Fat Boy,
I use to use a long nose pliers with a 6 inch fine wire wheel on my grinder. Worked pretty good on pennies and clad. The problem is that it take too long. About 2-3 beers worth... <img src="/metal/html/tongue.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt=":b">
Since then Rick ND turned me on to the idea of using a rock tumbler for coins. I bought a Lortone double barrel unit. It comes with two 3 lb drums. I use one for pennies and the other for clad. You can tumble about 180 coins between the two tumblers at one time. I save my coins until I get about 120 and then fill the drums about half full with small gravel, add the coins and fill with water to just below the rock and add some lemon juice for a mild acid bath. I let them run for three hours and they come out looking pretty good. How'd I do Rick? ..... <img src="/metal/html/lol.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt=":lol">
If your interested email me and I will give you a couple of sources. I bought mine from KellyCo. but they gave me a ration of shxx over the unit when I had some trouble with it when it was only four months old. It was a Christmas gift and wasn't used three times but to KellyCo common since made no difference, they wouldn't send me a replacement since it was 3-4 weeks out of their 90 day warranty.
I called one of their distributors and they were super. My preference is to refer you to the old couple that helped me. Possibly they can match KellyCo's price. They could use the money more anyway.
HH
Johnny B