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You know why you no see?
Posted by Bruce Small on November 23, 2021 at 2:53 amDecades ago I had the privilege of watching The Great Slydini do his paper ball trick, where the ball would disappear right in front of the audience volunteer. Slydini would say, “You know why you no see? Because you no watch. Watch!”
I thought of him when I uncovered an open pipe lot corner that hasn’t seen the light of day in probably 60 years. I could see where other surveyors had scraped the dirt away, found nothing, and pronounced it “not found.” Repeatedly. A metal detector was no use because of the chain link fence. I found it by doing something astonishing: I got out the pickax, dug down past the asphalt and more dirt, and there it was, waiting patiently to be found.
You know why you no find it? Because you no look. Look! (and actually dig).
nate-the-surveyor replied 2 years, 3 months ago 27 Members · 39 Replies- 39 Replies
3 trillion attaboy’s are duly awarded for your superior approach to the world of surveying basics.
You are absolutely right. You won’t see what you do not look for.
I saw Slydini on the Dick Cavett Show decades ago, and was pretty impressed with that trick.
Chain link fences are a pain in the arse, and I have no doubt that I’ve failed to find monuments near them when I didn’t have a very well-defined search area.
thanks Jim – that was great!
??You know why you no find it? Because you no look. Look! (and actually dig).?
Amen brother. I hopefully have one waiting for me at the inside corner of a chain link fence. There is a tall skinny rebar nearby with a broken wood stake. I have computed the corner to be between the rebar and the fence corner. Like you said, the metal detector is of no use in these situations. I will dig so that I may find.
I am nominating this as the post of the month.
Nate
A former employee often took the stance that a difficult pin was gone. He would explain how the ground looked disturbed or some other excuse to justify not looking thoroughly.
Drove me crazy!
I think that believing you will find the corner goes a long way in finding the corner.
- Posted by: @bruce-small
Decades ago I had the privilege of watching The Great Slydini do his paper ball trick, where the ball would disappear right in front of the audience volunteer. Slydini would say, “You know why you no see? Because you no watch. Watch!”
I thought of him when I uncovered an open pipe lot corner that hasn’t seen the light of day in probably 60 years. I could see where other surveyors had scraped the dirt away, found nothing, and pronounced it “not found.” Repeatedly. A metal detector was no use because of the chain link fence. I found it by doing something astonishing: I got out the pickax, dug down past the asphalt and more dirt, and there it was, waiting patiently to be found.
You know why you no find it? Because you no look. Look! (and actually dig).
i have found many like this, just tell your client an armadillo must of been there the night before and dug up half your yard.
- Posted by: @jim-frame
Chain link fences are a pain in the arse,
So are railroad beds…especially when the corner you’re searching for IS a railroad spike…*facepalm*
T. Nelson – SAM, LLC @jim-frame Amen, brutha!
I’m guessing finding a monument without a pin-finder is becoming one of the “lost arts” that plague our profession. I remember a silent hand gesture made by the party chief designating a rectangular area he wished to be searched.
The tool used was usually governed by the soil conditions. Shovels, spades, grubbin’ hoes (a maddox for you that are educated) and even single-bit axes are all acceptable. The art is producing a pattern and depth in which nothing can escape detection. It’s a Zen thing. Sort of like kick-starting a motorcycle, you have to expect results. Expecting failure will result in such.
In the words of a wise old surveyor, “If you’re not finding anything you’re either looking in the wrong place or not digging deep enough.”
- Posted by: @paden-cash
In the words of a wise old surveyor, “If you’re not finding anything you’re either looking in the wrong place or not digging deep enough.”
I think Deral Paulk once posted “The truth is in the dirt”.
Amen to that, Brother Cash.
Fellow called this morning saying he couldn’t find the bars from a survey I did for his adjoiner six years ago. Wondering if I could tell him precisely from memory where to find them.
@paden-cash Why didn’t you just say that a shovel is the most important tool in the truck?
As for pin finders and fences, way back when I was a survey pup I was fortunate to have a party chief show me how to search for pins near fences with a Schonstedt. He showed me how to lay the pin finder on the ground perpendicular to the fence and slide it back and forth through/under the fence. There is a “sweet spot” approx. 1 to 2 inches from the bottom. With a little practice one can pick out the sound of the hidden pin from the interference from the fence.
A few years ago, I flabbergasted a couple of young surveyors by finding what they couldn’t. The corner was a No. 3 rebar driven through a tree stump root next to a fence corner of a cemetery. They had never learned patience by trying to find a pin with a dip needle so they quit way before they should have.
Anyone else use this technique?
@gene-kooper Sure have, the change in tone is the clue. I use a Schonstedt GA-72, which has a polarity display, and if you lay it flat and run along the fence the polarity will switch from positive to negative, along with a tone change, as you pass over a pipe.
I also worked for a crew chief who would to tell us to dig until we saw the backside of a China man, found a lot of monuments that others didn’t with that saying in my head.
Just had this exact scenario with a chain link fence causing the Schonstedt to scream here recently. But the corner was a 50+ yr old ECM according to the recorded maps (the deeds described only points in their calls which had me worried). I was frustrated & frozen after about 30 mins of searching for this one (plus a snappy call from my wife about getting home to help with the kids). But I was lucky enough to literally kick the ground near the calc??d area for my search next to this fence. My steel toe bruised my toenail pretty bad when the toe of the sole of my boot caught a buried portion of the destroyed concrete monument in the one area that I had failed to look but it was worth it
The pin-pointer metal detector is a great tool for searching near and under chain-link fences. The Whites pin pointer that I used had a function to set the range of detection. If you could get below the chain link 4″ for instance you could set the range at that distance and search under the fence. It only had a maximum range of about 9″ but I found many a monument with it, and a shovel!
The truth is that if you expect to find a monument you will find it a great majority of the time.
- Posted by: @paden-cash
In the words of a wise old surveyor, “If you’re not finding anything you’re either looking in the wrong place or not digging deep enough.”
I dug a three foot deep hole in the middle of a dirt road once. Found nothing. It might have been at 3.5 feet, but I hit my limit. I often wonder about that hole, 3 feet deep and about that in diameter. It was certainly less compact when I got done. I wonder what happened when it rained, is a car stuck in there right now?
-All thoughts my own, except my typos and when I am wrong. I was working with one of my mentors back in my green horn days. We did our initial traverse with a 30″ K & E optical transit with me running the gun and found very little in our first go around. The deed called for a stone on every corner, some of them were in the woods and the others in the open fields of a farm that was tilled and worked since the date of the 100 year old+ deed.
I sat with him after hours while he worked on the ole Wang calculating out and balancing the traverse as he kept looking at me saying, “man, I know they are there, I just know they are”. We had 3 field crews back then (early 80’s). When we all showed up the following day, he sat us all down, explained that he “knows” the stones in the woods had to still be there because of the maturity of the trees, handed us radial stakeout sheets and put a six pack bounty on every stone.
We progressed up the line leap frogging with one crew searching for one, another crew searching for the next and the third crew searching ahead of that eith each crew digging 2′ deep, 10′ in diameter from the search point, and, by the end of the day, after shoveling allot of yards of dirt, we found most of them. We came back from the field at the end of the day that Friday and there was two cold cases of beer waiting for us to consume in old school Surveyor fashion.
The property was ultimately developed by Toll Brothers with an 18 hole golf course and a large residential subdivision. Every time I pass that property, it takes me back to, “man, I know they are there”. Fond memories of a lost art not instilled in the younger generations.
Once you have found a second one, you are halfway there, no matter how many you are seeking. Narrowing down the search zone helps the attitude a great deal.
Just before I got my license I worked for a utility company for a couple of years. A couple of the party chiefs were mostly worthless (lifers who didn’t care). We were looking for a section corner at the intersection of two County roads and got a good signal. The two crew members started chiseling and the PC would wave the wand and say “keep digging.” We opened a hole maybe 2.5′ wide and 3′ deep then finally unearthed a chunk of heavy scrap metal. No more signal. We started to backfill the hole and the PC told us to stop. He went to the survey rig and grabbed more scrap iron, spikes, and whatnot and threw them in the bottom. He then said “fill it up and pack it good. The next surveyor will find even more junk than we did (we?).” Those PC’s taught me a lot about things to not do if I wanted to be a good surveyor, including not being a jerk.
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