cleaning without tumbling book

[suzanne]

I don't do books anymore but you can clean sick bottles without tumbling if you do some experimenting with very fine sandpaper, like 1000 to 2000 grit, and use an erasor to push it back and forth so you can get more sickness off a lot faster. If 1000 grit doesn't get it then the bottle is suffering from glass deterioration. For polishing you can buy a small car buffer, mine was 24.00, and you need Mequiar's medium cut mirror glaze cleaner to go with the buffer and a little patience and you can get really good results. The cleaner is 12 dollars but you get enough to do a boatload of bottles. When you use it for cars you leave the cleaner residue on as a polish but for bottles I wash it off. There's other ways too; sometimes I use a blue Nyalox flap brush in a drill and then buff. Sometimes I use a random orbit sander and padded discs. (Indasa makes them) Basically I try to remove deposits without disturbing the bottle surface. Scratches, gouges, glass deterioration, and casewear are best left to professionals because you have to buy more stuff and it takes patience. If you want the best results you can get without buying anything expensive at all you can soak in vinegar a week and polish with an SOS cleaning pad. It's kind of surprising how much this can help. If you're bottle is cruddy inside you can put sand and water in it and shake, or dissolve it overnite with undiluted bleach. The purpose of the book when I finally got it the way I wanted was so you could get results without a lot of trial and error and wasted money but then I thought it was too technical for what most people wanted, which was just to get rid of some haze on a few bottles. I hope this is helpful.

 

[suzanne]

I forgot to mention, Autozone sells all kind of really fine grit sandpaper.