted' BEYOND T-2 max Sens/performance. Sounds silly,,,, but do not try to ground balance on a carpet of nails. What you will have to do.... is to walk about 100 feet away from the nail-pit, find a clean area, ground balance...........,,,,,,, then walk back into the carpet of nails,,,and go detecting. Remember this Grnd balance number,,, just incase it gets 'bumped' whilst hunting in the iron pit.
When your starting to feel more comfortable with F-75 at these settings,,,,, then boost Sens up into the 90's....... and (hopefully) to ultimately land on Sens '99'. It's noisy.... but you will find that you will become addicted to the noise (assuming it's not electrical interference).

LET US KNOW how you do. Remember; the first couple of hunts are going to be 'learning-curve' difficult.... and low resultant stuff. And then you will most probably see 'no turning back' results.

Tom