SpudFiles

Ragnarok wrote:

Techie wrote:

potatoflinger wrote:That's actually pretty awesome looking. I'll bet if you ground the sides down to make it smooth it would look even better.

But if he wanted that kind of look he could have just used a piece of copper

To be pedantic, US cents are mainly zinc - they're just plated with copper.

Although many low denomination coins were copper in the past, few are today - for the most part, if such coins were pure copper, the scrap value of the copper in the coin would be more than the face value of the coin.

If a US cent were made of pure copper, the metal involved would be worth perhaps two cents. Might have even been worth three cents five years back when copper prices were at a real peak.

i know that silly, but you can smooth a penny without loosing the plating

Ragnarok wrote:

Techie wrote:

potatoflinger wrote:That's actually pretty awesome looking. I'll bet if you ground the sides down to make it smooth it would look even better.

But if he wanted that kind of look he could have just used a piece of copper

To be pedantic, US cents are mainly zinc - they're just plated with copper.

Although many low denomination coins were copper in the past, few are today - for the most part, if such coins were pure copper, the scrap value of the copper in the coin would be more than the face value of the coin.

If a US cent were made of pure copper, the metal involved would be worth perhaps two cents. Might have even been worth three cents five years back when copper prices were at a real peak.

That is correct

you sould use this coin for the rear

Modern copper pennies (post ~1990) are indeed Cu over Zn. If you ever need a smallish piece of zinc (it's a very reactive metal and could be used as a sacrificial electrode on a steel gun) you can just grind the thin copper layer off.

Another fun thing to do is to hit a penny with muriatic acid (hydrochloric acid, you can get a gallon of 20~30% stuff at the hardware store for $10 or so, it's used for acidifying pools and as a cleaning agent for freshly laid bricks). Use a file to grind off the copper on the edge of the penny then drop the penny in a 1/4 cup of the acid. In a day or so the Zn core will be completely dissolved (generating hydrogen gas) and you are left with just the thin copper shell. The shell is very thin, much thiner than say aluminum foil.

The muriatic acid will also clean the copper of oxidation instantaneously.


Better living through chemistry.

-_- wrote:you sould use this coin for the rear

Why, excatly?

Brian the brain wrote:In god we trust.

Sounds like a bit of an excessively faith-based way of aiming, hehe literally "spray and pray"

Right now JSR must be building a " cent"-ry gun...

Made one already

For the rear sight, I'm guessing it is the other half of the coin with a notch

Rag, Many older 1 cent US coins, like you said are indeed made of mostly copper.

My father and i once made a venture into this, we went to the bank, and took out 1000 USD in pennies. yes. 100,000 pennies. lol. quite a few money bags. We looked like 2 robbers leaving the bank. he he he.

once home, we spent our free time for the next few weeks going through every single penny. sorting them by date.

Seeing as pennies are LEGAL to melt down, we simply sold the old ones as copper.

1 copper penny was worth 1.7 cents in copper at the time.

in all we managed to make a profit of about (insert insignificant sum here)

It was fun, but alot of work.

Alas.... i rant again.

Nice looking sight.

Make the back one from 2 nickles the heads look the other way.

Make the rear sight from two nuts mounted on a piece of allthread.

Sorry had to post it...

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