The Elcometer P610 Timber Metal Detector (part number W610170I, supplied with charger) finds nails, staples, barbed wire and other metal hidden in timber before it reaches the saw. Hitting metal in timber is a costly mistake: it causes mill downtime, saw doctoring costs and missed delivery schedules, and timber bought and transported to a sawmill only to be rejected for metal contamination wastes both time and money. The P610 lets operators screen timber and avoid these losses.

An Auto-Zero button allows exact pinpointing of the metal object, and an analogue meter shows signal strength so the orientation of the object can be identified. Results are stable and reliable: the P610 searches equally well through wet and dry, hot or cold, hardwoods and softwoods. A loudspeaker with volume control and a socket for headphones suit noisy mill environments.

Typical detection depths give a guide to performance: a gate hook is found to around 61cm, a 400mm length of barbed wire to 36cm, a 40mm staple to 33cm, a 75mm nail to 33cm and a 125mm nail to 34cm. The main unit has a 22cm search head diameter and weighs 850g, running on an internal rechargeable battery supplied with a charger unit. A replacement 200mm search coil is available. This model is discontinued; the Elcometer P610 was supplied by BAMR, South Africa's authorised Elcometer distributor.