Nice find!

One of our favorite pastimes use to be throwing and sticking them in the dirt, trees, and snakes.

I have a 'magic box' of useful tools that I carry during boundary surveys. It has 3 chaining pins in it. Also have a shorty in my leather pouch (next to a plumb bob).
It seems nobody carries anything these days...

When I'm bench mark hunting I use orange handle screwdrivers as chaining pins and deadman pin. Easy to find later.

I found a machete that one of our crew members left stuck in a stump about 15 years prior. I knew who left it since there was that one guy that left something at every job.

...And somwhere a deed doesn't close by 33'...;);):bacon::avocado:

Stacy Carroll, post: 396114, member: 150 wrote: I found a machete that one of our crew members left stuck in a stump about 15 years prior. I knew who left it since there was that one guy that left something at every job.

Did he finally change professions after he lost his shirt in the survey business.
(hmmm....there's a joke in there somewhere, but I'm not sure I delivered it well)

lmbrls, post: 396027, member: 6823 wrote: One of our favorite pastimes use to be throwing and sticking them in the dirt, trees, and snakes.

I had a old Party chief who could throw a machete thru a stop sign. That never got old!

Stacy Carroll, post: 396114, member: 150 wrote: I found a machete that one of our crew members left stuck in a stump about 15 years prior. I knew who left it since there was that one guy that left something at every job.

I retire all my equipment to a spot deep in the woods. I like to leave stuff for the next surveyor to find.

thebionicman, post: 396047, member: 8136 wrote: I have a 'magic box' of useful tools that I carry during boundary surveys. It has 3 chaining pins in it. Also have a shorty in my leather pouch (next to a plumb bob).
It seems nobody carries anything these days...

Shorty? Short handle machete?

It's a chaining pin cut a little short. That keeps it from going through the seat of the truck when you sit down...

Second-Generation, post: 396524, member: 1477 wrote: I retire all my equipment to a spot deep in the woods. I like to leave stuff for the next surveyor to find.

I like this idea. I have a Leica TCR 305 that I bought when I hung out a shingle. Both displays are unreadable and not replaceable and it's frame is corroded. It's identical replacement is a little better. So next time I'm at a marker that I don't expect anyone to see for a while, I'll pack it in, tie it to a tree, say a few words and leave.

I had a pocket watch die an unexpected, yet "timely" death, on a job one day in a nasty, dark, section of the woods. I nailed it to a tree as an RP for the traverse point, and the crew found it about 15 years after that (as referenced in the field notes). It still wasn't running.

At the surveying company where I worked before coming to Hayes, the company was called to settle a dispute between two neighbors regarding a survey that had been done a few years previous. It was always our practice to "chain" around looking for evidence. And when the guys pulled the tape across the back of the lot the first 100 feet, they landed right on a chaining pin that had not been picked up when they did the survey. Turned out that pretty red and white pin with the flagging on it was the point of contention. When it was explained what occasioned it to have been put there in the first place, the person who thought it was a permanent survey mark, having seen how they taped the distance to that same point just as they would have done before, readily conceded the point was not permanent.

Makes you wonder how many temporary points have been mistaken for more than they were ever intended to be. And also how difficult it is for us to see things with other eyes than our experienced surveyor's eyes, to understand how a client or adjoiner might misinterpret our work and its markings.

JerryS, post: 396676, member: 205 wrote: At the surveying company where I worked before coming to Hayes, the company was called to settle a dispute between two neighbors regarding a survey that had been done a few years previous. It was always our practice to "chain" around looking for evidence. And when the guys pulled the tape across the back of the lot the first 100 feet, they landed right on a chaining pin that had not been picked up when they did the survey. Turned out that pretty red and white pin with the flagging on it was the point of contention. When it was explained what occasioned it to have been put there in the first place, the person who thought it was a permanent survey mark, having seen how they taped the distance to that same point just as they would have done before, readily conceded the point was not permanent.

Makes you wonder how many temporary points have been mistaken for more than they were ever intended to be. And also how difficult it is for us to see things with other eyes than our experienced surveyor's eyes, to understand how a client or adjoiner might misinterpret our work and its markings.

I've gotten in the habit of covering my traverse nails with a handful of grass, leaves, or whatever will hide/camouflage them so that owners or neighbors don't find them. It really cuts down on the excited phone calls from clients and adjoiners.

Many years ago I received a call one evening from a lady on behalf of her father. We had performed a survey for him something like six months earlier. She was confused by the multiple corner markers she had found. That made no sense to me so I kept asking more and more questions. Eventually, I realized what had happened. We had set reference nails for each major corner in nearby fence posts and trees just in case we were ever called back to that tract or one of the adjoining tracts. She was seeing the nails and assuming each one she found was supposed to be marking a property corner. Most were a few feet above ground level and driven horizontally into the tree/post.