One Team Metals
Mode: Surface scanTwo-shot check
Photograph the same spot twice in different light: once in sun (or torch on), once in shade (or torch off). Hold the phone in the same place. Spots that stay gold-coloured in both are steady, like real gold. Spots that only flash in one are usually mica, pyrite or glare.
Lower it if yellow soil or sunlight lights up everything.
What this reading means
The scan circles spots with the colour of gold. It can't tell gold from look-alikes, so every circled spot is a candidate, not a confirmed find. Pyrite ("fool's gold"), mica flakes and brass all show up too.
Confirm before you celebrate
- Shade test: shade the spot with your hand. Gold stays buttery yellow from every angle. Mica and pyrite only flash in direct light.
- Pin test: press it with a pin. Gold is soft and dents or flattens. Pyrite is hard and brittle and shatters.
- Streak test: rub it on unglazed white tile. Gold leaves a yellow streak, pyrite a greenish-black one.
- Polariser test: with a clip-on polarising filter, start the camera, tap Polariser check and slowly turn the filter. Mica, quartz and water dim; metal keeps its shine.
- Magnet test: gold ignores a magnet. If it jumps, it's iron.
What this reading means
The scan circles spots with the colour you picked. Colour alone can't identify a gem, so every circle is a candidate. Clear stones such as diamond, topaz and quartz have no colour to detect, so the scan can't find them.
Confirm before you celebrate
- Torch test: shine your torch into the side of the stone. Gems glow with colour from inside. Opaque rock, painted chips and most dirt don't.
- Hardness test: ruby and sapphire (both corundum) scratch quartz easily. Garnet and glass struggle to.
- Magnet test: dangle a strong neodymium magnet on a thread. Many red garnets pull towards it; ruby barely reacts.
- UV test: under a longwave UV torch, many rubies glow a strong red. Garnets and red glass usually don't.
- Get it checked: a qualified gemmologist can confirm a stone quickly and cheaply before you get it valued.
For the small plug-in pinpointer circuit. It senses any metal, gold, silver and platinum included, and tells iron apart from everything else.
Left brings iron near the coil, right brings non-ferrous metal near.
Reading the result
Non-ferrous: not iron, so it's worth digging. Gold, silver and platinum are all in this group, but so are brass, aluminium, lead and copper, so confirm with a magnet, acid kit or weight test.
Iron: nails, wire and ironstone. Usually skip it.
Range is a few centimetres, so it's best for checking a spot the camera flagged, or pinpointing inside a hole.
Blue dot is you. Shaded areas are your permitted sites.
Log a find
Permitted sites
Drag the ground to sweep the coil. Position 5.0 m
Sweep slowly. A rising signal that peaks in one spot is worth digging.
Higher gain also amplifies ground noise.
WA ironstone soil gives false signals until the balance matches the ground.