What is your go to solution for cleaning clad?

CalReg

Forum Supporter
Joined
May 31, 2020
Messages
875
Location
San Jose, CA
Greetings All!

I usually clean my clad in a tumbler with a solution of water, vinegar and CLR (and some gravel). When they first come out, they look great, but after they dry they start to turn a greyish color and in some cases are so dark you can't even read the date. I've seen some of your posts where the coins look almost new. Am I missing something? Is there some secret mixture that I'm not aware of? Thanks in advance for your help!
 
Greetings All!

I usually clean my clad in a tumbler with a solution of water, vinegar and CLR (and some gravel). When they first come out, they look great, but after they dry they start to turn a greyish color and in some cases are so dark you can't even read the date. I've seen some of your posts where the coins look almost new. Am I missing something? Is there some secret mixture that I'm not aware of? Thanks in advance for your help!

Vinegar might make them a bit dark. Some that have too much might be too dark to read. My setup, for now, is pebbles from a local beach, baking soda, water.

Mine is moderately dark, but you can totally see the date. :D

Try water, NO vinegar, CLR, and gravel.

Hope this helps!

Josh
 
I try not to dig it to begin with if possible.... but i hear some soap and water and a tumbler with aquarium gravel works wonders... just keep the pennies separate.
 
White vinegar, salt, gravel in a tumbler for about 30 minutes and then a good clean water wash. They go thru the coin counter at my credit union with no problem Pennies do not react favorably with the vinegar wash. So i use water, gravel and a little dish detergent and tumble them for a few hours. Do not tumble pennies with your clad as the penny will turn your clad the color of a penny.
 
White vinegar, salt, gravel in a tumbler for about 30 minutes and then a good clean water wash. They go thru the coin counter at my credit union with no problem Pennies do not react favorably with the vinegar wash. So i use water, gravel and a little dish detergent and tumble them for a few hours. Do not tumble pennies with your clad as the penny will turn your clad the color of a penny.
Yep same thing I do. I did learn the hard way about putting pennies in with the rest of the clad.:wow::(
 
Yep same thing I do. I did learn the hard way about putting pennies in with the rest of the clad.:wow::(

I tried cleaning the pennies with the vinegar solution and blew the lid off the barrel. had to do some serious cleaning to save the tumbler.
 
I have a Frankford Arsenal L7 tumbler and I use Pool filter sand, a few drops of liquid hand soap and a little Lemi Shine booster. I have experemented with cutting about 30 1 inch squares of Scotch Brite and throwing them in also. Had pretty good results!
 
I use a simple mixture of aquarium gravel, a small squirt of Dawn liquid dish soap and water. I do pennies separately. the silver and nickels can go together. When finished tumbling, dump out dirty water use a screen made of 1/4" hardware cloth to separate coins from gravel and rinse off coins with clear water. Works great and coins come out clean with no harsh cleaning agents or acids.
 
Does anyone have any tricks to clean other clad after a penny accidentally found its way into the mix with the 'silver' modern clad?
 
Tumbled in soapy water and gravel for an hour, then shaken in a plastic bottle using liquid bowl cleaner, then tumbled again for another 60-90 minutes.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0868 (1).JPG
    IMG_0868 (1).JPG
    159.3 KB · Views: 1,090
I use a simple mixture of aquarium gravel, a small squirt of Dawn liquid dish soap and water. I do pennies separately. the silver and nickels can go together. When finished tumbling, dump out dirty water use a screen made of 1/4" hardware cloth to separate coins from gravel and rinse off coins with clear water. Works great and coins come out clean with no harsh cleaning agents or acids.

I do basically the same as BH505Man, and have always had good results. Half way through a 6 or 8 hour tumble, I will open the drum and rinse out all the dirty water and refresh with clean water and another few drops of dawn. Some really dirty coins come out with pretty petina on them,but I like that. Others come out looking new. Depends on the soil they were in,and how long. Make sure you run the pennies separately from the rest.
 
You all make it sound so easy.

I didn't want to spend $60 on a tumbler to clean my $50 in clad. So I used a vinegar and salt solution soaking them for about 2 hours. When they dried, they all turned grey/green. I can brush off the coating with a brass brush and they look fine then, but that's LOT of work. So I finally got a tumbler after figuring that this hobby is never going to be about making $$. lol (I've spent double in gas for what I've found.)

After 2 hours in the tumbler with a dawn and CLR solution, they are a little better, but still have most of the grey/green residue on them. They may go thru the coin counter, but I feel bad about them looking so horrible.

Any suggestions? The videos I watch show the coins coming out pretty shiny. I'd like to get that result too. It may have to do with the mineralization of the ground here?
 
I didn't want to spend $60 on a tumbler to clean my $50 in clad.

Sixty dollars for a tumbler to clean $50 in clad...BUT I'm sure you'll have more clad in the future. I bought my tumbler back in 1984 and it's still going strong, I've cleaned thousands of dollars worth of clad so the cost is bare minimum.
Back in 1984 I paid $29 for the tumbler which means that it actually cost me less than one dollar per year.
 
I was thinking how clean coins come out when cleaned in washing machines when you leave them in pockets by mistake. Maybe get like a zippered mesh bag, put some coins in it and throw them in your next wash.
 
I was thinking how clean coins come out when cleaned in washing machines when you leave them in pockets by mistake. Maybe get like a zippered mesh bag, put some coins in it and throw them in your next wash.

My wife would kill me if I did that!! But it just might work.
 
What I do is tumble them with sand and dish soap then check on them after an hour pulling out the clean ones. To get them shiny I rub them with steel wool.
 
I was thinking how clean coins come out when cleaned in washing machines when you leave them in pockets by mistake. Maybe get like a zippered mesh bag, put some coins in it and throw them in your next wash.

Probably wouldn't work too well because the coins in your pockets are nowhere near as dirty as the ones you dig.
 
Back
Top Bottom