The first new nickels from the U.S. Mint will be jingling in your pocket before the end of the month, and a metal-fabrication company in Cedar Rapids is rolling out the raw material for the brand new coins. Spokesman Tom McClenahan (mick-LENNa-hann) says about a third of the metal produced at P-M-X Industries goes to the U.S. Mint, for making money. It’s a process of “roll bonding’ where they take white-colored nickel alloy and roll layers of it onto copper to sandwich the metals together. McLenahan says it’s the first new nickel in 66 years, and will commemorate the Louisiana Purchase. The raw material won’t be made into coins in Cedar Rapids, however. That’s a part of the business that the U.S. Mint keeps for itself, so once P-M-X rolls out the sheets of alloy and sends it in big rolls to the mint, they feed them into presses there, “blank out” the coins and then stamp the out of the rolls of sheet metal. McLenahan says the manufacturing process has to be very exact, because every combination of that “clad metal” has its own electric and magnetic properties.He says that’s the main way vending machines tell real coins from one another. That’s why the mint came to P-M-X to create the new one-dollar coin inaugurated a few years ago. Like state quarters, the new five-cent pieces are being created in more than one design. There are two designs to be released this year, two more will come out next year, and the first ones will be out before the end of this month. (News editors: the mint’s story on the new nickels is online at http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/0304/04newnickel.html )