How to build a Metal Detecting Test Bed.

Intro: 

Hey Everybody. Welcome! To Episode 72 of the metal detecting show podcast. My Name is Ciaran and I have been Metal Detecting for nearly 30 Years. This week I want to talk about your test bed do you have one do you intend to get one and wait  till I tell you about the one I am planning on building.

Music

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Content:

Hey Everyone welcome to the podcast,  I hope you have had a great week whether your were hunting or not last week. 

So I got out beech detecting this week with the equinox but alas nothing major found and to be honest the amount of people on the beach forced me to pack it in early due to crowd of  kids following me about and the amount of parents thinking that’s ok while they lay back soaking up the sun.

So this week I want to talk to you about your test bed do you have one you might call it a finds bed  or a mini test bed whatever way you address it is a way for you to test your detectors setting on known object buried in the ground and I suppose that is the why you would want one to help you learn your detector sometimes I like to think of it like running through your basic football drills each week making sure your skills are share or in this case your ear is sharp. Test beds were developed I suppose in a era where we didn’t have a VDI to memorise but had to turn or ear to the tones created by certain targets that’s not to say there is no need today for one but that’s what there first function was. 

Your test bed is a very personnel thing as you set it up based on where you hunt plus what you hunt for. Most are set up in your back garden so are only used by you it would be very rare for a communal test bed to be set up unless you were part of a club.

Normally to set one up in your back garden you will need a few square yards of land to do this but if you were like me growing up and space for a test bed was limited you can use a plastic bucket with one or two targets in it in fact I used to have two buckets one with sand  and one with soil but to be honest in this situation you are just one step up from air testing you detector so even though I liked the idea of the test bucket it didn’t really serve me well till I actually built a proper bed in my back garden but if that’s all you got to work with then that’s all you got. 

So like I said you will need a few square yards of land to set up your test bed. When acquired you take about 16 -  20 targets ensuring that at least 50% of your targets are trash and for me that’s ring pulls, nails and bottle tops. Your good  targets must then be specific to what you are searching for like for me it’s a gold ring gold earring’s similar in silver and with the  remaining 4 slots taken up with modern coinage for you if you were a field detectorist you would replace my gold targets with hammered coins for example  and silver jewellery for silver coins you get the idea. 

How do you lay out your targets I laid mine out with each of my good  targets paired with some trash close by not to close to cause masking but close enough that I can make sure to hit both in one swing if needed to test for response and sensitivity.  

I have also buried all my targets at varying depths between 6 and 10 inches with some small trash at depth to allow me tune these out via sensitivity.  Is it perfect for me no because its laid out in soil when the majority of my detecting is on a beach so  it is not a perfect facsimile of my hunting grounds. 

There are a few gotchas to look out for when creating your bed  the first one being make sure to map it out on a piece of paper when you create it because till you know it inside out from memory you will never be sure it your hitting the ring pull or the gold ring. 

Make sure to water the hole when you place the target in this will ensure there is no air present in the hole with the target and effectively bed it in more effectively. If fact your bed will behave differently as it ages as the more time that passes the better an analogue of real conditions your bed will become. Also under the same heading of bedding in you need to be aware that you will not be able to replicate what your detector will behave like due to halo effect so don’t expect that to be covered but that might be a great experiment to do can you replicate halo effect. Anyways onto the next gotch

Lay your targets at various angles or at least make sure to not lay them all at 180 degrees or  90 degrees again as that doesn’t represent real life. 

Like I said previously your test bed is a very personnel thing so go to town. 

Wrap Up 

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Once again, I hope you have enjoyed this episode and we will chat to you all again next week. 

Get out there eyes down and Happy Hunting.