Mounting a magnet on your pick handle.

After losing a few magnets, I bought a 25mm wood drill bit, drilled a hole in the end of the handle and Araldited the magnet in. I roughed up the sides of the magnet so it would grip the glue.

Now I am looking for one of those magnets with the counter sunk hole, so I can bolt and glue it to the pick head.

Jig.

I bought one of those super magnets about the same size as a AAA Battery and drilled a hole thru the head of the pick and into the handle and then glued in the magnet. All you have to do is scratch around in the dirt and it picks up any rubbish.
Cheers Greg.

Jig,

Nice work.

Now if you put a 75mm long piece of pre-glued heatshrink over the handle around the magnet it will stop the handle from fraying and the magnet wont loosen and pullout when you try and pull it off the steel floor of you truck. Been there done that!

Driller.

I have a 50x50mil rare earth magnet that Is attached to the bottom of the pick head. As I scrape/dig the ground any metal thats around, 100-150mil away, gets sucked up. Very powerful. Watch where you store it in the car. I got mine stuck once on my mates car door, getting it out of the car, lol.

Tony

I have 2 of these magnets, you can have them for $4.50 Inc. post, Each

They measure 22mmx8mm and includes a s/steel screw. Regards Johnny NOW ARE ALL SOLD

Johnny,
I have sent you an MM.
Jig

Hi Im a newbie at this and I am wondering why you need a magnet could someone explain. cheers

they are put on there to suck up all the worthless metal bits and pieces while you are looking for that nugget in there

If you cant find one with a hole to bolt on there, just stick a rare earth magnet onto the head and tack weld a couple of small metal strips across it to hold it in place.

Artrix,

If you have no idea, I will explain in a little more detail.

Let's say you detect a target and dig a hole with your pick. Often you are in an area where there is a lot of bits of iron junk (nails, tacks etc). So, to speed up the process of finding the target, you run a magnet through the pile of dirt you have dug out of the hole. To save bending over and to save being bitten by bugs and spiked by prickles, you mount the magnet on one or both ends of the pick.

Cheers,

Jigalong.

Hi All

I also have a magnet on my pick but its not fixed (mounted) to my pick. However, I find that it attracks a lot of ironstone that pack around it and then sort of loses its power for attrackting metal.
It gets so clogged up that sometimes when you dig, small metal pieces comes off and falls into the hole where youre digging! Not good! I just rcently got into the habbit of cleaning it regurarly by hitting it against the sole of my boot to get rid of the clogged up ironstone pieces.

Some pictures of the mounted magnets will be good.

Kudu

Thanx for the info regards the magnet ..... all makes sense
cheers

A better idea, IMHO, is to put a rare earth super maget in a small plastic bottle. The bottle should be just big enough so the magnet can freely move around inside.

My bottle lives on my belt in a carpenters 'hammer holder' steel loop. Get the signal out of the hole - pull magnet bottle out and run it through the material to collect all the magnetics.

A quick inspection and a shake of the bottle removes all the crud. Bottle goes back onto the belt - the magnet holds it securely onto the steel belt loop.

Just make sure you "shake" towards the area you have already detected - otherwise you will chase the same signal you just discarded!

John

Great idea John, thanks
Brett

Think I will give Johns idea a go, have a RE Magnet that should do the trick,

thanks for the great idea

Forgot this bit ..............

Use it to flang on the ground in front of your coil as a 'test target,'
when you think your coil is 'on the blink ! '

BUT make sure you have painted it ........ very embarrassing to 'lose' it, as I did .... ONCE !!