Look what I got!

New Tools!!!

My what beautiful daps!

Wow! What fantastic disc cutters!

And I've already started to break them in. I'm making some Yuma pins that involve doming out pennies. Pennies 1984 and earlier are made of copper and after that point in time they were made mostly of Zinc. I learned this fact from the ever wise Becky McDonah. Or maybe she said 1982. I don't remember, I just know that I found out very quickly while annealing my carefully sorted pennies that some of them were not copper.

I'll go ahead and show you what that particular situation looks like:

Here's a website that gives you very specific information on penny composition:

http://lrs.ed.uiuc.edu/students/tsullivl/commoncents/PennyComposition.htm

Note: You should be prepared for this situation and wear a respirator. While nothing will probably happen to you becuase you aren't casting brass, I say better to err on the safe side and avoid possibly breathing zinc oxide fumes which can cause neurological damage.

I found a site that claims it's perfectly safe to melt zinc here:

http://www.theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/ZincSafety.html

However, we can never be entirely sure that he hasn't already sustained brain damage. Even the chemistry dude told him he was stupid.

Oh well, I say be well informed and make your own educated decisions, but I wear a mask.