Ultrasonic Cleaning

Has anyone ever tried this method for cleaning coins ?
It would seem to be a decent method, as it would not be abrasive (at least to my understanding).

I have seen the debate over other methods of cleaning, but have yet to see this discussed.
What say you ?

 

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i would be concerned about the chemicals used in the chamber ... i dont think it is plain water, but could be wrong ...

 

Sound waves do produce energy or heat...if you had a chemically defined medium then you would see the impact on a conis surface. If you use a Phosphate Buffer Saline (PBS) you may still see a impact...

Plain water as you know it has tons of ionic material in it and you would see an impact as well...do not forget that electrical current is the energy provider for the sonication unit...stray electrical current is what scientist call electrolsis..which leads to corrosion/pitting from electricity. Most sonicators are used to clean gold since it is inert to chemicals except aquarega....only pure water 17-18 mega ohm can be considered pure and ion free.

Food for thought!!


RickieB

 

so, i was partially right?? cool

 

Hmmmmm.....
Interesting.

If the heat produced is too high, it could possibly cause artificial toning too, I assume.
I'll have to look more of this up.
I was just taking the easy approach and hoping that someone had tried it.

 

Please remember that sound waves while creating heat will or can possibly increase the liquids temp..but it is a liquid and will try to equilibrate to ambient temp anyway! Imagine the millions of agressive waves shooting all those ions all over the surfaces of the coins.Oh yea..you have to take evaporation into consideration as well...then the oxygen in the liquid and oxidation when it comes back into the 80% N2 and 20% O2 environment.

Look at it as millions and millions of tiny bubbles scrubbing away!!!
There are more factors involved than the ones I mentioned..those are just the one's I know about!

So do a test...use different liquids at different settings..let the "old test coin" sit for a few days and check out the results....just write down exactly what you did and see if you can reoeat the result!

Science at it's finest...

RickieB

 

all cleaning bad.

 

It is great for getting crud of anciants


:kewl:

 

You don't have to use heat or chemicals in a sonic cleaner. But the coin will bounce around on the bottom and hurt the luster.

 

I would assume a plastic basket, if available, would prevent such a disaster.
Again, I will have to do some research, when time permits.

 

Mine came with a plastic basket :thumb:


:kewl:

 

Yeah a plastic basket work be a good idea. Mine is industrial and dosn't have one though.

 

bqcoins

"all cleaning bad"
:thumb:

 

If all cleaning is bad then please tell me how to get a thousand years of crud off a lovely roman coin



:whistle:

 

Howdy De Orc... that is simple to answer..."very carefully".....

RickieB

 

No matter how careful you are it is still cleaning and we are told that all cleaning is bad LOL But without this bad act just think of all the wonderful coins that would be lost forever I think we should modify our opinion on the worth of cleaning a coin, to uncover a hidden treasure from a thousand plus years of dirt is something to be proud of, to polish a Austian Thaller or British Crown is a sin :thumb:


:kewl:

 

I only clean coins that have the green metal-devouring stuff on them or coins that have severly scratched surfaces.
On severly scratched silver coins, I use Never-Dull, then clean with alcohol.
I generally give those coins to friends or kids.
It usually catches their eye more and I think it could inspire them to collect, more than a dull slug could.
I know, it's still bad, but they don't know it's cleaned and I would tell them never to clean one.

 

Those are used at many Engineering firms where any inking is used. The pen tips get blocked up with dryed ink and they are submerged in the Ultra Sonic type cleaners utilizing only water. The combinations of this system breaks out the ink, clears the tips and presto, back to work. All the ones we have do have plastic type baskets for the suspension of the pen tips. 00 tips are delicate and if bounced to hard become useless. For coins I've tried them in just pure water for really dirty coins. The dirt breaks off, the coins as a rule come out fairly undamaged. However, this is only with modern types of coins. Older coins may have any contaminates actually now part of the metal of the coins and removal of such contaminates also removes part of the coin. The instructions that come with our units do NOT recommend additions of any chemicals other than water.

 

LOL - Clean a thousand year coin and Watch it disapear!

 

http://digdiary.blogspot.com/2007/02/coins.html

Saturday, February 24, 2007
Coins
Almost everyone, who has ever worked with archaeological objects, or on a dig, has a coin story. It usually begins like this, "I was told to put the coins in some chemical...", and then after a certain amount of hours or days, depending on whether the person forgot that the coins were in "some chemical", the coins are gone, having disappeared or dissolved into the bath.



LOL :kewl: