20 hours ago, Artie said:

Whatcha swing? where ya swing, whatcha looking to find? I use a Minelab Excalibur at the beaches, Garretts At Pro everywhere else. Mostly looking for coins/jewelry. Got a beach here in Mass where you can find lots of 50 cal shells left over from WWII days.

 

I have a Teknetics Patriot ( same as fisher f70)  ,.....and a fisher f75. I had an At Pro for a while,......I hunt mainly old house sites when I can find one. Man I'll dig anything that could be something cool when I feel good   It isn't my main hobby per say,....I just don't have great luck finding new sites; however, it certainly is a great one. I wish I had discovered it earlier in life. 

49 minutes ago, aaronc said:

I wish I had discovered it earlier in life. 

 

We would have if we had "YouTube"  I am amazed at what one can find there.

1 minute ago, HandyDan said:

 

We would have if we had "YouTube"  I am amazed at what one can find there.

Isn't that the truth. For all of the "bad" things that come along with tech.....it truly is a wealth of information right at ones fingertips. If your interested in it,.there is probably a how too vid on it somewhere. 

1 minute ago, aaronc said:

Isn't that the truth. For all of the "bad" things that come along with tech.....it truly is a wealth of information right at ones fingertips. If your interested in it,.there is probably a how too vid on it somewhere. 

 

Part of my morning routine is perusing YouTube while enjoying my coffee.

I used to Scuba dive, taught Scuba diving and ran a dive shop for about 20 years. Most of our diving was in quarries but a little ocean diving, too. Gave it up in the late 90's. It was taking longer to get warm after each outing! Went from wet suits to dry suits but eventually it took from the weekend to the middle of the next week to get back my core temperature. Ice diving took the longest to get back to normal. Over all, figured I cheated death long enough.

 

I also used to build plastic models. Planes at first but really enjoyed building the tall ships. What I regret most, there, is the failure to make protective coverings. Only have a few that haven't succumb to the environment. By the time I retired from teaching, my classroom had dozens of models around. The planes all hanging from the ceiling. There are still 2 planes setting near my desk waiting to be assembled. Not sure that will ever happen.

19 minutes ago, HandyDan said:

 

Part of my morning routine is perusing YouTube while enjoying my coffee.

 

Mine too,..!  Don't get me started on the enjoyment of coffee in the morning,..that's a whole other thread 

6 minutes ago, lew said:

I used to Scuba dive, taught Scuba diving and ran a dive shop for about 20 years. Most of our diving was in quarries but a little ocean diving, too. Gave it up in the late 90's. It was taking longer to get warm after each outing! Went from wet suits to dry suits but eventually it took from the weekend to the middle of the next week to get back my core temperature. Ice diving took the longest to get back to normal. Over all, figured I cheated death long enough.

 

I also used to build plastic models. Planes at first but really enjoyed building the tall ships. What I regret most, there, is the failure to make protective coverings. Only have a few that haven't succumb to the environment. By the time I retired from teaching, my classroom had dozens of models around. The planes all hanging from the ceiling. There are still 2 planes setting near my desk waiting to be assembled. Not sure that will ever happen.

 

I recently joined a WW1 aircraft forum,......have been doing tons of research. For whatever reason about 6 months ago I committed (at least in my mind) myself to doing some modeling. The planes of that era interest me the most,..especially that German stuff. I never did it as a kid. I think they would add some color and interest to any shop. 

Lately I have been looking into making a steam engine from scratch.  I have the machinery or access to what I would need to do it. 

1 minute ago, HandyDan said:

Lately I have been looking into making a steam engine from scratch.  I have the machinery or access to what I would need to do it. 

 

Worthy project. 

42 minutes ago, aaronc said:

 

I recently joined a WW1 aircraft forum,......have been doing tons of research. For whatever reason about 6 months ago I committed (at least in my mind) myself to doing some modeling. The planes of that era interest me the most,..especially that German stuff. I never did it as a kid. I think they would add some color and interest to any shop. 

I built and still have my model of the German Heinkle HE 111 from the WW II era. Some of the old bi/tri wings would be really cool to build. 

Steam is another hobby of mine. This is one of my homemade engines.

 

 

10 hours ago, HandyDan said:

Lately I have been looking into making a steam engine from scratch.  I have the machinery or access to what I would need to do it. 

Keep us posted.

@aaronc & @Artie -

 

On 2/2/2020 at 5:21 PM, aaronc said:

I hunt mainly old house sites when I can find one.

 

Likely you already know about USGS maps, but maybe not.

If I may digress for a moment...  I grew up in upstate NY.  There is a lot of rural area in upstate, a lot of which is now owned by the state and has been forested or maintained as wild hunting areas for conservation purposes.  I think it was in the late 40's when my grandparents moved from a farm "on the hill" to a larger farm closer to town.  I grew up listening to my dad talk of his neighbors up on the hill and that most all of them had moved off the hill.  Some time in the late 50's very early 60's the hill farm was sold to the state.  We retained haying rights for some few years and we baled the hay each year until that ran out.  The old home place was there, but the barn had fallen in by this time.  I really don't remember the house either, except that it was donated to the town volunteer fire department who burned it down for practice around that same time.  As a boy, we would ride those back roads and there were no houses or buildings, but there would be remnants from stone fences here and there in the woods that could be seen.  As a young kid it all seemed like ancient history to me.

 

Back to the maps.  A few years ago I was visiting in NY and went to a local history museum.  On display was a large USGS map of the county, I thought I had taken a picture of it but could not find it this morning.  What stuck me, was the number of homesites back up there on the hill.  The whole area was littered with homesites!  While most all of the roads are still there, if you went to that area today all you would find might be a sign like this:

 

 

The USGS site lists many maps available for the area, but I could not pull up anything earlier than a 1943 model.  Sure enough, my grandparents place is shown, a little black square - and the place they subsequently bought.  I couldn't figure out how to circle them on the map.  By 1943 many of the homesites shown at the history museum are gone, although there are still three schools up on the hill that closed soon after that I believe.  Here is the 1943 map.

 

 

This is a blow up of the area showing where my grandparent's farm was.  Even in 1943 there were a lot of homesites, including a school (at New Boston).  By the early 60's there would have only been about 4-5 of the homesites shown on this map still occupied.  The school at New Boston was remodeled to a home, our school bus driver's family lived in it.  The roads with solid lines were and still are dirt roads.  The road shown by a dashed line were, and still are just single lane truck trails.

 

 

Wow, what a load of memories this post has brought back.

Anyhow, this is one way to locate some old home sites.  Cannot say what any laws might be regarding metal detecting.

 

Finding good sites to detect is paramount to a successful hunt. LOTS of legal issues in some states. I love detecting saltwater beaches. In the Cape Cod National Seashore area it is a felony to be in possession of a metal detector. Lots of rules/laws on where one can detect. I’m gonna post some pictures of some of what I’ve found. The pulltabs/rings, foil, aluminum cans (think soda/beer) sometimes crushed, lobster trap parts, etc don’t make it home for pictures LOL. I used to go barefoot on the beach, and when I had scooped up a pile of sand that the detector had told me had some treasure in it, I would toe it out till I found my prize. Then the Missus had started reading about syringes being found at the beaches, now I wear water shoes at the beach. 

4 hours ago, Artie said:

Then the Missus had started reading about syringes being found at the beaches, now I wear water shoes at the beach. 

 

Everyone on YouTube uses a scoop with holes at the beach. 

 

That’s the one, I mainly hunt the wet sand. You find the spot, bury the scoop, and pull up a scoop full of sand. Dump it out, spread it flat with me water shoe covered toes, find the piece of metal. If perchance it be gold, do a happy dance.

Around here, we got a lot of beach but no water. Detecting here yields little more than wire, nails and beer cans. Although, while exploring an abandoned home site, I stumbled on a three gallon pail 3/4 full of blue turquoise nuggets. Nice! 

10 minutes ago, Gene Howe said:

Although, while exploring an abandoned home site, I stumbled on a three gallon pail 3/4 full of blue turquoise nuggets. Nice! 

 

Around here most of the abandoned home sites aren't in the safest part of town.

Town??

5 hours ago, Gene Howe said:

Around here, we got a lot of beach but no water. Detecting here yields little more than wire, nails and beer cans. Although, while exploring an abandoned home site, I stumbled on a three gallon pail 3/4 full of blue turquoise nuggets. Nice! 

No prospecting? They make detectors just for finding small gold nuggets.