Frankford Arsenal case tumbler for coins

metalwrkr · Jun 12, 2016

Okay, so I have about 5 years worth of clad accumulating since I started detecting detecting again. This is what my Wif refers to as my "Dirty Money" stash and it has been driving her crazy ever since it reached the half of a 5gal bucket stage. I have been looking for a suitable used rock tumbler that will clean a sizable amount at a time but they go for a pretty penny even used. I finally decided to buy a new one like the 15lb Thumbler "B" series. They are on the high side of $230, an awful lot to spend on only cleaning coins. I reload cartridges for target shooting so I was in a local national sports store and a brass tumbler was on sale. It will take up to 30lb (drum, coins or brass, water and aggregate) at a shot. I have a Hornady 5lb vibratory tumbler that I have tried for coins but it is not aggressive enough for really dirty coins. Polish yes, clean no. At any rate, I bought one like the one pictured and will use it for both coins and brass. Seems reasonably robust and well thought out. It also has excellent reviews for brass cleaning. I am starting a first load of coins today and will keep you posted and throw in a few pictures as well. The worst part of this whole deal is that most of the stash is unsorted so I have that to look foreword to.......................RK

Stevo · Jun 12, 2016

Looks good! Remember to run the pennies separately.

metalwrkr · Jun 12, 2016

Stevo, I will indeed run the pennies in another batch tomorrow. I ran this bunch of nickels and up: 6.5lbs of coins, 5lbs of aquarium rock, 3 drops of dish detergent and enough water to cover. Ran for 4 hours at 60 rpm (case tumbler runs about twice as fast as a rock tumbler) and the coins were nice and clean. Granted they were not radically dirty to begin with and there were still a few old maids but way cleaner than "coin star clean". The barrel has 6 sides for a more aggressive tumbling action and ,as I said, turns faster than most tumblers. 6.5 lbs of mixed nickels, dimes and quarters gave us $116.45. I think I will keep a weight to dollar amount record to give me some kind of average. My wife is all over this because she is a math Professor at a local college and loves to play with numbers. I will probably get graphs and a statistical analysis also. Tomorrow I will start a huge batch of grody pennies and see how they work out. I have another batch of aggregate for the pennies. More pictures then..........RK

rreahard · Jun 13, 2016

Looks like it worked pretty well.

Ricki7 · Jun 13, 2016

Congrats , now you have to go diggin !!
HH

Grumpy Since 55 · Jun 13, 2016

WOW, That thing ROCKS!! (Pun Intended) :heartylaugh:

ChrisMD · Jun 13, 2016

Looks good! Every time I come across a tumbler post it reminds me of my wife nagging me to buy a tumbler and get to cleaning up the clad. Like she is gonna get her grubby hands on it

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MD-Mainiac · Jun 13, 2016

ChrisMD said:
Looks good! Every time I come across a tumbler post it reminds me of my wife nagging me to buy a tumbler and get to cleaning up the clad. Like she is gonna get her grubby hands on it

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Check out Harbor Freight in laurel... that is where I got mine.

metalwrkr · Jun 14, 2016

not quite as happy with the pennies

This time I tumbled 7lbs of really bad pennies. Went for 4 hours and came out as the pictures show. When done there were still a lot of dark coins. closer inspection showed that all were clean (no protruding crust) but deep pits still held some corrosion. Many of the bad ones had chunks corroded out of the edges and were not fit for a coin machine anyway. Most of the better coins were clean but still were dark bronzy in color but few were bright. I was a little disappointed but have to remind myself that this was only 4 hours. I don't have enough experience at this tumbling business to be sure but certainly longer tumbling or perhaps a chemical cleaner would bring more of them bright. Of course the objective is Coinstar clean only. I'm pretty certain that most , if not all, of the darker ones are so pitted as to not pass anyway. Once I take the entire cleaned lot of coins in and see what happens I'll be an expert I guess. The actual case cleaning media that comes with the tumbler is stainless steel needles that resemble tiny needle bearings. I imagine that these would clean very fast and well but they are too expensive to waste on coins so I'll save them for other applications. I believe this unit performs very well so far and I would recommend it to others who have a large amount of coins to clean as well as small relics or parts. Thanks for your interest............RK

MD-Mainiac · Jun 15, 2016

I use aquarium gravel and dish soap...

garviso8 · Jun 15, 2016

Be careful with the harbor freight tumblers I've gone thru two already the motors don't last long

AceGVSU11 · Jun 18, 2016

You're nice to tumble. I give mine a quick rinse and roll them up for the bank to decide what to do. Cleaning for coinstar makes sense but why give them a percentage to unless you just do store credit?

metalwrkr · Jun 18, 2016

That's a nice complement coming from someone I have never even met. I'm not sure what you meant by that though...........................?

joee5 · Jun 18, 2016

garviso8 said:
Be careful with the harbor freight tumblers I've gone thru two already the motors don't last long

Mines over 5 years old and no problems. Original belt too

garviso8 · Jun 19, 2016

joee5 said:
Mines over 5 years old and no problems. Original belt too

might have something to do with the vinegar/salt combination ,the lids start to erode first then the shaft rust, eventually motors freeze up. used quite often too.500-600 dollars in change a year or so.

Frankford Arsenal case tumbler for coins

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