5/10/18 Report - Answering a Very Common Question. Titanium and Space Debris.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

Metal Glob Found On Beach
How can you tell if it is titanium?

There are a few questions that I get all the time.  One question that I get a lot is about those shiny globs of metal found on the beach that look like melted aluminum.  It could be aluminum but it could also be something else.

Sometimes space debris falls on the beach or in the ocean.  People often want to know if their shiny piece of metal could be a piece of space debris.

It can be difficult to say for sure,but there are tests that you can do to tell if a piece might be titanium or aluminum.  I once wrote about that a long time ago, but since I still get the question and have more information now, I decided to address the question again.

Here are some quick tips that can help you decide what you have.

There are some easy tests to get started.  Titanium is not magnetic, so if a magnet sticks to it, it is not titanium.  However, aluminum is normally not magnetic either.  So that is only a beginner.

When it comes to telling titanium from aluminum, titanium is about twice as heavy as aluminum and much harder than aluminum.  If you use a metal file, aluminum will come off in small globs, but titanium will not.  It is relatively easy to scratch a mark on aluminum.

If you file down beyond the surface metal, the newly exposed surface of titanium will darker than a similar piece of aluminum.

If you used a rotary grinder on a piece of titanium, the sparks will be a blue-white color.

Here is a link to a web site that will give you more detail on these and other tests for testing titanium and other metals.

http://mrtitanium.info/2008/03/17/how-to-tell-if-a-piece-of-metal-is-really-titanium/


Titanium is used for a lot of applications these days. Everything from wheelchairs and bicycles to parts for rockets and wedding rings are made with titanium. If you find a ring that doesn't test gold or silver, it might be titanium.

Titanium isn't a very expensive metal. You can find current prices online.

Big pieces of space debris are occasionally found too.  Here is a link to an article about space debris including the above tank from the space shuttle Columbia that landed in Texas.

https://www.space.com/12518-space-shuttle-columbia-debris-texas.html

In 2015 a large piece of what looks like a piece of a Galileo rocket was found on the beach in Fort Lauderdale.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/fl-lauderdale-rocket-debris-20150802-story.html

And in January of 2018 a part of a SpaceX rocket was found in South Carolina.

http://www.ibtimes.com/spacex-rocket-debris-found-south-carolina-amid-zuma-payload-mystery-photo-2641243

You never know what you might find, so it always helps to be able to test it out.

Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

5/17/11 Report - Working the Beach in the Crashing Surf

Titanium from Challenger.

This piece is different from many of the other pieces of titanium that I've found. Many of the others were smooth and rounded. This one looks like it was blasted. One thing I noticed is that it tests like gold, testing between 14 and 18k. I wonder if titanium should do that, or if maybe my acid is going bad or something.

I just realized that I found an Ice Age fossil and a piece of space debris within yards of each other on the same day.

A lot of people probably don't care about either space debris or fossils. Different people like different things. I tend to like a lot of different types of things.


Yesterday I mentioned that I might give some tips on working the rough water when the surf is crashing on the front beach. It is not easy and there are some dangers in doing it, but it can be done. I've done a lot of it.

Caution: If you choose to try to following you can easily damage or lose your equipment or get hurt. Proceed with due caution and only at your own risk.

To help avoid damaging your coil, be sure the coil is not exposed to too much force. And of course, your coil must be waterproof. Your entire detector should be waterproof because water can splash up or you can get knocked off of your feet. Don't even try this unless you know what you are doing and you and your equipment are up to it.

A lot of people don't work the wet sand area because they get false signals. There are a number of things you can do to minimize that. The detector manufacturers will often tell you to turn down your sensitivity. I don't do that. Instead I operate in pin-point or all-metals mode. Operating in those modes you will hear some of the changes in salt mineralization, but that is OK. You can learn to distinguish between actual targets and changes in salt mineralization.

Another thing you can do is to slow down your sweep speed and sweep parallel to the shoreline instead of perpendicular to the water line.

If you haven't worked the moving shallow water on the front beach before, avoid going into rough water. Stay where the water comes and goes more quietly. You can work up and down the slope venturing farther out towards the ocean as the water recedes and then working back up the slope as the next wave or surge comes in. You'll find that the waves are irregular - sometimes building and going further up the beach and sometimes backing off for a while. You can work in and out with those changes.

Try to avoid dipping your coil in and out of the water. Try to either keep it submersed in a few inches of water or just an inch or so above the water. Going in and out can cause false signals and will stress your coil more.

The angle of the coil can make a big difference. Swiftly moving water can really put a lot of force on your coil. Keep the coil so you can easily cut through the water. If the coil must come out of the water, angle the coil so that it slides out smoothly, rather than picking it up and down abruptly.

If you are on a slopping beach and the water is moving in and out with some force, when you get a signal, turn your back to the water, pin point the target, place one foot an inch or so down hill from the target.

That reminds me of something else that I want to interject here. If the water is moving with a lot of force, you might need some foot wear to protect your feet and legs from rocks that are being thrown around by the water. A rock hitting a shin or ankle bone can really hurt. And a wave hitting you when your are off balance and don't expect it, can easily knock you down.

Back to the target. There are two reasons to place your foot by the target. One is to mark the target. You can easily lose the exact spot when water, stones and shells are rushing by, and you don't want to make it any harder than necessary to recover a target under those conditions.

Looking down at a spot while the water and everything rushes by makes some people dizzy. Again, be careful.

The other reason for having your foot close to the spot, is if the target is near the surface and the water is moving with good force, you should be in a position to quickly place your foot on the target to keep the target from moving. That generally works. The same thing applies if you have taken a scoop or two and don't yet have the target in your scoop.

If the water is moving with a lot of force, you can easily loose the target to the rushing water. When you put your foot on the target, in pin-point mode, keep sweeping your coil quickly over your foot to keep track of the target in case it does move. If the water moves it, you can often track it and put your foot on it again before it is lost.

Another reason for putting your back to the water is when you push your scoop into the sand, the water rushing back down the slope will push the material into your scoop and help sift the sand through your scoop. Sometimes the water will sift the scoop for you without shaking the scoop or anything, but sometimes you'll end up with a scoop full of rocks or shells.

Again, this can be dangerous if the water is moving forcefully and you are inexperienced. Don't try it until you are sure you have worked up to it. Begin in slightly moving water until you have mastered the process. I know one person that lost her detector to the ocean, and another that lost a nice long handled scoop.


The results of the most recent survey are now in. A little over one third of those responding are from the Treasure Coast area (35%), 45% are from other areas of Florida, 45%, and 30% from other areas of the United States, few of them being from the southeast US. And of the course the remainder are from outside the continental US.

That sounds pretty reasonable. While I might have expected the majority to be from the Treasure Coast, the Treasure Coast is not a heavily populated area, and those outside of the Treasure Coast area might want to keep an eye on the Treasure Coast to see when it might be worth making a trip.

There is a large number of respondents from outside of Florida. I often hear from snowbirds from the northeast who either have winter homes in Florida or who visit Florida during the winter months. Many of them like to keep up on the news about treasure hunting and the Treasure Coast beaches.

It is clear that this blog brings a lot of attention to the Treasure Coast and our famous shipwreck beaches. (My hit counter is over 180,000 now, and all of that is without any publicity efforts other than the availability of the blog. I don't do facebook, make offers to exchange links or any of that stuff.)


Treasure Coast Beach Forecast and Conditions.

The wind is still from the west and the seas running down around a foot. It looks like things will remain that way for a few days, at least if the surf web sites are correct.

The water is calm enough for easy water hunting. There are some swells in the shallow water, but nothing you can't easily bob with.

I've mentioned before that you can work even rough water if you learn how to just go with the flow, and my post today might have opened up a new area for you to detect.

A lot of the beaches now have a sand bar real close to the beach and during low tide the swells will cut down. And there is the dip between the sand bar and the beach that might be real calm during low tide. Those dips differ. Very often they are too shallow and filled with loose sand and shells. Sometimes though, they can be very productive. You can quickly sample the dips to see if it is worth your time or not.

Remember, hunting in the water in leased areas is not legal. I've posted a lot about where those leases are in the past. You might want to use the blog search box to find rules and regulations for water detecting.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

1/28/2011 - Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster 25 Years Ago Today & Pieces Still Being Found

One Nice Cut on a Treasure Coast Beach.

This cut was about three feet high and went for a few hundred yards. It was at least a few days old.

Yesterday I took a look at three different beaches. I saw detectorists at all three, but all three of them were near the beach access. The cut shown in the photo above was a good distance from a beach access and I saw no one there.

Most detectorists hit the same old over-hunted spots over and over again. Yes, any of those good spots could become productive over night, but when conditions are not changing you might do better trying some new areas. It is a good idea to hunt proven areas, but sometimes you should invest some time in exploration.


The space shuttle Challenger disaster occurred 25 years ago today. How time flies! It's not subject to gravity. Actually I think it might be - in a way.

It seems people are still finding pieces of melted metal on the Treasure Coast beaches that might have came from the Challenger. Some have been reported recently.

You might want to go back to my 3/26/2010 post where one of this blog's readers, who had some pieces that he found tested by NASA, told how to test those pieces of metal.

Of course you can also use the blog's search box to find posts mentioning space shuttle finds.

I don't think people use the search box enough. There are over two years of posts in this blog now.

Now back to the topic that I began at the beginning of this post. There are definitely some spots where coins tend to wash up (or out) whenever conditions are good, but when beach conditions haven't changed significantly for a while, there is very little use of everybody hunting the same ground over and over a thousand times.

I don't mind hunting behind people - even a lot of people - when conditions are good. But when conditions are not so good and haven't changed for a while, it might be better scout around a bit.

I often refer to cuts as being either "fresh" or "stale." A relatively new cut with a crisp bottom edge is what I call a fresh cut. And of course a stale cut would be an older cut that is starting to collapse of fill in. And a stale cut would also be a cut that has probably already been hunted at least a few times.

Fresh cuts are generally more desirable. But sometimes there aren't any. In that case a stale cut might be better than a newly filled beach - especially if it was producing when it was fresh. Things can be missed, and things can fall out of the deteriorating bank.

Again, I don't mind hunting where others have already hunted. Take note of any clues you might see that would tell you how the previous hunters hunted, and do something different.

If an area is especially promising, I like to cover an area using more than one type of detector. All detectors have their own strengths and weaknesses and one will find what another misses. Of course, different people hunt differently too. In the past I've talked a bit about how to tell what the previous detectorists did or didn't do.

I talked to a few guys on the beaches lately that were saying that they were thinking of getting an Excalibur. They all had what I would call very good detectors. And even though the Excal is a very good detector, I don't think they'll see much improvement over what they already had.

When people aren't finding much, they tend to blame their detector - or at least start to wonder if another detector would help them find more. In most case, I would say, "Maybe a little, but not much." In many cases, I don't think there would be much improvement at all.

If you are concerned about money, and who isn't, I'd advise trying to test any detector before buying a new one. You might be surprised to learn that your present detector does just as well as the one you haven't yet tried. A dollar saved is a dollar found.

It seems that the Excal is now one of the most common detectors used on the Treasure Coast. Ten and twenty years ago, Garrett detectors seemed to be the favorite.

I personally don't put a lot of emphasis on which detector is best. Like I said, they all have their strengths and weaknesses. I look at detectors something like golf clubs. Pick the right one for the situation. And learn to use the one you have. I would say that a lot of people have good detectors but they aren't always using it to best advantage.

I've mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. When I started detecting, I used a Fisher 1280. It was and still is a good detector. I used it for quite a while and it paid for itself in clad coins alone the first year. But at first I thought that women didn't lose many gold rings, because I found a lot more men's rings. What I later learned is that just as many women lose gold rings. The thing is, I was using discrimination at first, and as a result, only finding the bigger rings. I tell you that to emphasize the fact that how you use your detector is just as important as what detector you use.


I ran across a nice web site the other day showing some neat pictures of the Hallaton Treasure.

You might want to take a look. I enjoyed studying the artifacts.

http://www.leics.gov.uk/index/leisure_tourism/museums/harboroughmuseum/treasure/treasure_finds.htm


Forecast and Conditions.

I've already talked about this. Current beach conditions are poor. However, if you take a long walk, you can probably find some cuts to hunt.

The wind is out of the northwest and the seas are calm. It looks like the ocean will remain calm until next week. That means that conditions won't be changing much until then.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net