would it do me any good.....

[bbwwbb]

As some of you know, I have a very trashy yard. If I set to all metal, I pick up 30-40 targets per square foot. Obviously this makes things very tough, and masks signals from the deeper of any sort.

My soil is almost completely sand, and is very soft. How much of a help do you think it would be to drag some of the trashiest areas (mostly nuts, bolts, washers, welding slag, and small bits of scrap iron) with one of the very strong magnets available at harbor freight and similar places?

I'm not expecting to get rid of it all, just some, I can do it now, and as I till the ground for grass planting next spring.

thoughts?

 

[rcasi44]

It can't hurt but I would think it would only pickup the surface metal and then only that attracted to a magnet. The brass, alumuninum, etc. would still be there. I don't think it would get the shallow junk unless the soil was really loose. Rob

 

[Carol K]

Nice blog bbwwbb.

We have a pretty trashy yard too. I've been running my detector with full discrimnation and doing some cherry pickin' grabbing pennies, dimes, quarters, copper, lead, silver, and aluminum. Then I'll go back over it later with the disc turned lower and grab the nickels and pulltabs and foil and jewelry.

 

[steve in so la]

If you thought it would be worth it you could sift it all. Make a wooden frame, stretch some 3/8 hardware cloth over it and go to shoveling. We have sifted many dumps sites but never a yard - - yet. Steve in so az

 

[bbwwbb]

hmmm a sifter. Brilliant!

The gears in my head are working. I'll have to pick out the gravel, pit I think that might just work.

It is 1/2 planned already. I may even be able to use it in the future for sifting areas where I have permission.

I may have it built before the weekend is over.

Here is a shot of one of the areas in question. They all look pretty much the same....

And I just dropped a video on the blog that *may* demonstrate my frustrations. While I was set on all metal, I have a sneaking feeling that the field generated by these chunks are limiting my ability to find deeper stuff.

 

[joecoin]

Till the soil now, drag the super magnet through it, then sift it.

Rent a front end loader.