Tumbler for cruddy clad

[BarberBill]

Any recommendations on a tumbler for dirty clad? Rolling drum or vibratory, or either?
Thanks,
BB

 

[Nancy-IL]

We use a rock tumbler and it works great. Larry puts a little bit of sand and a drop of dish soap with water and poof! They're clean. Don't put copper/zinc pennies in with the quarters, dimes and nickels or you'll get copper colored clad. Pennies always go in separately. Seems like we paid about $50 for it, but it's a good one and has done hundreds if not thousands of dollars in coins.

 

[bubblehead]

Hi Bill.......If you have a Harbor Freight in your area.....or if you want to order on line, they have a pretty decent tumbler for around $25. I bought one for a friend for Christmas and smacked myself for not checking there before I bought mine for $100. I also use just soap and water but I use small gravel instead of sand. Sand should work fine, also but I have a gravel driveway so it's a never ending source........ Nancy is right on.........do the pennies by themselves. Good luck and happy hunting.

 

[Rick(ND)]

I have both tumblers and for clad the rolling one is the one to use and use my Vibrating one for my Wheaties to bring them back to a decent color without hurting them, don't work good for cleaning the new clad though.
I use water, aquarium gravel with some real lemon juice and tumble the pennies and any coper or brass item for about a hour. The clad will take a little longer and sometimes i will leave it sit and soak over night and tumble for a hour in the morning, then rinse with water and let air dry, works great.

 

[BarberBill]

Thanks all, that's the kind of info I was needing.
HH
BB