Question for Keith and others on hunting sites riddled with flat iron

Forum has been a little slow and it's pouring rain so I thought I'd get some perspective. I often hunt a lot of late 1800's house sites with the usual large pieces of stoves and pots scattered, (I often wonder how did all these solid iron parts get busted up in the first place?). Curious what your ideal unit/approach is on these type sites. Obviously removing the flat iron is THE BEST way. But if one were on a site with limited access that you cant "sanitize" so to speak, what your ideal plan of attack is.


I've noticed that higher freq units like the racer for example have a bit more trouble with FLAT iron. Running the racer in 2 tone (my preferred method) forces you to screen watch for jumpy ID's. D3 offers a bit more "ferrousy" sound on the iron, but i just love the modulation of D2. I've been thinking a lower freq unit that still processes quickly like an omega or deus (set accordingly) may have a bit of a niche here?

I'm really anxious to hear more on the omega 8500. Limited experience with the 8000, but if FT accomplished what it looks they set out to do on the 8500 I think i may own one.

I'm one of the others on here that hunts these types of sites, I don't care what make of detector you use they all will report positive on large iron.

The way I deal with those large iron falses is to slowly raise the coil while still using short sweep passes. When you get your coil over a foot above the ground, I'll pass on the signal unless I'm looking for a coin cache. If you have a true threshold based all-metal mode, then that is the type of signals to check out in that mode. I look for signals that produce nice tight all-metal signals, not broad and lingering all-metal signals. I have spent enough time in these types of hunting spots to know how big iron responds, small shards of tin is my most troublesome types of signals.

Edit: While lifting the coil over a target with short sweeps, big iron will suddenly drop out while a good non-ferrous signal will slowly fade out with modulated audio.
This is my technique using my detectors, your mileage may vary.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/28/2015 09:24PM by Hombre.

Low freqs and Concentric coils help alot in flat iron...

That's why I think a G2 and Omega are agreat combo to have...use same coils mostly and produce different results..

A AT-PRO also is excellent on large flat iron.....

Just remember that the flat iron is masking a good bit...but if time is of the essence then more tonal nuance is helpful...

oh by the way the kettles and such that are broke up are usually that way because of plowinf and such.. kettles a pot iron etc are quite brittle...

Ive only dug one Whole Kettle in my life.. it was a huge size...Took me forever to unearth it...I believe it was intentionally burried upside down thats what saved it...if it would of been burried right side up it would of filled with water then froze and busted...


and yes I checked under it for a stash of cash LOL...that was the first thing in my mind ...Why would a kettle be upside down ??then I had thoughts of stashed treasure...

My buddy years back found a copper kettle upside down it had silver spanish coins and arrowheads under it...so be on the look out for whole kettles flipped upside down..

Keith

“I don't care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don't have any of their own”
-Nikola Tesla



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/28/2015 09:54PM by Keith Southern.

Just dig it out. This was a mess.......

Good stuff gents! Yes hombre tin is just about as tough as it gets in my experience, at least in big iron you can dig it out. I have one site where it's breaking up in the dirt; the sifter is just about the only option. Been sifting more recently but it's an insane out of work in the woods with all the roots.

Keith that's an amazing find... I've never dug a complete kettle either, I did spend alot of time on a large piece of one this spring in an area where a Rev cannon ball was supposedly found. A foot and a half later I was a bit let down lol.

Hey Jack Ive dug a few of those skillets still whole.....

even have a cornbread one ..you know the type that the corn sticks come out in shape of corn ears...

I cleaned it up and its from the turn of the century....My wife cooks cornbread in it..taste great!!

Keith

“I don't care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don't have any of their own”
-Nikola Tesla

You might also try a major negative ground balance. Take your ground balance all the way to 0 or as far negative as the setting will go. One of the effects of an extreme negative ground balance is that it will totally silence iron in the Disc mode. Iron will continue to mask, but you will not hear it. Large iron will only give an overload if you get close enough to it. But that is all you get. Small iron, large iron, all goes quiet. Alloyed iron depends on oxidation. If its oxidized it will either be silent or broken. If its not oxidized, it most likely will sound off.

Down side is that your all metal mode is useless if you have any ground minerals. The other downside is the decrease in low conductor performance results.

This isn't for everywhere but it can be helpful in some circumstances.

HH
Mike

That's an old pot belly stove with cook top and skillet to go with it lol. lot of iron...

Deadlift, also try this. When you sweep the target work the coil back...notice what the tone does at the end of the target. A good target will hold the tone and then just stop. A large iron will hold a high tone but at the end it will start to break up before going away. I have a vid where I was hunting and came to a target. As I started recording I was thinking good target but while pinpointing you will see where I kept rechecking and say that it is acting like big iron from past digs that showed the same type tone. Dug it up and it was a triangle type cutting blade.

Can post it if you think it would help. Good luck

Great info guys, love this forum and all the experience/different perspectives. This is my favorite type of hunting, and perhaps the last frontier (other than water hunting) if you think about it.

Thanks tom Im picking down what youre putting up. Ive noticed this with bottlecaps and other junk when coin shooting but forget to apply in the iron. I have a decent handle on knowing if I'm getting an iron high tone so to speak, its more the iron itself and getting better at working through it. As much as physics allow that is.

Mike Hillis, Ive heard about the neg ground balance thing but never really tried it or gave it much thought. I will tinker w/it.

Jack thats alot of targets opened up. Pull any good Non ferrous artifacts out in the process?

Tom41,

..Hey I've done the same on those sickle bar blades, they sound too close to gun parts that had the same target audio signature. Depends on the location with these iron signals, some locations could provide some good iron relics, canon projectiles, guns and gun parts, lately have dug some musket parts.

I believe we got a few, it appeared to be where an older house had burned down and everything was in the spot where it fell through the burning embers. We actually had to dig it all out from over a foot or so and detected on the way down as we pulled it out.

I have to dig iron I find old locks and rusted guns and all sorts of cool stuff plus it maybe masking other targets around the iron if you going to hunt sometimes you just have to deal with the iron and have an iron day so you can have a relic day next time

LowBoy

TAKE A LITTLE TIME KICKBACK AND WATCH SOME OF MY DETECTING VIDEO'S BELOW ON YouTube

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If you don’t dig it, then how are you going to know what you’re missing!
How can you have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat!

Hombre Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Tom41,
>
> ..Hey I've done the same on those sickle bar
> blades, they sound too close to gun parts that had
> the same target audio signature. Depends on the
> location with these iron signals, some locations
> could provide some good iron relics, canon
> projectiles, guns and gun parts, lately have dug
> some musket parts.

Sickle blades...that's it. Good point on the other good targets that may be iron. Like most it all depends on history of site. Jack needs a backhoe on some of his sites, that's SOME BIG iron.

I dug a BIG piece of cast iron in February that was deep and sounded good. Got down to it and it had about a 12" rectangular top, I was thinking it was a box/cache, it turned out to be a big piece of a cast iron stove....

Dug a complete cast iron pot with a glass lid. It was centered between three pine trees that formed a triangle. This was in a state park about 20 years ago. It was a perfect spot so that the person that buried it would always remember where it was. Being in a state park meant that it wouldn't get built over in the future. After reading one of Carl Vonmueler's books, I was sure I'd hit on someones treasure. Best I could tell was it had been someone's pet cat that probably died while they were camping in the park and the cast iron pot made a nice casket.