Basic bottle cleaning

[ReCreations]

Cleaning out a whole mess of stuff during our recent move, I came across a buch of bottles my husband brought home while working on a construction site at the Buffalo NY sewer treatment plant on Squaw Island. I have not considered myself a collector until I realized the beauty of these gems from the past. So I want to thank all of the members of this forum for the generous sharing of your information and for sharing your love of this hobby if I may call it that. I now know how to properly clean these bottles. I also am getting a feel for the history behind old bottles. There is so much to learn. Thank you!

Debbie - a former Buffalo Gal

 

[epackage]

ORIGINAL: chosi

Hey, while I've got my camera out...
Here's what the copper looks like after about 3 years of use. Besides being dirty, it's also a lot smoother with no sharp edges.
Is it time for new copper? I don't think my results are worse then when the copper was new, but it's hard to tell since any change would have been reeeeeeealy gradual.

I say it's time for a change...Jim

 

[Wheelah23]

ORIGINAL: ReCreations

Cleaning out a whole mess of stuff during our recent move, I came across a buch of bottles my husband brought home while working on a construction site at the Buffalo NY sewer treatment plant on Squaw Island. I have not considered myself a collector until I realized the beauty of these gems from the past. So I want to thank all of the members of this forum for the generous sharing of your information and for sharing your love of this hobby if I may call it that. I now know how to properly clean these bottles. I also am getting a  feel for the history behind old bottles. There is so much to learn. Thank you!

Debbie - a former Buffalo Gal

Welcome to the forum Debbie! You've chosen a wonderful hobby (addiction). We're all extremely handsome, intelligent, rich, modest people here, but don't be intimidated from posting... [] Care to show us come of your bottles?

As for this cleaning thread... Now I realize why I am getting such lackluster cleaning results. I'm using 4 gauge wire! Way too small to get the job done. I guess I'll go get some thicker wire and try again.

 

[Pinzel]

I have been using copper chunks from wire i purchased at the scrap yard.The #1 stripped shiny copper is cheaper than your hardware store or walmart.Anyway i bought a big heavy set of linemans pliers on ebay to easily cut the chunks.It is very time consumng.I sit at my computer reading while i chip this stuff into the bucket.(it goes flying sometimes is why i have a bucket) I use chlorine comet and bleach mixture along with this copper chunkage.The mixture is a wet paste type thing.The copper swirls around and cleans about all from inside anything.It is manual labor for sure,sometimes it takes 15 minutes per bottle of shaking .It does wonders and almost seems to remove some "sickness" from them. its cheap,fairly safe,works for me.

 

[suzanne]

Actually if your just shaking the bottles by hand you can just use sand. I can't imagine buying expensive copper and going to the trouble of cutting into teeny pieces. I use sand sometimes. Works great. Cheap. No cutting up into pieces. Don't scratch either. You can't generate enough force by hand shaking to do anything but get the gunk out.

 

[suzanne]

I just wanted to say there is an exception to the last post I did. If your bottle has very thin glass shaking with sand and water might generate enough force to break it I think.

 

[blobbottlebob]

If your bottle has very thin glass shaking with sand and water might generate enough force to break it I think.

Yea. You can easily break the thin corners with the copper as well. You definitely want to be careful with strong shaking on a delicate bottle with thin corners.

The advantage to the copper over sand is that the copper (while heavy and sharp enough to 'scrub' the glass) is not hard enough to scratch the surface. Sand has glass particles in it. (Glass is made of melting sand). This is as hard as the bottle and can leave scratches.

 

[Gromit0299]

Thanks so much for this newbie tutorial, Bob. I have some nice common bottles that someone here on the forum gave me, one being a Schnecks Pulmonic that looks quite cool. I'm glad there's a relatively inexpensive and easy way to clean them, other than having to invest in someone tumbling them, or investing in a tumbler.

 

[blobbottlebob]

It was my pleasure Gromit. I have many many dirty bottles. I usually don't get around to cleaning them until I'm about to dispose of them (one way or another).

 

[thewrit]

Is this just for the inside,or did I miss something.