It works for me !!! cleaning bottles !!

[suzanne]

Mr. Fred, why don't you become a moderator, so that every 6 month's when i decide to do some posting you can delete me.

 

[FitSandTic]

Thank you Suzanne, I appreciate that and I also would like to let you know I am not trying to attack you. I am not resorting to name calling and I wish we could have this conversation face to face, so you could see my genuine intentions. I really do not use my tumbler much but my dad did put a bottle in the other night, if I get a chance I will post some pics when it is complete. One problem is I did not get pictures of the bottle before it was put in the tumbler though. I would like to ask you Suzanne how many bottles have you tumbled?

 

[chosi]

ORIGINAL: suzanne
.... In fact, it dramatically alters the bottle forever by removing the top layer of glass along with any interesting textures and characteristics. The trick to cleaning is to leave as much original surface in good condition as possible. People who are experienced tumblers can do that.

I'm currious - how thick do you imagine the layer of glass that gets removed is?

 

[andy volkerts]

Very miniscule, perhaps a quarter of a thousandth of an inch, unless you leave the bottle in too long. Most bottles will respond well in about threedays of tumbling with a medium grade cutter. If you have to leave a bottle in much longer than four days, it probably wasn't a good candidate for tumbling in the first place. Proper tumbling should be regarded as CLEANING not restoring glass, no scratch removal, no chip smoothing, no etching removal. those items are considered bottle glass repairing, and in my opinion should not be considered cleaning.....

 

[suzanne]

Attic finds, I don't really care about the before picture's, I was just wondering if you could post pictures of bottle's you've done. I like pictures a lot.

I have never tumbled a bottle. I polish them. I use a lot of ideas and stuff borrowed from the auto body repair field.

 

[FitSandTic]

Removing stain is cleaning. I was just curious to see if you had ever been around someone who had tumbled a bottle and maybe ruined it or maybe ruined one of your bottles. You seem to be very passionate on hating tumbled bottles and that's fine you are entitled to your feelings. The compound I use in my tumbler is used by many guys for polishing. I really do not get to aggressive with my tumbling. A lot of people think its the copper that cleans the bottle but its the powders we use that do it. As a matter of fact I have heard of guys using plastic shot to tumble before. I have never done it myself or seen it but I did read about it. I wish I could remember where. I read in one of your posts that you use tire shine after you are done cleaning or polishing your bottles. I think if you are going to keep your bottle that is fine, I mean its your bottle what do I care. Although if you decide to sell the bottle I feel you should let the buyer know that you have applied it. Most experienced collectors will spot it but we should take care of the new guys. I think the bottom line is basically whether it be a tumbler, dremmel tool, or any other tool that can be used to polish, clean or repair a bottle you just do not want people to get to crazy with it. I read Kevins process and it seems very interesting I need to meet up with him and watch him clean a bottle. You want to know what is funny about this whole post? I do not have one tumbled bottle in my collection, or if I do I did not do it. I really do not use my tumbler much.

 

[chosi]

ORIGINAL: andy volkerts
Very miniscule, perhaps a quarter of a thousandth of an inch, unless you leave the bottle in too long.

The reason I brought it up is because I suspect some people out there beleive that tumbling removes a lot of glass.
I recently tumbled a bottle that had a repaired lip, so I put some rubber-bands around the lip to prevent it from breaking off in the tumbler. The rubber bands prevented part of the glass from being tumbled.

You can see from the photo where the shiney (tumbled) portion meets the dull (un-tumbled) portion that was covered by the rubber band. I put an arrow in the photo at that point.

I can't see any visible sign of glass missing above the rubber band mark - so I agree with you Andy that it's a very miniscule amount of glass.
At least that's the case with all the bottles I've ever tumbled.

 

[chosi]

Before anyone asks...

I wouldn't normally tumble a bottle with a broken lip, especially one with glass as sick as this one.
The reason I tumbled it is because it's my only bottle with a "cigar-band" slug-plate, and I really wanted to show off the slug plate on my web site. You couldn't see the slug-plate before I tumbled it.

Here's a before photo:

 

[chosi]

And here's the after photo:

 

[GuntherHess]

ORIGINAL: chosi

Before anyone asks...

I wouldn't normally tumble a bottle with a broken lip, especially one with glass as sick as this one.
The reason I tumbled it is because it's my only bottle with a "cigar-band" slug-plate, and I really wanted to show off the slug plate on my web site.  You couldn't see the slug-plate before I tumbled it.

Here's a before photo:

Interesting slug plate. Looks like they screwed up on text spacing and ended up not being able to fit WASHINGTON.
This seems counterintuitive since they created a unique slug plate mold negating the whole reusability idea of the slug plate.
Maybe the particular mold was near end of life and it didn't matter at that point?
Nice job tumbling the cracked lip BTW.