Fast easy way to clean clad!

[rsarge1]

someone else posted this once so I decided to try it, sepperate your clad dimes, nickles and quarters from the pennies put them in the tumbler with whatever material you are using, I use jewelers stainless steel shot, fill with white distilled vinegar to the top of the coins add a couple table spoons of ice cream salt and tumble for 1-2 hours and that's it! I finally tried it and this to me was much better than running the tumbler all night.

happy hunting all!

 

[KinTN]

I separate pennies from the rest and tumble each in a water-tide mix. They don't look great, but they pass the coin machine at the bank. The bank doesn't care as they have a machine that belongs to the Federal Reserve and the Fed does all the servicing on the machine; the bank employees never touch it.

Watch those acidic solutions on zinc pennies or you wont have any pennies to watch!

 

[GeorgeinSC]

I tried the vinegar/salt with a batch of pennies and had some type of gas buildup in the tumbler that blew the lid off the barrel. Needless to say I had a mess to clean up. Method does work good with clad. I just tumble pennies with water/soap/aquarium gravel for a few hours. One thing that I do is run all coins thru a vibrating tumbler with walnut shell medium after the cleaning. Gets rid of the funky discoloration that I was getting on my clad.

 

[Ism]

I rinse the dirt, remove the corroded zinc penny's, and dump them in the coin machine at the bank.
Tumbler?...Tumbler?... I don't need no stinkin tumbler!

 

[kingingkunsan]

Got any before and after epics? Thank u

 

[John(Tx)]

at the bank or credit union....HH

 

[osgood]

KinTN, i dont recall if it was lemon juice or vinegar, but i did a couple hour run of dimes, and they came out quite greenish, yellow. CO

 

[Robert2300]

I have NEVER had gas build up in my tumbler using salt and vinegar.
For anyone who HAS I can only say there might have been some
kind of residue in the tumbler that didn't get cleaned out.

I run my tumbler for about 45 min's and that's,s it. The clad comes out
clean as a whistle. I run it again it clean water with one very tiny drop of
dish liquid soap and run for 20 to 30 min's to get the salt completely off.

I use very small aquarium rock's that I buy at Pet's Mart for $4.99
Still using the same rocks now for four years.
RObt2300

 

[John(Tx)]

I've had gas build up using baking soda, barrel started swelling up and it did have internal pressure, don't know about salt and vinegar. HH

 

[KinTN]

KinTN, i dont recall if it was lemon juice or vinegar, but i did a couple hour run of dimes, and they came out quite greenish, yellow. CO

Both are acidic and will react with zinc; time is the key. I once did a test overnight/~20hr with (I THINK it was) lemon juice concentrate and it seriously ate a lot of my zinc pennies. Like holes completely thru them and large chunks out of the edges. I don't recall any gas buildup. I use a Thumblers Tumbler B fwiw.