Metal Detector for Turners

[Donovan Bailey]

I am amazed at the depth of experience on this forum. Anybody have any advice/recommendations on a good metal detector for the log blank cutting process? I just ruined a saw chain and put some serious dents in my gouge dealing with nails in a chunk of walnut that was too pretty to give up on. That is the second time that I have done this (I'm a slow learner) so I thought that I should check with you pros on a workable detector solution. Thank goodness I have not had nail bandsaw miseries yet...but I think that too is inevitable.

 

[Damon McLaughlin]

Donovan,

I use this metal detector. Its inexpensive and I have found it to work quite well even after two years of using it. It has a low and high setting and the sensitivity can be adjusted with a small screwdriver.

 

[n7bsn]

I have one similar to Damon, they work, EXCEPT, they miss anything deep in the wood.
Mine missed a 12p spike whose head was about 4 inches below the bark.

 

[John Turpin]

I bought a $20 metal detector wand off Amazon and it works fine. As a matter of fact, the other day I accidentally threw out a big allen wrench in my shavings. When I noticed that it was missing, I knew that it was in the giant pile of shavings that I'd dumped in the woods behind my shop. I remembered the metal detector and found that wrench in about 15 seconds.

 

[Doug Rasmussen]

A few years back a local guy got involved in importing exotic woods from areas where the Viet Nam war was fought. Last i heard he gave up the project because the wood had so many bullets and metal embedded in it.

 

[Gerald Lawrence]

This is the one I have , but have only used for flatwork and not used for turning blanks. I think it may only get 2 inches deep at the max.
https://www.amazon.com/Little-Wizar...pID=41AZ2qxn-cL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

 

[Mike Johnson]

For deeper detection of metal you usually need a larger coil that is designed for sensing the metal to deeper depths. A smaller coil usually limits the depth of sensing metal objects. A small hand held wand may miss certain metals deeper inside a tree trunk, whereas a larger coil would pickup metals buried to a deeper depth inside the tree trunk. You also want a detector that can cycle between ferrous and non-ferrous metals or have a design that picks up both types of metals.