New to cleaning

altereddezignz · Feb 25, 2014

ok so i have been told to use electrolysis on any clad. This being quarters, dimes and nickles. Was told to use a tumbler on pennies, and all silver.

I have read to use the baking soda washing power in your water and i understand all this. I am just looking for maybe a list of what i can clean in what. Solver, wheats, pennies, dimes, nickles and so on.

I am new to all of this and just trying to learn. even if is a link to other sites or posts. I ahve read through a lot of posts about cleaning and using white fish tank gravel with a little dawn and water. The baking soda washing powder.

Just curious if anyone would be willing to elaborate a little further into the subject.

ISU Boomer · Feb 25, 2014

altereddezignz said:
ok so i have been told to use electrolysis on any clad. This being quarters, dimes and nickles. Was told to use a tumbler on pennies, and all silver.

I have read to use the baking soda washing power in your water and i understand all this. I am just looking for maybe a list of what i can clean in what. Solver, wheats, pennies, dimes, nickles and so on.

I am new to all of this and just trying to learn. even if is a link to other sites or posts. I ahve read through a lot of posts about cleaning and using white fish tank gravel with a little dawn and water. The baking soda washing powder.

Just curious if anyone would be willing to elaborate a little further into the subject.

Buy a cheap tumbler from harbor freight. Works great for cleaning all clad. Do not tumble your silver. A lot of people say you need to seperate your pennies from the nickel, dimes, and quarters but I don't do that. I don't care if my clad gets a little tinted due to the copper pennies. The thumbler works great to get your clad spendable. I fill the tumbler about 1/3 full of white aquarium rocks, 1/3 coins, a couple drops of dish soup, and just enough water to cover it all by a half inch or so. I let it run for a few hours then I change the water out and let it run over night.

For silver coins, all I do is run it under water and a little soap.

Hope this helps. There are also many threads about cleaning clad on here.

Here is a picture of some clad I cleaned using this method. These were mixed with pennies as well

norbyx · Feb 25, 2014

I use the same technique and it works great for me... I have a vibrating tumbler, not a rotary one...

altereddezignz · Feb 25, 2014

Thank you guys. This is the exact info i was looking for...
Much appreciated.

dreed · Feb 25, 2014

Great question and something I would like to know also.

GillyWI · Feb 26, 2014

I went through a whole thread about this in the last month or two.

I think I see why the old timers don't worry too much about it.

When I brought my somewhat clean clad in to the bank and announced a lot of it was from detecting they cringed. Actually cringed! I told them I had cleaned it already and they were then all smiles and looking in my cash box, yeah they were happy. So if you plan on cleaning and taking it to the bank, they are happy if it is clean at all.

Next season I might spring for a HF tumbler. I think aquarium gravel and dish soap OR Lime Away GEL (has to be the GEL product) were my most cost-effective cleaners. Am glad I tried the Conklin Gel, but my results varied alot, even when trying to use similar condition coins.
For some reason I just felt I was doing a better job by seperating out all the denominations, but especially do the pennies seperate, and if you can stand seperating out a bit further I would seperate zinc pennies from copper pennies. The zincs I lightly clean with soap and water to get the worst of the dirt off, put them in a ziploc and slowly use them up buying stuff when you need a penny or two.

GillyWI · Feb 26, 2014

I did end up with a load of dimes that looked sort of gold, you might say they were tarnished or burned looking, but were clean and sort of cool looking, really.
Coppers i cleaned looked much better, like any other copper penny in circulation.
Nickels all cleane dup nice as well.
I had a ton of clad quarters and had a rough time with quarters getting sort of pink-looking, still not sure if this is coming from the edge of the coin, from the edge of the inner metal? Some quarters looked pink all over, others just had areas of this sort of "staining". It's really frustrating and I don't know the answer. The real bad ones I kept circulating in to the dirty coins and cleaning all over again. Tumbling may be the answer.

papaharley03 · Feb 26, 2014

Is there any reason why nobody uses an ultrasonic cleaner? Harbor Freight has a decent one and I thought it might be a better investment since it could do jewelry as well.

Thoughts?

Papa

IrvingSeeker · Feb 26, 2014

Good topic. I was wondering where to find a tumbler that wasnt on the internet.

papaharley03 · Feb 26, 2014

IrvingSeeker said:
Good topic. I was wondering where to find a tumbler that wasnt on the internet.

There are plenty of Harbor Freight stores in the DFW area. You should be able to pick one up without too much trouble. Easy to return if it's DOA.

Papa

GillyWI · Feb 26, 2014

papaharley03 said:
Is there any reason why nobody uses an ultrasonic cleaner? Harbor Freight has a decent one and I thought it might be a better investment since it could do jewelry as well.

Thoughts?

Papa

I read they don't work very well on dirty clad, not sure about collectible coins, but not a hot ticket item for dug up clad.

papaharley03 · Feb 26, 2014

GillyWI said:
I read they don't work very well on dirty clad, not sure about collectible coins, but not a hot ticket item for dug up clad.

Thanks. I had wondered. Guess I'll get the dual drum tumbler.

Papa

altereddezignz · Feb 27, 2014

Thanks for all the great info guys

New to cleaning

altereddezignz

Senior Member

ISU Boomer

Elite Member

Attachments

norbyx

Elite Member

altereddezignz

Senior Member

dreed

GillyWI

Elite Member

GillyWI

Elite Member

papaharley03

IrvingSeeker

Full Member

papaharley03

GillyWI

Elite Member

papaharley03

altereddezignz

Senior Member

Similar threads