The Ring Finders Blog | Page 1000 of 1068

I received a call from a young man named Eric on Wednesday. He said he lost his

wedding band the holiday weekend before. He said he was in the water at a lake and throwing a football when he felt his ring come off.

Some of the problems were he was in 5 feet of water and he was in another state 190 miles away. So on this Saturday I made the 3 hour drive with a map showing the general location of his ring.

I searched for around two hours going from the deep water to shallow. I finally got a perfect solid gold hit on the CTX3030, it showed 12-14 at zero inches  in waist deep water.

It was his ring! So glad I could find his ring for this young couple.

Good luck to all of the ring finders out there.

Norm Slaymaker

Lost Diamond Wedding Ring Marble Falls, Texas

Recently traveled 3 1.2 hours up to Marble Falls, Texas  for an underwater recovery job to find my Excalibur was non-operational (busted)

I prepared as always carrying two of everything, batteries, pin pointers, masks, tools, you get the picture. The fact is a lot of work goes into preparing for an underwater recovery, everything I am sure you already understand.

I powered on the Excalibur and immediately noticed something was wrong. I immediately thought, how could the battery be dead, I charged both the primary and secondary battery prior to making the trip to Marble Falls. I thought to myself that’s really weird, and climbed out of the water to retrieve my back-up battery. I mounted the second battery and the presence of silence through the head phones was a shattering disappointment.

I spent a few minutes trying to identify what was wrong when I bumped the battery wire and heard tones through the head phones. A closer examination revealed I was up a creek with no paddle.

I immediately realized that the battery power cable had come loose from its internal coupler and was shorting out. I must admit, I became very upset seeing that the wire was not really held into the coupler with anything more than a mere crimping of the coupler. It seemed improbable that a machine this well
built and designed for underwater operations could have this type of manufacturing design

It’s interesting that all the other cable ends have cable guards/protectors but the most exposed wire on the machine uses a simple crimp to hold it in place?

Excalibur is back at Minelab, while my client is awaiting my return.

Working on a solution, may end up transition the Excalibur to an Anderson Shaft.

If you operate an Excalibur check this cable frequently.

I was searching in a quarry on snorkel as I was not allowed to dive there on scuba.

I found 2 pennies, 2 nails, 2 can pop tops & 1 ring.

Juan called me around 5pm as I was driving home and asked for help finding his fiancee’s engagement ring. It seems she was talked into going in the surf against her better judgement, and her ring slipped from her finger in thigh deep water. When I arrived, I met the couple and they showed me the approximate search area. At that point the tide had been coming in for about an hour since it’s loss but I figured I’d give it a try anyway. After searching for a couple of hours and high tide approaching, I called it a day but told them I’d be back the next afternoon at low tide. They are to be married soon so failure was not an option. Added to that was the fact that they were leaving town and heading back to Houston in two days! I made it back to the site about an hour before low tide and after contacting Juan, began my grid pattern in the wet sand and out into the shallow surf. I thought I had found it a couple of times but the signals turned out to be other targets mimicing her ring. After about 45 minutes to an hour another strong “gold” sound hit my headphones and sure enough, it was this beautiful ring you see here. Juan got to make the fun phone call to his fiancee and we both enjoyed the moment. Now that we got the ring back, you’re officially engaged again! It was a pleasure to meet you both and thank you for the reward.

Three weeks ago Melissa W. and her husband Dan were visiting her dad in Williamston, MI. His home has a pond on some acreage where the dogs run and play and the family gathers for a warm summer time swim. While swimming in the half acre pond, Melissa was in the deep part of the pond (about 7 to 8 feet deep) when her dog swam by and knocked her rings off her finger. She has swam in Jamaica, in lakes in the Carolina’s and in the river where she lives in Maryland and has never had a problem with her rings coming loose but this was just a freak accident.

Melissa and Dan searched for the rings in the clay bottom pond to no avail. When she went back to Maryland she located the ring finders web page and found my name in the directory. Three weeks have past and Melissa and Dan are about to come back to Michigan from their home in Maryland for the holiday, she gave me a call Thursday Aug 29th and asked for my help. I arranged with my friend who has a Hookah and told her we would be there Saturday morning. There are times when a ring finder needs a little help from his friends and that was now. Chuck R. and Dave B. came to my aid to help dive in the pond. After about an hour of searching the area where Melissa thought it was lost Dave got a hit and found a ring, he knew there were connecting rings so he got another hit about a foot away and recovered the other one. With a raised hand and rings on his pinky finger he walked out of the pond. Melissa put her hands to her mouth in happy amazement and put the rings on her finger. The engagement ring was given to her by her grandmother and the two wedding rings were connected together and interlocked into the engagement ring. So the holiday weekend began with a very happy couple and the family can again go swimming in the pond and the dogs can run on the acreage but this time Melissa’s ring will stay in the house.

It was my pleasure to serve you and thank you for the generous reward. By the way the HOOKAH is an under water breathing apparatus.

Joel H. emailed me Thursday Aug 29 to find out if I could look for a ring that he lost while playing in the water with his 7 year old daughter. Millennium Park is usually off limits for metal detecting so I told him we would have to get permission from the park ranger. Joel made a few calls and Friday morning 8am we were at the park ready to search for his ring. He had pretty much narrowed the search area after loosing his ring he counted the swim buoys and looked back at the beach so he knew where it should be.

I set up some grid markers and began the  search after going from shore to about chest deep a couple of times I got a good signal and took a big scoop of sand and as it was coming to the top I could see a glint of gold as the sand was sifting through my scoop. I picked out the size 13 gold wedding band and asked Joel if that was it. The smile on his face explained it all.

I want to thank Roger and his rangers for allowing us to search the water. As I detect I also pick out any trash from the water and recovered a few pull tabs, bobby pins, a battery and a couple pairs of sunglasses.

I got a text this morning from Tina O. on my way to find a ring in Coloma, MI. The text read “Mother passed on Monday, fathers birthday is tomorrow, he lost his wedding ring last winter”. I texted her back and asked where, in water or land? she told me the ring was lost while changing a truck transmission after a breakdown in a church parking lot. The church location was near my home so when I got back from a successful search in Coloma I called her and met her at the church.

A year had gone by since the loss, snow was plowed and grass was cut. I used my Fisher F75 and searched the grass alongside the parking lot for about 5 parking spaces then I turned and moved over and went back and now on my third three feet wide swing I got a faint signal so I used my Garrett Pin Pointer and got a good signal. This was a well manicured lawn so I didn’t want to dig too much so I dug a small hole and 2 inches down there it was. Tina and I gave each other a big hug and she looked at me in amazement and tears in her eyes said, thank you.

I took a picture of the ring and the shaded location by the church. After taking Tina’s picture I asked her to go home and take a picture of Troy holding the ring. This is a great birthday gift to a good man who has recently lost the woman of his life. I hope this will be a small returned token to remember a loving relationship that started so long ago.