Electrolysis to Clean Finds

 Okay, I am new to electrolysis and have been experimenting with it to clean up some of my metal detecting finds.  Here is what I use: car battery charger, Arm & Hammer Washing Soda (this is not baking soda and can be found on the laundry isle at the super market), you need a chunk of metal that you don't care about to use as a sacrificial anode (I have been using an old spoon that I found),  a handful of alligator clips from Radio Shack, and a plastic container (I use a plastic peanut butter jar).

Fill the container with water and add some washing soda to the water (not sure how much) so that it will conduct electricity.  Clip the positive battery charger cable to the spoon (anode), and the negative one to the object you would like to clean (cathode).  I use the cheap alligator clips to hang the object in the water.  Make sure the anode and cathode  don't touch.

Turn on or plug in the batter charger.  I am using the trickle charge mode.  You should see the cathode start to bubble.  It is making hydrogen, so keep the area ventilated.  I have left objects in there for 24 hours depending on how much rust needs to be removed.  Check on the object occasionally washing it off.  Eventually the rust clumps will easily fall off.  

Caution:  This process can get the tank very hot.  I melted the first container I tried, so be careful.
Here is a good site that talks about electrolysis

4/19/12 Cascade Park

Dad and I were back to Cascade Park again last night.  Still searching for that platinum ring that was lost.  I found a token, a five pence, a LDS Church young woman recognition award, a drawer pull, and 3 zipper pulls, along with $4.52 in clad coinage.

It was a beautiful evening, shown above with Cascade Mountain in the background.

Here is my Dad's loot. 110 coins for a total of $9.15 in clad.  That is a lot of up and down for an 85 year  old.

5 keys, 3 tokens and some other stuff too.

4-18-12 Cascade Park

My Dad, Mike and I hunted Cascade park again last night for a couple hours.  We had a couple reports of lost platinum ring, and we were hoping to help find it.  I did find one ring, but it was not platinum.  It rang up as a 10-09 on my E-Trac, about like a gold ring would come up.  It wasn't gold either. I did have a few interesting finds.  A scout neckerchief slide, a copper bangle, a chunk of metal the has a "Welcome Las Vegas" decal, and my junk ring.

It would rain off and on, but for the most part the weather was not too bad

Several of the deeper coins were in the 60's, but no silver.

4-17-12 Late Night at Cascade Park

Dad had been hunting Cascade park since 5 pm.  I joined him about 8:30 and hunted until 10:30, mostly after dark with head lights.  I came away with a pile of clad ($2.09) and the smallest ring I have ever found.  I thought it was a paper clip, at first, but the little heart shapes gave it away.

Mike's Big Coil

I laid in bed all Friday night and listened to the rain.  I figured Saturday would be washed out as far as metal detecting goes.  So I made plans to go see "The Hunger Games" with my daughters.  You can see one of their blogs about that here.  Anyway, I was still in bed Saturday morning when I got a text from Mike.  He had got his new coil in the mail and was anxious to get out and try it!

Mike's Big SEF Coil

I gave my Dad a call to tell him we were going metal detecting and I was on my way over to pick him up.  We met Mike at Orem City Park, and we all started off in oposite directions.  Turned out to be a beautiful morning.

I think the jury is still out on the big coil, but Mike with his big coil came away with a pile of clad, a silver ring, and 2 wheat pennies.  Not a bad haul.

Dad and I did not do quite as well.  I found the biggest chunk of lead ever.

He found a 1995 Sundance Film Festival dog tag.

My coolest find of the trip was an old token.   I can't explain why, but I love to find tokens.  One side reads:

GOOD FOR ONE FREE RACE

The other side:

4-13-12 Friday the 13th Easter egg hunt

After the family dinner, Dad and I ran to the Orem City Park to swing the metal detectors for a while before it got dark.  First thing I found, an Easter egg, that someone had missed, and it still had the chocolate treat in the middle (which I later ate).  Both Dad and I found a bit of silver.  He found the 925 ring from Thailand and I found the little sterling charm that has a image of the moon stone from the Nauvoo temple.

Orem City Park 4-12-12

Cold and rainy weather has kept me from getting out as much as normal.  The dirt was getting hard, so I am glad to be getting this rain.  After work the rain let up and I went to Orem City Park to try my luck.  I was looking for deep coins.  The oldest coin I found was a 1940 penny.  The digging was easy, but it was also a wet muddy mess.  By the time the sun set, my hands were freezing.

Hillcrest Park with VT Mining

Met up with Mike of VT Mining, who is a friend of a friend, for a little after work hunt of Hillcrest Park. Apparently he doesn't know that metal detecting is for old people.  Like me, Mike is kind of new to the Minelab E-Trac.  So, it was good to talk and compare notes about the E-Trac. We both had been using White's detectors before switching to Minelabs.  We both picked the Lesche digging tool and both had the Garrett Pro Pointer.  I told Mike I was thinking of get a larger coil and he told me that he already had one on order.  I will definitely be interested to see how well that works.

The ground at the park was dry and hard.  Not a ton of targets, but enough to keep us busy.  Turned over a plug with a 12-42 signal to see this gold tone ring.  I knew it wasn't gold because of the signal, but it still looked a little like it.

End of the evening Mike had dug twice as many coins as I did.  He also managed to find a silver Roosevelt.

I.S.O.A. Coin and Scout Belt Buckle

Dad and I hit the local high school soccer field.  Not many good target to be found.  All the coins were modern clad.  The interesting finds were a boy scout belt buckle, and a I.S.O.A. (international soccer officials association) token/coin.

Dad at Old Camp Floyd

Instead of our normal trip to a local park, I took Dad to Old Camp Floyd where Johnston's army camped for a couple months.  I was not sure that this was a trip that an 85 year old should be making, but Dad wanted to give it a try.  We crossed a narrow bridge with a big step at the end, walk across a plank that spanned a canal, climbed over a barbed wire fence, and hiked up a hill.  I thought this would be enough of an adventure, and left the metal detectors in the car.

We just walked around and look for artifacts laying on the surface.  We didn't find any metal but we did find pieces of glass and porcelain.  One piece had a "42" on it.  I wonder if it was from 1842?

 After that little hiking adventure, we drove to Fairfield and metal detected in a field near the permanent home of Camp Floyd.  Dad was pretty busy digging away.

He dug up lots of artifacts, but I think they were all modern.  Except for maybe the musket ball.

While Dad was busy digging up his treasures, I spent most of my time talking with a couple other detectorists, Marcus and Terry.  Terry showed me a couple 3 ring mini balls that he had just dug up.  It was cool to know that there were still some things like that to be found.

Johnston's Army Relics

Yesterday I took the day off work.  I planted a tree in my front yard, and headed out to Old Camp Floyd to see if I could find some more relics.  The area has been hunted heavily over the years, so I was excited to find a silver coin.  Not is the best condition, but it was a three cent piece from 1853. Amazing to think it was dropped there 154 years ago.

Here is another picture of it just to show how small it is.

Some other things in this area of significance.  The "5" insignia indicate what type of soldier was there.   The small 4 hole button was an eye ball find.  I believe the lead ball to be a .31 caliber from a black powder pistol.  The item on the top left we were guess was nailed into furniture and used as a drawer pull.

A few pieces of china and some old glass.

I collected a few more nails.  The 3 objects at the top are lead.

Some of the rocks I picked up.

This rock appears to have a notch carved in it.  There are Native American artifacts in the area and perhaps this rock could be one.  Any experts out there?

CTR Ring and Wheat Penny from Lion's Park

Friday evening, Dad and I, skipped the family dinner and went metal detecting.  I choose Lion's park for our outing.  We have hunted it numerous times and it is becoming more difficult to find good target, especially for Dad, since his metal detector will not detect deeper than about 5 inches.  Of course Dad doesn't was to go that deep anyway.  He prefers his targets to be within the top 3 inches.  On the other hand, I prefer to find deep targets because they are generally older.  However, I have dug up zinc pennies 7 inches deep, they are everywhere.

Well, for this out I set a goal to at least find 1 wheat penny.  It was funny because the very first good target I found was a wheat penny.  The next good target was a silver CTR ring.

I think I may have a hard time talking Dad into going back to Lion's Park again.  Besides the normal garbage, he only found 1 quarter, 9 zinc pennies, and one dime.  He did have an audience for a while.  I guess he looks like a friendly old grandpa.  They didn't bother me. :)

The rest of the targets where modern clad coins and some other little junk pieces.

Back to the School Grounds

I was backing metal detecting the same old soccer field at Bonneville Elementary school this past week.

I continue to be surprised on how much stuff I can still find.  The foot pendant was interesting.  I found the first piece about 4 inches deep and then found the toes 4 inches deep about 5 feet away from the first part.

One of my favorite finds was this little battleship monopoly game piece.

 After looking more closely at the coins, I noticed that I had also found a 1944 wheat penny

Dad Finds a Ring

My Dad was out metal detecting while I was working this past week.  He was getting a head start on getting the good stuff.  When he found this ring he thought he was on his way.  Even though the ring looks nice, it turns out the ring in not silver and has no hallmark.  Sorry, it can't go in the silver jar.

Here are some more of his finds.

J-Dawgs after Community Park

Dad and I went back to Community park for a little more detecting on the North side.  The area had a hill next to a children's play ground.  I saw a few spots where I could tell other metal detectorists had hunted.  Hunting was slow and mostly pennies near the play area.

I had a little more luck once I got into the open flat area a little further South.  The only good find of the night was this little silver ring.  It looks like it may have been homemade.  I see the melt spot on the bottom of the ring where the loop was joined.  It has no hallmark, but the metal detector tells me it is silver.

Last night I dug 3 signals that I would often ignore when I am coin shooting.  Each one had a VDI of 28 on my E-Trac, which is between a nickel and a penny.  Each target turned out to be a nickel with another coin, interesting.

Well, as you probably know it is not always about the finding.  I think of metal detecting like fishing.  Fishing does not mean catching, although it is usually more fun when you are catching.  Sometimes it is about the food afterwards.  Last night it was a loaded JDawg.

Back To Community Park with Dad

Since I had some good results at Community Park, Dad and I decided to go back and see what else we could find.  Here are our finds, including the screwdriver.  Mine are on the right and Dad's are on the left.

My best finds were a silver CTR ring and a silver Star of David pendant.  Also of note a 1956 wheat penny and a SWP Cover the World token/coin?  The token was smooth on the other side.  I could not find a similar token when I googled it.

Dad was wondering if his knee would work.  It did.

He managed to find more dimes and quarters than me, plus he found 2 rings and a trafalga token.