Tumbling Before and After photos

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hemihampton

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Iron Pontiled Miguel Pons from Mobile, before and after. It took about an hour of demel work to remove the "rough spots" first.
8 days inside/outside 1200 silicon carbide.
8 days inside only silicon carbide. Top plugged, wrapped in towels, tumbled in an 8" canister with 6 other sodas. Bottles are almost vertical while tumbling.
8 days inside/outside in aluminum oxide to polish
8 days inside only aluminum oxide, to finish polishing inside the long neck.
The green E. Carre looked like it had rolled 10 miles down a gravel road before I cleaned it. It also required about 2 hours of dremel work.

Wow, that's almost 5 weeks of Tumbling, You'd have to Charge someone $200 to tumble a bottle for all that time envolved? Look nice though. LEON.
 

hemihampton

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Think I got 3 days into this one. LEON.

MorlockFrontDirty.JPG
MorelockCleanedInHand.JPG
 

bottles_inc

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Some of these sodas need a little more work, but still photograph well. They also come in shades of aqua and sapphire blue.
I cleaned the yellow amber and green Sarracenia Life Bitters as well. The labeled one is a later model.
Thanks for posting all these great photos. You should arrange those sodas from darkest to lightest teal, would make a cool photo
 

Vinewood

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This is actually a "before" photo of a group of Monju's where only a few of them had been tumbled. I have experimented several different ways with photographing color runs, and mostly I prefer to mix the colors. That way you get more contrast. A few of these are the same color, but even the aqua ones come in several different shades. The "teal" ones range from what I call teal blue, teal, to teal green.
Also here are some mostly "before" photos of some bitters I have been cleaning. When I finish, I will take more photos.
 

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Vinewood

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Wow, that's almost 5 weeks of Tumbling, You'd have to Charge someone $200 to tumble a bottle for all that time envolved? Look nice though. LEON.
Actually, the final inside only step often requires two 8 day runs, especially on square bottles. I rarely tumble for others, but when I have, the minimum for 4 to 6 passes and a little dremel work is $150.
 

Wildcat wrangler

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Those are beautiful! The rubberized thing for the Dremel tool, where do you get that? I have been using my Dremel to polish them up and to clean them up wherever they need it. It does work well on scratches! I’m surprise somebody else does that. My nail drill for doing acrylic nails also works really well.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

J.R. Collector

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Some of these sodas need a little more work, but still photograph well. They also come in shades of aqua and sapphire blue.
I cleaned the yellow amber and green Sarracenia Life Bitters as well. The labeled one is a later model.
Nice Monju from Mobile. Would you happen to have a picture of an open pontil soda from Mobile? Good to see you BTW on here Rod.
 
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Vinewood

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Those are beautiful! The rubberized thing for the Dremel tool, where do you get that? I have been using my Dremel to polish them up and to clean them up wherever they need it. It does work well on scratches! I’m surprise somebody else does that. My nail drill for doing acrylic nails also works really well.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
You can find these at: https://widgetsupply.com/category/dremel-polishing-rubber-wheels.html
Purchase one set of each of the 6 wheels for $1.97 per set. Different grits work better for different glass. Start only with as coarse as necessary and finish off with the white fine polish before you tumble the bottle. These wheels remove more glass than the other items noted below. If you are not tumbling, you will have to polish further by using felt polishing wheels or bullets. I use them with an aluminum oxide powder/water slurry.
Mount the wheels on individual mandrels: https://www.ebay.com/itm/223467370941?ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649
You don't want to have to swap mandrels to change grits.

WARNING: when using these items, you need to to fill the bottle with water, plug the top, and also be near running water in the sink or a bucket of water to KEEP THE BOTTLE COOL AT ALL TIMES. This process generates heat rapidly. You will spend just as much time cooling the glass off as you spend grinding or polishing. Generally grind/polish for no more than 15 SECONDS before cooling. Touch the bottle to your face to feel the heat. You fingers may not be sensitive enough. If I have a bottle with a dozen spots to touch up, I will go from one to the other, spending no more than 15 seconds on each, then cool the entire bottle and start over again.

ANOTHER WARNING: Many in-place chips will pop out from the heat and vibration if you start grinding on them. This can be what you want to do, if they are very small, or very BAD if this is NOT what you want to do. PRACTICE ON JUNK FIRST, AND DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Other polishing options that you need for getting around embossing or in tight spots. One set is rounded, one set is pointed: https://www.ebay.com/itm/202645670238
I REALLY like these discs for minor fixes or finishing steps, the finest one will create almost a polish: https://www.ebay.com/itm/184108553875?hash=item2addb99693:g:HvgAAOSw1V9eDaLc

Depending on what type of damage I am removing, I may use 5 or 6 different grits or types of these wheels or disks on the same bottle.
 

Vinewood

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Nice Monju from Mobile. Would you happen to have a picture of an open pontil soda from Mobile? Good to see you BTW on here Rod.
Bartunes from Mobile is the only one that has come up with an open pontil. I dug one 28 years ago, and now am in line to get it back.
Here are two iron pontiled examples, uncleaned and cleaned. The cleaned one never had any iron left in the pontil when it was dug. I always protect that area anyway when I tumble them.
The "uncleaned" one has actually been dremeled, and the inside is already polished, it just needs the outside cleaned and polished.
I also remove all the base wear when I tumble these sodas.
 

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