New Zealand Gold Prospecting & Metal Detecting Forums Archive

Making me jealous... don't think my C-Scope CS3MX is quite as good as you're Minelab! Finds coins no probs though.

Just purchased an old Nissan Safari so will be pushing deeper in to the bush for my next go to see if I'm a little luckier! :)

Hi Guys, Here is a little mod I did to attach a signal enhancer (booster) to my detector that didnt involve sticking it directly to the control box like most people do. It is just made out of a piece of aluminium, painted black to match the detector & it bolts onto the detector shaft through the bolts that hold on the control box & arm support cuffs. Easy to remove & doesnt dis figure or mark the control box. I actualy made two. The first one hung down & the 2nd one tucked up more to the arm support cuff & was a bit more out of the way.
Here is the first one.

Bracket


Fitted to the detector


Signal enhancer stuck on with velcro


2nd one & the one I use. Bracket with velro on



Signal enhancer stuck on to it


How simple is that.

To those of you that know your minelab SD's, GP's & GPX's will know that the SD's, GP extreme & GP 3000 didnt come out with the fixed/tracking push button on the handle like the GP 3500 & the later GPX's have. Instead you had to contourt yourself to flick the fixed/tracking switch to rebalance while pumping the coil & flicking back all at the same time.....There is a mod that I have done to my GP 3000 to put this bloody handy push button action on the handle. Now it is just a matter of leaving the switch in fixed, & when you want to reground balance it is just a matter of pushing the button to activate the tracking, pumping your coil, hold still when balanced & release the button which puts it back to fixed, & carry on detecting. No fumbling for that dicky switch while going through all the other motions. If you want to detect in tracking mode then you can just flick the switch to tracking & away you go. You could just hold the button down all the time but you wouldnt want to do that but it is the same difference.
It involved drilling a hole in the top of the handle to fit a push button that I got from Dick Smith Electronics. Connecting a positive & negative wire to the button & down the handle, around the shaft & on to the front panel of the control box where I had to carefuly drill a hole that would accept a mono type small head phone type plug receiver, also from Dick Smith. The wire having a suitable plug to plug into it. You could directly solder the wire into the fixed tracking switch on the inside of the control box but then you cant unplug the control box from the wire going up to the push button. That isnt very practicle, so best to solder the plug receiver port into the fixed tracking switch & have a nice neat port mounted on the control box like it was meant to always be there where you can plug in & unplug at will the push button wire. I used an old walkmen head phone lead wire from the push button that would plug into the mono receiver port & although the headphone wire was stereo I just fitted the wires where they needed to go. Works a treat.





You can see the fixed/tracking switch on the far right. The top wire is plugged into it via the receiver port that is soldered up to the fixed/tracking switch on the inside & goes on to the push button on the handle


Happy hunting

JW :)

I was wondering how you were getting on down in Queenstown. Good to hear you're having some joy :)

Look forward to seeing piccies of the latest treasure!

Hi guys, Here is a pic of gold so far. The gold on the left of the pen is from way above the Arrow. Gold on the right from elsewhere



Detecting on the fringe of the snow line





Old sluiced workings



Happy hunting this Queens Birthday Weekend

JW :)

Hi Steve, Good luck to you. I am off up to the sluiced workings.
Coronet Peak ski field opens today.


Happy hunting

JW :)

Hi Guys, Saturdays forecast was for snow to 300 meters in the afternoon so I got up early & was up there by 8am to make the most of it before the weathewr turned to custard. It was drizzling slightly so I put on my waders as I knew the snow that was there would probably be slushy & the ground pugy. I put a plastic shopping bag over the control box & away I went. I decided to try the 11" DD coil as the bigger mono's were getting a bit noisey in the wet ground & I could always use the pesudo mono mode with the DD which gives more sensitivity than the DD. I tried an area of the workings I hadnt tried before & after a few bum targets I snagged a 1.2 gram piece. That was to be the only bit & by midday the drizzle had become a more persistant rain. The briar rose or rose hip, what ever it is, had torn the plastic bag to shreads so I bailed before I destroyed my detector.
Monday dawned with a heavy drizzle, not rain, but enough to put me off going up. I had to pick my wife up from the QT airport at midday & hoped the weather might improve for the afternoon. It did & I was up there at 1pm. I just used the 10" X 5" mono coil to see if I could snag some little pieces that I may have missed. There had been a bit of snow over night & the workings were covered in a couple of inches. Luckely I knew where the shallow schist was so targetd those areas where I had found gold before. It amazes me how I can go over the same ground with the same coil & still pick gold. I found 4 small pieces all less than .2 of a gram.
I may have mentiond this before but I am a firm believer that atmospheric conditions on any given day can influence the sensitivity of a coil. Especially when the ground is wet, as it is at the moment. Sort of makes sense too as wet tends to make things more conductive. Hence why the sensitive bigger mono coils become noisey in wet conditions.
It started snowing about an hour before dark & after half an hour of dtecting in the snowing conditions I got my forth faint signal. It took a bit to find & as it became more elusive & I was starting to think it was just ground noise or a bit of iron stone inside the schist. I was about to give up on it as the snow was getting heavier & dark wasnt far away & I still had to negotiate my way out of the workings in the slippery conditions. But I did find it & it was a small piece of gold.
Oh I forgot to mention that on sunday I found a 1924 English six pence. Must have been lost by a depression miner of the early 1930's.

My Queens Birthday finds Total weight 7.5 grams



Happy hunting

JW :)

Hi JW,

hell you are making me a little bit jelly with that gold you are detecting!!.I cant think of any better way to win a bit than swinging ya coil,its a

bit like christmas day when you see a glint of gold in the hole.

I went up the Waka for the day but the river was stil high,detected a little gold that was bloody hard one but all good fun.
Cheers Steve

Hi guys, I have been a bit quiet on the posting front lately but have still been getting bits of gold on each visit to these sluiced workings. All be it quite small & on occasions only one or two pieces. My last full day there had me only get two .11 gram bits. One was in some old workings further up stream that had some good exposed bed rock but it looked like it may have had some modern day activity with possibly a trommel plant & excavator doing some work over the old workings. I was supprised I didnt do better there. I was about to give it away when I got a .11 gram bit with the 10" X 5" mono. I then went back to the workings where I have been doing quite well to a spot where I had got a few bits where a road in has crossed some bedrock. I put on my new 6" round coiltek mono to see if it could sniff out something more than my 10" X 5" had got. I had been over the ground very slowly & very thouroughly with the !0" X 5" a couple of times & had got a couple of bits more on a previous visit. My first signal with the new 6" mono was a .11 gram bit. It was dark by this stage so I packed it in for the day. Boy what a long day for a total of .22 grams. I would have walked miles backwards & forwards over the workings. Through briar rose, broom & gorse.
The weekend before I had crashed through some briar rose, tearing up my old jacket in the process, under some powerlines, which made the mono a tad noisey, when I spied some good looking bed rock up on a small slope that I hadnt noticed before. Damn the powerlines . They where above some stacked tailings & looked as though they may have been washed down with the ground sluicing in the old days, but there was no tailings on them but some small tail races either side. So my thoughts were that they must have been pretty exposed in the first place. It was the usual schist up on edge but very smooth & rounded off by glacial grinding.
Here is a pic of the slope looking up hill.



Within a minute I had my first signal that had that lovely mellow gold sound. I scraped away a couple of inches of the topsoil, checked the signal & it was still there. Another scrape & I was on to the schist bed rock. Another check of the signal & it was gone. Bugger, I thought. That isnt a good sign. Scanned the pile & the signal was there. Not giving it much hope now of being gold but more likely a bit of lead. Too my suprise it was a piece of gold. You beauty. Must have been sitting right on top of the schist. I got 6 pieces off that slope when darkness set in. I didnt take my head lamp with me so had to bale before it got too dark to find my way back through all the briar rose, damn the old miners for planting that stuff. They planted it to use the hose hip to make tea as a source of vitamin C. Now the bloody thing is growing wild & taking over the land scape & invading the valleys & mountain sides. A real pest now. HORRIBLE STUFF.
Looking down the slope with a dig hole & detector showing another find. Notice the powerlines & briar rose bushes.



Notice the shallow topsoil down to the schist bedrock, About 2"



Close up



And another piece down into the folds of schist. The broken out schist to the left.



Piece of gold on the white lid of my gold bottle



River way down below & the exposed high bank on the other side cut down into the glacial material. Notice the powerlines & briar rose, GRRRRR



Some of the pieces I found before dark on this slope.



I went back during the week after work & found 12 bits all up off this slope using the 10" X 5" mono I havnt tried the 6" mono but had a go with an 11" DD in mono mode to combat the powerlines. Got nothing further off that slope but on my way back to my wagon snagged a .7 gram piece on some bedrock exposed by a 4 wheel drive road that also gave a heap of crap targets & .22 shells.

Total finds from these working since my last photos. 32 bits. I think I have now done my dash at this spot & will have to find another.



Went to a new spot today for only 1.5 hours. The forecast was for snow to 300 meters. The area wasnt old sluiced workings but there were some old workings up stream. I had noticed some bedrock so thought I would give it a go. Found a .4 gram bit beside a big schist slab. I didnt hold much hope that the signal would be gold as the signal was out of the hole before hitting bedrock & just in the loose material. But was a pleasant supprise to find it was gold. It then started raining so I came home & now it is snowing. BUGGER.

Happy hunting

JW :)

Yo, John.
Belay my last post!
I was wrong!
Your pictures have just finished downloading.(Look good too!)
Took 25 mins! from reading your post.
Dont older slow machines just get your goat!

Cheers---Colin.

Hi Colin, If you are on dial up that will be why photos take a while to load up on your computer. Broadband is a whole new world.
Man is it snowing hard out now. Starting to build up on the ground now. Glad I went out for that detect this morning. It is supposed to snow through to monday. Luck I am now fitting gib board in the house I am building & so be inside.
Going to head down to the Arrowtown pub to watch the All Blacks play tonight.
Hope all is well with you. I think of the Tapu often. I kind of miss getting up there.

Regards

John :)