WOOHOO - Bonanza Permission FOUR Totlots!

SageGrouse

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Joined
Jan 4, 2013
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2,167
Location
Santa Fe NM
And they're MINE, Bebbeh!! The elementary school right next door to me has not one but four kiddie play areas (with those #$%@!! wood chips!) on their campus NOT counting the basketball court and play field.
I asked permission to detect on weekends and they said YES! So yeah, less than a block walk and bonanza!
Now, since they use wood chips, I am going to be VERY careful about making certain I pull ALL the nails and metal shredded shrapnel OUT and make sure they see what I am getting from those areas!
When I was detecting at the park near my other residence, I hauled out six and nine inch long spike nails that had been driven into telephpne poles, not to mention wicked triangular jagged shards of steel that had been torn up by shredding machines that had been used to chip the phone poles into material for play areas! I'm hitting that place in ALL metals!! I'll haul a LOT of can-slaw and pulltabs, but in the end... safer play areas.
We're talking serious danger, folks! And I can detect to my heart's content AND make the play areas safer for kids! Win-win!
Sage(dang! ANOTHER nail!)Grouse
 
Kuddos for hauling out the sharps and other bad trash that could very well hurt the young folks. Good job, and good luck on your hunts there.
 
Thanks! Actually, that is a very VERY good thing to tell folks when asking permissions for wood chip infested areas! The people who order those places to be filled with chips do not KNOW how wood chippers work or what is fed into them. Mostly telephone poles and old railroad ties, used construction boards and waste. The chipper blades are HUGE and they will shred ANYTHING... now if you recall, telephone poles are generally banded with steel "collars" or belts to prevent them from splitting. They also often have staples old nails, spikes and other cr--- stuff embedded in them. Do the shredder folks remove all that metal? NOPE! it goes right into the blades! RRRII-III-IIPP! and comes out in sharp fragments!All the same size as the wood. Now some use huge electromagnets to take some of that stuff OUT... but not all. I've seen some very gnarly chunks of jagged metal in totlots!
That is one reason I simply purely HATE chips! Plus they're miserable to kneel on. AND they endanger children and others who walk on, play in or run through the chips. Yucko!
Sage(how much wood could a wood chuck chip?)Grouse
 
Score! I love to hunt chip totters! I use the screwdriver or the side of my foot to expose the targets...I never kneel down in them! You know kids! Always leaking some sort of fluids from somewhere! :laughing: Theres a good chance for gold in those chip totters!
 

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Couple years ago I was at a totlot on the rich side of town with a giant wooden castle play area. Was there with family without the detector. I just happened to kick though some woodchips and found a nice .925 ring. Of course I went back later that evening with the detector and could not belive how much mulched canslaw and other metal was in that stuff. MD was machine gunning so badly I don't think I even found a clad coin, could of cleaned out the slaw in buckets if I set my mind to it. Made me think twice about letting my kids run around in that stuff.
 
Score! I love to hunt chip totters! I use the screwdriver or the side of my foot to expose the targets...I never kneel down in them! You know kids! Always leaking some sort of fluids from somewhere! :laughing: Theres a good chance for gold in those chip totters!

T.M.I.! T.M.I.! :laughing:
 
I wonder if that is the area of the country you are in with you finding all of the scrap metal.

In all of the lots I have checked around here, there is not that much scrap metal in them. Most all of the scrap is from bottle caps and pull tabs. Not many detectorists around here and some of the place I have checked most people would not know about.

I think it is mostly just trees being chipped up out here but I can be wrong.

Ray
 
Since New Mexico is arid and desert climate (even up here in Santa Fe, it's Alpine Desert) trees are not as plentiful. Pinon trees are used primarily as fuel. Thus, not much waste wood is chipped. It goes mostly for firewood. We do have railroad ties (although those are fast being replaced by concrete stretchers) and telephone poles. Thus those are what gets shredded. Since NM is a poor state, we use what we can get and can afford. I have hauled out some WICKED sharps. I always tell parents "Look... let your kid play here but please, for the love of St. Glub DON'T let them run barefoot in here! NEVER, and never with flip flops either. Wear good sturdy shoes!"
 
Now that you explain it, it makes perfect sense why you have so much metal in the wood chips. I would of though they would of been shipping the chips in from Colorado but I guess not.

Ray
 
Good place for hunting! I dig all of that nasty metal out of the woodchips myself.

I'm seeking permission at the moment for a secret spot, that if I get it, could be a serious boon, and serious money maker. :D
 
Thanks for the info, that explains why I often find shredded metal in the wood chips. I thought they used magnets to separate the ferrous stuff but obviously a lot gets left behind.
 
Score! I love to hunt chip totters! I use the screwdriver or the side of my foot to expose the targets...I never kneel down in them! You know kids! Always leaking some sort of fluids from somewhere! :laughing: Theres a good chance for gold in those chip totters!

Damn, that's a nice surprise for a totlot
 
I hunt a lot of totlots, and nearly all have woodchips. Never had much of a problem with metal fragments though. What I kinda hate, though is the totlots with the chopped up rubber. Many of 'em have pieces of metal tire beads mixed in and it creates havoc with false signals. Very irritating.:mad:

The ones with the wood chips though, the ones that are maintained with new fresh chips are my favorite. I find much less at the poorly-maintained lots with very few chips left, because the kids can see anything they drop and pick 'em back up.
 
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