gas checks from pennies

[singleshot]

I'm not sure this is the right place for this....but here goes...


I'm looking to roll pennies to .011" and punch them into gas checks. Would a press provide sufficient force to "moosh" the pennies flatter? Would a roll press be in order? I'm looking to make zinc gas checks and pennies are available everywhere and cheap. With a penny rolled out to .011", I think I could make 5-7 30 cal gas checks per penny.

Any thoughts or ideas about this?

Could you swage a partial jacket from a penny?

[Hickory]

From the U.S. Treasury:

"..Whoever mutilates, cuts, disfigures, perforates, unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, Federal Reserve Bank, or Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such item(s) unfit to be reissued, shall be fined not more than $100 or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.

Defacement of currency in such a way that it is made unfit for circulation comes under the jurisdiction of the United States Secret Service...."

[Red River Rick]

Zinc has poor mechanical properties for any type of "Drawing" operation, which you propose for the jackets.

Forming it into a shallow cup would probably be possible, but drawing it down further will end up in material failure, the zinc will crack, it's not maluable enough.

As for the zinc gas checks, just punch a disc out of the penny, of the appropriatte size, with a small hole in the middle, and swage them to the base of your bullets. Much cheaper, easier and less hassle.

RRR

[singleshot]

Thanks for the reply Hickory. I was prepared for someone to post this, so...

With the thousands of penny rollers in existence since 1898, I'm not concerned in the least about this US Code. The intent of the code deals with those who would deface US money for fraudulent purposes.

This law came about when the price of gold and silver was held to artificially low levels by world gov'ts coining $ and people would profit by buying the money at face value, melting them down, and selling the metal for market price which was a significant profit.

You cannot melt copper pennies down to sell the copper, but "non-fraudulent" purposes are perfectly legal, i.e. souveniers, and gas checks :-D

[nicholst55]

From the U.S. Treasury:

"..Whoever mutilates, cuts, disfigures, perforates, unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, Federal Reserve Bank, or Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such item(s) unfit to be reissued, shall be fined not more than $100 or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.

Defacement of currency in such a way that it is made unfit for circulation comes under the jurisdiction of the United States Secret Service...."

While that's true, I rather doubt that the gubiment is going to spend the thousands of dollars required to prosecute someone for defacing pennies - especially if that person didn't trumpet the fact far and wide on the Internet.

So, rather than asking about making gas checks from pennies, if one were to suggest a purely hypothetical situation where he wanted to swage gas checks from a copper-plated zinc disk, roughly the same composition and size as a penny, perhaps one could avoid this unpleasantness.

Personally, I have wondered why the gubiment keeps minting pennies for the past 20 years or so. They are merely an annoyance for the majority of us.

[Hickory]

3-4 years ago I'd agree with you,
This week a judge found a woman guilty of
spanking her kid, a felony conviction.

[singleshot]

Red Range Rick,

How would I go about what you propose? Would I need to first thin the penny, er, I mean...thin the small zinc disk roughly the same size as a penny? (Does that satisfy everybody? 8-))

Are there special dies for this purpose?

[singleshot]

3-4 years ago I'd agree with you,
This week a judge found a woman guilty of
spanking her kid, a felony conviction.

Hickory, is that a new state law? (Hmm, I'm hijacking my own thread :???:

Years ago I spanked my kids in a food establishment in Ohio and somebody called the cops. They questioned me, and I told them "yes, I spanked my kid." The cop said it was legal to spank your kid, but they had to respond to every call.

What changed?

[arjacobson]

you should be able to bang them out with a punch press if one is available.. Maybe you could try some different type wire instead until you get some that would work for the size you need??

[badbob454]

While that's true, I rather doubt that the gubiment is going to spend the thousands of dollars required to prosecute someone for defacing pennies - especially if that person didn't trumpet the fact far and wide on the Internet.

So, rather than asking about making gas checks from pennies, if one were to suggest a purely hypothetical situation where he wanted to swage gas checks from a copper-plated zinc disk, roughly the same composition and size as a penny, perhaps one could avoid this unpleasantness.

Personally, I have wondered why the gubiment keeps minting pennies for the past 20 years or so. They are merely an annoyance for the majority of us.

to alieve you of any annoyance please send all your pennies to me ,,, thanks.


it costs the us gov . more money to make pennies than they are worth ,so you devalue the us dollar and cost the us gov to manufacture more if ,you melt ,destroy ,or throw away ,any currency .... imho .. in these days every pennie counts , i work for pennies!!

[nicholst55]

to alieve you of any annoyance please send all your pennies to me ,,, thanks.


it costs the us gov . more money to make pennies than they are worth ,so you devalue the us dollar and cost the us gov to manufacture more if ,you melt ,destroy ,or throw away ,any currency .... imho .. in these days every pennie counts , i work for pennies!!

Alas, here in Korea the Exchange (PX/AAFES) and Commissary (DECA) don't use pennies; only the post office (APO) uses pennies. I have several in my sock drawer from my visits to the US and APO if you're seriously interested... :kidding:

And trust me, I work for pennies, too!

[badbob454]

no not serious. but i dont believe in waste. just kidding about the pennies.. of course unless you have millions he he

[a.squibload]

Notice when you do your tax return they want you to round to the nearest dollar?
They don't have to handle the coins, and it still saves them time and effort,
what about the rest of us?

Pennies are a drag on the economy, especially for retail business.
The time and effort to keep them on hand, count them out in change,
count them in the "take", is not worth the value of the coins.
Pennies only exist to satisfy tax rates, which make odd totals when we buy things.
More sensible to round everything off to the nearest nickel, 10¢, even the nearest dollar.
Pay the tax as though you had collected the extra 3¢ or whatever, you will save
more than that in time not having to deal with thousands of pennies each week.

As far as gas checks, line up the "zinc discs" on the nearby railroad track,
they will get milled for you no charge!
Bring a flashlight, they do tend to fly off in the gravel sometimes.
Or that's what I heard...

[martin]

Singleshot et. al.,

My experience started out with me thinking I could make copper jackets out of copper pennies (pennies prior to 1982). I found out in a hurry that this was nearly impossible with the tools I had to work with.

First off, the pennies prior to 1982 were 95 percent copper and 5 percent zinc. Technically, this is brass or guilding material.

I heated one up with a torch to anneal it and then put it on my blacksmithing anvil and mashed it with a 4 pound hammer. Yea, it flattened it a little after about 10 blows but it shure did not make a thin sheet out of it. Then I made a cylinder with a ram that was larger then the penny and hit the ram with the 4 pound hammer. That worked better but still did not give me a flat sheet. More annealing and playing around and I came to the conclusion it was not worth the effort.

I never got to the die portion of forming as what I had to work with was still way to thick and hard to do anything with.

Now, if a guy had a punch press and a decent furnace that may work.

Martin

[NoZombies]

A jewelers rolling mill will make quick work of thinning small discs of copper, or copper clad zinc.

[dnotarianni]

A jewelers rolling mill will make quick work of thinning small discs of copper, or copper clad zinc.

There's an idea, Roll the zinc wheel weights into gas checks!

[Ed K]

How will I buy my penny candy? :)

[XWrench3]

i do not know about gas checks from pennies. but they do make good washers in a pinch! and as far as the u.s. mint /secret service is concerned, if they want to come out, and search everything i own to try to find a couple of "deformed" pennies, and waste thousands of dollars of the tax payers money on a couple of pennies. they can come and look. to be honest, i do not even know if i still own them or not.

[nicholst55]

Pennies are a drag on the economy, especially for retail business.
The time and effort to keep them on hand, count them out in change,
count them in the "take", is not worth the value of the coins.
Pennies only exist to satisfy tax rates, which make odd totals when we buy things.
More sensible to round everything off to the nearest nickel, 10¢, even the nearest dollar.

My point, exactly. I collected all the pennies that went through our two dry cleaners in a 5-gal water bottle for a couple of years, and then took the (approximately) 75% full bottle to the bank - the one with the coin counting machine - and netted one annoyed teller and $230-some dollars and change.

[Tom W.]

How will I buy my penny candy? :)





Buy in bulk....:bigsmyl2:

[looseprojectile]

Penny candy is a quarter now.

Life good

[singleshot]

A jewler's roller is exactly what I'm thinking...as I've looked I think the one's I've found will create .020 "sheets" not .010-.012, so they'd still be too thick to work with.

If you can get it thin enough, I think the few gas checkmakers out there (maybe Pat Marlins) would work. Maybe a screw press?

I wasn't planning on using pre 1982 pennies...too valuable!

The primarily zinc pennies get "minted" at a steady rate regardless of the ones that leave circulation for whatever reason. Therefore, the more we take out of service the more we can slow the devaluation of the dollar. Less $ in circulation = higher value, doncha know...more money printed (and coined) means each dollar is worth less.

Common everybody! Let's bolster the US $, turn those pennies into something useful![smilie=s:

On the other hand, I'm certainly not willing to spend a pound to save a penny. :shock:

[docone31]

I have several of these in my shop. The one with the flat rollers would do the job.
Plenty strong.
http://www.fdjtool.com/ProductInfo.aspx?productid=RM1250
If you wax them between uses, they should last a long time.
You can get copper sheet stock from RioGrande.

[MightyThor]

You can roll them flat for free the same way we have done for generation after generation in my family. We put them on the railroad track behind the shed and collect them again after the train has passed. They will be thin. you may not get them all back cause one or two will stick to the wheels for a while, but we used to get about 80 % back within 3 to 5 feet of where we placed them.

[gitano]

Actually, putting pennies or nickles or quarters or ANYTHING on a RR track will get you in bigger trouble faster than "defacing" one to make gas-checks.

I've got a roller, and can tell you that it will take a bit of "muscle" to flatten your zinc pennies.

That said, I'd say "go for it". "Things" are best learned first-hand.

Paul

[Hammer]

"Penny candy is a quarter now.

Life good"

How is that "hope and change" working out for you????

[Andy Griffith]

IIRC, if you are using the pennies for "art" or other useful purposes and do not intend to spend them or sell them for scrap after being defaced...I *think* is the way it reads somewhere. However, I am no lawyer, and I have not tried it. I think I'd just wait until the penny is demonetized when we go to a one-world currency.

Jackets/gas checks are definitely useful, and IMHO are of the highest form of art. :bigsmyl2:

Don't you agree?

What about those machines that you put a penny in and it smashes it and puts a design on it at tourist attractions? Those are art too.

[drhall762]

Anyone been to Disney World lately? All sorts of penny rolling machines that flatten a penny and emboss it with a dwarf or MM or whatever. Don't think the central government really cares. Drive on and get some!

[a.squibload]

Got one from the Alamo, and one from the Sears Tower.

[perimedik]

From the U.S. Treasury:

"..Whoever mutilates, cuts, disfigures, perforates, unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, Federal Reserve Bank, or Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such item(s) unfit to be reissued, shall be fined not more than $100 or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.

Defacement of currency in such a way that it is made unfit for circulation comes under the jurisdiction of the United States Secret Service...."

That's all fine and good however what about all of those penny swagers for souvoniers?
http://attractions.uptake.com/blog/files/2009/02/c330.jpg

I guess Disney is on the hook for some fines :bigsmyl2:

[uscra112]

The quotation seems to refer only to paper instruments, not coins. Now, in ancient times it was so common to shave a little metal from the edges of precious metal coins that there were strict laws about it, because coinage in and of itself was supposed to be a guarantee of the weight of metal. The knurling ("reeding") on the edges was introduced as a countermeasure, allegedly by Isaac Newton when he was Master of the Mint. Now that our coins are almost all base metals, it hardly matters. (Except for nickels. They are now worth more for their metal than the face value.) For pennies, it seems never to have mattered. I've seen a penny-rolling machine in a museum that had to be over 100 years old.

Making gas checks from today's pennies won't be much good, I expect. Pennies are mostly zinc now anyway. Not enough copper in them to make them malleable enough to draw into a cup.

[DukeInFlorida]

Um, NO.

Since 1964, NICKELS have not been made from Nickel.

They are cupro/nickel alloy ...... There's only about 25% of nickel in the weight.
Specifications

Composition:
Cupro-Nickel: 25% Ni, Balance Cu

Weight:
5.000 g

Diameter:
0.835 in., 21.21 mm

Thickness:
1.95 mm

Edge:
Plain

Source: http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/circulatingCoins/?action=CircNickel


The quotation seems to refer only to paper instruments, not coins. Now, in ancient times it was so common to shave a little metal from the edges of precious metal coins that there were strict laws about it, because coinage in and of itself was supposed to be a guarantee of the weight of metal. The knurling ("reeding") on the edges was introduced as a countermeasure, allegedly by Isaac Newton when he was Master of the Mint. Now that our coins are almost all base metals, it hardly matters. (Except for nickels. They are now worth more for their metal than the face value.) For pennies, it seems never to have mattered. I've seen a penny-rolling machine in a museum that had to be over 100 years old.

Making gas checks from today's pennies won't be much good, I expect. Pennies are mostly zinc now anyway. Not enough copper in them to make them malleable enough to draw into a cup.

[edsmith]

what are pennies from canada made from?

[DukeInFlorida]

Dunno, but they are only worth 70% of one cent. Joking.
There's a chart at the bottom of this page, showing the composition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coins_of_the_Canadian_dollar

Apparently, they are steel, plated with nickel, and then re-plated with copper.

Ed, I need you to make some bottom punches for me......

[leadman]

What about using bullet jackets pulled from the smelt? Cut one side and flatten it out? Might not work due to the rifling marks on the jacket?

[kombayotch]

The US penny was 95% copper with 5% tin/zinc prior to '82:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Us_coins#Coins_in_circulation

And it's actually work LESS than the Canadian penny these days...

[Geek]

A little off topic here, but I think it applies... I apologize if it doesn't

I'm very new to casting my own "boolits", but I'm not new chemistry (and other sciences).

If I were to copper plate the lead castings using a copper sulfate solution and electrolysis would I even need gas checks?

The reason I ask is because it's very easy to copper plate metals with root killer (tree stump killer) that is mostly copper sulfate crystals dituted in distilled water (not the root killer you find in home and garden section, the stuff you find in the plumbing section of your local hardware store). Furthermore, it's very cheap... $7 for what I would assume to be thousands of bullets fully copper plated.

[VintageRifle]

Check with TommyT over on the surplusrifleforums.com. He was going to be doing the same thing you are asking about Geek.

[DukeInFlorida]

My own experiments with copper plating on lead bullets was disappointing. I could not achieve the thick copper plating like Berrys and Rainier get.

After some testing and study, the folks like Rainier and Berrys use highly dangerous commercial plating chemicals that you and I can't buy.

The root killer is OK for some copper plating (steel, etc), but doesn't work well on the lead boolits. The best I could get was a very thin copper plating that was brittle and flaked off. I gave up on those experiments a long time ago. Too many hours for too little results.

[toolz568]

It is not illegal to roll pennies! You can't make one coin into another. The problem is these rollers only roll them to .020. If you strip the zinc out of them, you are left with a shell that is about .001 thick.

[imashooter2]

Intentionally introducing zinc into the primary future source of casting alloy seems penny wise and pound foolish if you will pardon the expression...