Tykit
Sr. Member
Avoid digging a plug for all those iffy pulltab signals. All targets in photo were pulled out of soft soil down to 7" deep, and they came out easy. This modified bread knife works great in parks grass soft soil areas, won't penetrate dry hard soil. Makes a slit in the grass, needs a little practice to get the hang of it. Just push knife straight down and pull toward you and up, (not straight up). With accurate pinpointing some of the pulltabs and other junk seen here was snagged with the first swipe. Made from a Farberware 8" bread knife, not a knife with a long tapered point. Use a Dremel tool with metal cutting discs to cut notches in the blade, needs 7 or 8 notches. I made it for pulltab/rings signals, but was shocked when I saw what else it could pull out. Junk in the photo was pulled out during a two hour test search. It was tried on just a few coin signals and it pulled them out too, but I would use my regular digging tool when searching for old coins. The handle needs to be beefed up for a good grip when pushing down into soil, drill out the aluminum rivets to bolt on handle grip.
Thanx for sharing your very innovative idea for a retrieval tool with the members. As you say, when used only on the real iffy targets, looks like it does the job. 
I can see, going through say, a small junky area, looking first for all the junk to pull out with this tool. Then go back over the same ground, looking this time only for the good sounds on your next pass, to recover with your normal retrieval tool. 
