Cutting Time

I have started tumbling bottles this past week. My first one is spinning right now. It seems like this whole tumbling thing is going to be a whole lot of fun.

Here is my scenario:

- I am only tumbling the insides of ACL soda bottles
- Since all of the the bottles I am tumbling are machine made, post 1935 I don't have to worry about soft or delicate glass
- I am using cut copper
- For bottles with internal sickness I think I need to use a cutter - 1200 silcon carbide is what I have decided to use
- The bottles I am tumbling have sick glass, but most aren't extreme cases
- My tumbler spins pretty fast, between 60 to 70 RPMs

So my question is how much time would you think I need to cut before moving on to the polishing stage. I realize this is a tough question that is going to depend on how sick the bottle are, but can anybody give me a starting point?

12oo silicon is one of the slower cutters, if you only have stain/light etching and haven't bought any yet the 1500 silicon would be a better bet. It's a very slow cutter that is really more of a hard polish, will remove stain & light etching fairly fast but is forgiving if you happen to let it go to long.

Either way @ 60 to 70 rpms I'd be checking it at 24 hours. With the 1200 you'll probably do a follow up with aluminum oxide or similar polish after.

Al

Matt, my tumbler is turning at 60 RPMs and I regularly use 1200 from 2 to 6 or 7 days. Generally speaking the tough sickness from bottles in dumps for 100 plus years requires more, I will be surprised if your ACLs need more than a couple of days. Either tomorrow or Sunday I am going to try my 1st ACL. Also I believe you will be really pleased after the 1200 and won't need to polish.

I've been told by experienced tumbers that anything more than 24 hours with 1200 Grit is overkill.
I learned that last year, and since then I've been limiting my 1200 Grit tumbles to about 24 hours, always with good results (all stains & sickness removed).
Your results may vary.

Thanks for the informatuon guys. It has been very helpful.

I don’t have the 1200 silicon carbide yet, but do happen to have some 1500. I used it for about 2 days on a bottle and it turned out pretty nice. I went ahead and finished it off with a day of Aluminum Oxide polish. Probably could have used a little more time polishing. If you hold the bottle at the right angle to the light there appears to be a whitish residue. I am not sure if it is residual polish or if the bottle needed to spin a little longer with some polish. Tumbling is a lot of fun. It is bringing new life to some of my old bottles

Matt, since you're a Squeeze Guy-

two days with 15 day old 1200/polish mix with 1/2 dose of 1200 added on top of it. NO polish

.

That turned out great Tom. I thought that 1200 was supposed to leave the glass with a frosted look, and then you remove that frosted look by polishing with AO polish? Do you think your new 1/2 dose did a little cutting and the old stuff was broken down enough to where it acted as a polish? That tumble sure did improve that Squeeze bottle. Very cool.

I have never had glass frost with 1200. These REALLY sick sodas we dig around here require at least 4 or 5 days both inside and out, and then maybe more on the inside. I use just polish on VERY light sickness (maybe most of these ACLs will be like that), but 1200 is not going to hurt them. I try to keep the bottle from becoming too slick and right now I'm constantly trying new combinations- taking it slowly. Generally, the 1200 grit is going to cut for a few days and then it stops cutting and then the polish will work (on those bottles that I use a combination of both). I have talked to at least two tumblers around this area that use nothing but 1200 and vary the length of time they use it. One of those guys says he uses just 1200 on every bottle he tumbles for 5 days. I don't want to do that on a bottle that I feel doesn't need a lot of attention. Going back to your question, I had tumbled 2 VERY sick, dug bottles for a total of about 15 days before I tumbled the Squeeze. I think that batch had about reached it's limit of effectiveness. Rather than go to the trouble to clean my copper and canister and reload with new cutter (or polish, or both), because I knew that the sickness in the Squeeze was not that heavy, I just added 1/2 a dose of 1200 and ran it for two days. The worst that could have happened, it could have looked "dirty" and I would have cleaned everything up and run maybe 1/2 a day on 1200. I really think that just about every ACL that I could imagine would be no worse than a one or maybe two day tumble with 1200. I have never used 1500, so I can't advise you there.

The fun part about this is that I'm constantly learning new things that work on different bottles. There is no right answer, you've just got to keep trying until you find something that works for you.