View Single Post
  #17  
Old 04-30-2007, 06:33 AM
KurtB's Avatar
KurtB KurtB is offline
Gold
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 192
Default Re: The Coin Collet! Interested?

It's a go, then. Thanks for the positive replies! I've got a string of work days to get through first, and by "work", I mean the stuff that puts food on the table, nothing enjoyable like engraving or other shop activities. I'll tool up for a couple of runs, gather the raw stock, and get going. There'll be several options or grades of holder, from a basic single-ended aluminum collet for casual use, all the way up to one machined specifically for a single, high-grade coin, to the customer's specification.

I haven't priced AU Buffalo nickels in a long time, and I don't have any here with me... all I've got is my boyhood collection of Good to Fine common date buffs. If someone has a really good micrometer that they trust, AND several VF to BU buffalo nickels, if he or she could give me some accurate diameters for those coins, it would help tremendously. As I mentioned in post #1, a handful of nickels, both old and new, showed a diameter variation of nearly 0.010". While that doesn't sound like much, it's a pretty large range for a collet-type device. For a basic version, I'd probably go to a 90th percentile on the large end. For a gem coin that will be turned into a hobo masterpiece, it would be best to measure the actual coin, and dedicate a collet to that coin specifically. We'll deal with that when the time comes.

Steve, I am using a Sony MVC-CD300, set on MACRO, low res (640 X 480), and the pictures are cropped and sharpened with Google's Picasa2 software, the best freeware photo software I've ever encountered. I get lucky with the shots because the photos are well-lighted to begin with... I've got a pair of gooseneck halogen lamps to help me with the machining! :D

Take care all!
__________________
Kurt
Reply With Quote