Short hunt with the rebuilt Harbor Freight Metal Detector

Huckleberry · Mar 3, 2021

Just for fun I took the rebuilt Harbor Freight 9 Function Metal detector to one of our parks today. Fourth of July celebrations and the county fair are held at this site, but not during 2020, (you know, the whole COVID thing). This park is only about 30 years old, so there are no deep finds to score, and there was really nothing to speak of there before the property was donated to the city, so I did not have high expectations. Only got 36 cents in crusty dimes and memorials, and some costume bling. Not much to see here. Had a good time though and I hadn’t had the “Frankendetector” :lol:

out in some time. Thanks for looking.

Soil Surgeon · Mar 3, 2021

Congrats on a nice little hunt there Huck ! I wasn't even aware Harbor freight made a detector until you mentioned you had one in a previous post . Nice photo also .

Huckleberry · Mar 3, 2021

Soil Surgeon said:
Congrats on a nice little hunt there Huck ! I wasn't even aware Harbor freight made a detector until you mentioned you had one in a previous post . Nice photo also .

Thanks Soil Surgeon. It was one of those winter projects a few years ago. Here is the HF9FMD in its original configuration,

And after some modifications,

The project description is here,
https://metaldetectingforum.com/showthread.php?t=288473

Thanks for lookin'

yrekadude · Mar 5, 2021

My uncle Bill has one of those.. I feel bad for being a detector snob when he proudly brought his out for me to look at with the coil wire hanging loosely everywhere..

I should have been nicer

gardinerdigger · Mar 5, 2021

I actually bought one of those several years ago. I was in HF and it was like 40 bucks so I figured why not. I took it along the back edge of my property and found a sterling silver watch fob with the owners name engraved as well as the name of the city. It wasn't deep or masked by any other metal so not very challenging for most machines. Just shows that location is as important as what gear you use. I eventually gave the HF 9 to one of my teenage clients and he happily used it for quite a while.

Huckleberry · Mar 5, 2021

yrekadude said:
My uncle Bill has one of those.. I feel bad for being a detector snob when he proudly brought his out for me to look at with the coil wire hanging loosely everywhere..

I should have been nicer

It wasn't like "Wrap the wire around the shaft ya dadburned knucklehead!" was it? :lol:

gardinerdigger said:
I actually bought one of those several years ago. I was in HF and it was like 40 bucks so I figured why not. I took it along the back edge of my property and found a sterling silver watch fob with the owners name engraved as well as the name of the city. It wasn't deep or masked by any other metal so not very challenging for most machines. Just shows that location is as important as what gear you use. I eventually gave the HF 9 to one of my teenage clients and he happily used it for quite a while.

For the money the little HF9FMD is actually a pretty decent machine. Especially with the 25% off coupon. The build quality is what is lacking, but I consider it a great machine for someone wanting to give detecting a try without spending much cash. It will detect metal, and you can find stuff with it. A quick Google search will show some pretty impressive finds for this machine.

Skippy SH13 · Mar 5, 2021

Huckleberry said:
Just for fun I took the rebuilt Harbor Freight 9 Function Metal detector to one of our parks today. Fourth of July celebrations and the county fair are held at this site, but not during 2020, (you know, the whole COVID thing). This park is only about 30 years old, so there are no deep finds to score, and there was really nothing to speak of there before the property was donated to the city, so I did not have high expectations. Only got 36 cents in crusty dimes and memorials, and some costume bling. Not much to see here. Had a good time though and I hadn’t had the “Frankendetector” out in some time. Thanks for looking.

I ran the Harbor Freight 9 function detector for about 2 weeks once, while trying it out for my kid. It was TOUGH going. Very difficult to discriminate out iron, and isolate targets, but it worked as a detector. I found about $13 in change, which I thought was pretty good, before it barfed out on me. It just stopped detecting completely. I took it back for a full refund, since it broke in normal use, and got a Garrett Ace 250 for my son (so much more capable!). It was a tough machine, but metal is metal and if you can get over coins, it'll find em!

Skippy

Short hunt with the rebuilt Harbor Freight Metal Detector

Huckleberry

Elite Member

Soil Surgeon

Huckleberry

Elite Member

yrekadude

Elite Member

gardinerdigger

Full Member

Huckleberry

Elite Member

Skippy SH13

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