now that the 2300 is out.

Hello members, now that this new machine is out, what do members consider as a nugget in weight? And out of interest how many have recovered small gold out of a running river or creek with a detector? I would be interested to hear your experiences.

Gday bloodgold2,
Mate I have a few creeks that have gold in the crevasses and beaches. The reason I would like a sdc is not so much for working under water (as trying to retrieve a nugget out of a submerged crevase while standing on dry land is like trying to push fresh sh!t uphill with a pointy stick) but its the hot ground handling that gets my interest.
Small gold (I know there is no big gold as the ground is only 6 inches deep) sitting on super mineralised decomposed shist.....you know the stuff.....so much iron in it its rusty, black, purple and orange n nasty.
GPXs run with their tails between their legs from this stuff. Ground balancing????? Dumb it down as much as you like it wont mean jack shizen.
Hell, even the surrounding country rock makes most hot rocks look tame.
And they reckon Victoria hold the title of Australia's hottest ground....
Yeah right  

GoldenGus wrote:Gday bloodgold2,
Mate I have a few creeks that have gold in the crevasses and beaches. The reason I would like a sdc is not so much for working under water (as trying to retrieve a nugget out of a submerged crevase while standing on dry land is like trying to push fresh sh!t uphill with a pointy stick) but its the hot ground handling that gets my interest.
Small gold (I know there is no big gold as the ground is only 6 inches deep) sitting on super mineralised decomposed shist.....you know the stuff.....so much iron in it its rusty, black, purple and orange n nasty.
GPXs run with their tails between their legs from this stuff. Ground balancing????? Dumb it down as much as you like it wont mean jack shizen.
Hell, even the surrounding country rock makes most hot rocks look tame.
And they reckon Victoria hold the title of Australia's hottest ground....
Yeah right  

Love your rhetoric Gus    
Post more  .

Jack

trying to retrieve a nugget out of a submerged crevase while standing on dry land is like trying to push fresh sh!t uphill with a pointy stick

You know there are ways of doing this that are not difficult at all, small suction devices work quite well to extract the gold and sand in the crevice. Then by panning you get both the nugget and any fine gold also in the crevice.  Extracting a nugget from a submerged crevice is indeed much like dealing with sh!t - because with both there are better ways of accomplishing the task than handling it with your fingers.

Yabby pumps, small suction pumps and other such gadgets can do the trick although it can be a frustrating process at times.

Remember once loosing a good gold sounding target from a crevice in a creek and nothing I could do would locate it again.

A gold pan is a useful thing to have when fishing around in crevices.

Reno Chris wrote:

trying to retrieve a nugget out of a submerged crevase while standing on dry land is like trying to push fresh sh!t uphill with a pointy stick

You know there are ways of doing this that are not difficult at all, small suction devices work quite well to extract the gold and sand in the crevice. Then by panning you get both the nugget and any fine gold also in the crevice.  Extracting a nugget from a submerged crevice is indeed much like dealing with sh!t - because with both there are better ways of accomplishing the task than handling it with your fingers.

Reno, in some parts of Australia it is illegal to use any sort of suction devices even if it is a hand held yabby pump. The authorities see it as a mechanical aid and mechanical items using moving parts are a NO,NO, Only hand held tools like a shovel can be used, unless you have a miming lease, then it is a different story. But for us hobby type it a " NO NO"   
wombat   

Thanks for replies, the reason I asked goldengus, about retrieving a target from water is the few times that I have it wasn't pretty   more like trying to find the target with your eyes closed, I agree mate their will be areas that the 2300 will come into its own ,that I have no doubt. Even for alluvial goldminers I think that machine could be of benefit including the dryblowers in the west. Now with that being said since the last 2 releases have concentrated on the fine gold and super fine gold side of the timings it would be great to see some r and d spent on the other end of the spectrum large and deep  that's just my view, no takers of the nugget weight comment hey guys?

bloodgold2 wrote:what do members consider as a nugget in weight?

I`ve always thought that if you can pick up a piece of gold with your fingers it`s a nugget, so thats getting down around 0.02 g or smaller
dave

phoenix wrote:

bloodgold2 wrote:what do members consider as a nugget in weight?  

I`ve always thought that if you can pick up a piece of gold with your fingers it`s a nugget, so thats getting down around 0.02 g or smaller
dave

Back in the 1850's a piece of gold that weighed over 2oz was classified as a nugget, anything under that it was classed as colour.    Check out the Department Of Miners list of nuggets found in Victoria No12 dated 1912. The list starts at any registered nugget of 20 oz and above. Anything below that was to common to register. But these day if you can pick it up with your fingers as what Dave has said and you can hear it go "clunck" loud enough in your container it is then a nugget. The stuff that we are getting today is the old timers left overs or crumps that they were not interested in. I have read were the old times were working an area and if the gold got down to 1.5oz in size they would consitter that the area was worked out and walked away from it. Read a book called "Sent A Boy To Sea." It it a true diary of the goldfields in the triangle before the Eureka Stockade.
wombat  

thanks for that phoenix and wombat, we used to always consider a nugget match head size or larger, sign of the times i spose   does anyone know if there has been any vid put up of the 2300 locating a target in water? As aurumpro has pointed out it was a bit more difficult with the lag in timing to pinpoint accurately ,which in my view would make a water extraction more difficult again. Be interesting footage to watch.

Reno Chris wrote:

trying to retrieve a nugget out of a submerged crevase while standing on dry land is like trying to push fresh sh!t uphill with a pointy stick

You know there are ways of doing this that are not difficult at all, small suction devices work quite well to extract the gold and sand in the crevice. Then by panning you get both the nugget and any fine gold also in the crevice.  Extracting a nugget from a submerged crevice is indeed much like dealing with sh!t - because with both there are better ways of accomplishing the task than handling it with your fingers.

Hi Reno Chris like your thinking mate  , a shallow crevice yeah probably could work it easier with a pan to find the target, but what about a target that is in deep alluvial material?

Just a thought .... while extracting 'nuggets' from within flowing creeks/rivers may seem too difficult for us down under you have to remember that the SDC is sold internationally ..... perhaps "over there" you ping a piece underwater and just bring in a backhoe to 'extract' it.

How do the blokes that detect the beaches recover their finds... targets are usually bigger (coins/rings/etc) but there're really fishing pretty blind as well apart from the location of their 'ping' really have to rely on their scoop finding it.

True jag 49, not that i have ever detected in the water off beaches, so i carn't comment, but have done a few at low tide. Give me a coin and soft sand any day   

/

shiraz wrote:Size doesn't matter bud! The important thing is that you come home with a bit of colour, and this fantastic machine will practically guarantee it! Well done Mr Candy, hope you sell a shizen load.

  yeah it does to me   will be trying one out over the next couple of months, looking at hopefully good gold recovery working on a different angle for its use    keep you posted bud   

bloodgold2 wrote:Hello members, now that this new machine is out, what do members consider as a nugget in weight? And out of interest how many have recovered small gold out of a running river or creek with a detector? I would be interested to hear your experiences.

I consider any thing over 1g a nugget any smaller I call a speck.

I have recovered a few oz's of nuggets from water.
It can be a slow and frustrating experience, UNLESS you are in flowing water and wear a wetty, snorkel and mask so you can see what you are doing.
I found that the easiest process was to throw out any rocks from the target area (which is usually a bedrock crack) and then fan the lighter sand away with plastic fan that I made out of a bucket lid.
As gold is so heavy it is the last thing to fan away and is easy to see once the sand/clay is gone.
I made up a inner-tube with a bucket wedged in the middle to carry my tools and to rest the detector in when recovering a target, I just attached it to my body with a 3m piece of rope and dragged it behind me.

I was using the 4500 and a coiltek platypus coil I mounted a speaker on the armrest and battery on the side of the control box and put the control box/battery in a dry bag as best as I could, encase I dropped it in the drink   which I accidentally did a few times and it saved it from disaster.
I was searching remote rainforest streams in northern NSW that tested good with the pan and other means.

I abandoned this approach due to too many fall's and nearly stuffing the detector on multiple occasions.

In my opinion the SDC is the first real gold detector that handles hot ground/mineralization and is water proof it will open up whole new areas that have never seen a detector before.
I tried the Infinium in these areas but It could not handle the black sand mineralization that is the norm in these areas and its sensitivity/depth with the DD's was not good so I abandoned further attempts with it and sold it.

Hi Aurumpro, yeah mate like everthing I spose the more you do it the better you get, I remember one target I had was a snider slug at about 2foot just after a series of bedrock crevices in deep alluvial soil  what a sh-t fight, lucky no one was around with a vid camera   close to par on the gold size match head would be close to a gram at a guess.