Ultrasonic cleaner test

[nittany1]

Ultrasonic cleaner test

This is a test of my ultrasonic cleaner that I bought at Harbor Freight. I used 1 liter of hot tap water and a few teaspoons of Dawn dish liquid for a time of 16 minutes. The cleaner has a maximum time setting of 480 seconds which equals 8 minutes. The other adjustment is heat, you can turn it on or off. By default the heat is off. I turned on the heat for this test.


Before
These are typical MD finds.


After
16 Minutes, hot water, cleaner heat on, Dawn dish liquid

Some of the coins appear to be a little bit cleaned up, but they are in no way shiny or anything resembling shiny. The ones that came out the best were the ones that were already pretty clean when I pulled them out of the ground.

I think what I've found from this first experiment is that if you want to preserve the numismatic value of a coin yet you want to clean it up only a little bit, 16 minutes in an ultrasonic cleaner with hot water and a dab of Dawn liquid will be just fine.

If you want to really clean up your clad, zinc, copper coins worth only face value, then I think tumbling will be a better solution. I'm going to get a tumbler and try this formula: hot water, fish tank pebbles, Dawn liquid, then tumble for two time periods: 4 hrs, and overnight. I'll post those pictures when I get a tumbler.

I've also read that you can use the ultrasonic cleaner with hot water and baking soda for your silver, although I haven't tried it yet.