Tumbling bottle with crack

[hemihampton]

A guy wants to sell me a hutch bottle with crack in top. Bottle is very dirty, stained, sic, ect. & needs a tumble. Can you tumble a bottle with a crack in top or in neck or will it disentergrate into peices? Would epoxy repair help it any? THANKS, LEON.

 

[epackage]

As thick and sturdy as hutches are I'd say it all depends on the crack and the person tumbling it and their expertise.. I hope you do before & after pics, good luck.

 

[justanolddigger]

Would epoxy repair help it any

The epoxy won't hold up to tumbling. One trick I learned was to completely fill the bottle with copper, and totally fill the outside with copper also. Sounds wrong with the extra weight, but it keeps the copper from sloshing & jarring the bottle. I tumbled a cathedral pickle this way with a hole in the neck, and it worked fine. Think of the bottle as being nestled inside all that copper instead of holding that weight by the stopples....Bill

 

[cowseatmaize]

I don't tumble myself except by falling, steep hills are the worst.

I wound guess that since they aren't doing something like that than heat caused by friction would be the big problem. Maybe a lower speed and longer duration or shorter blasts at normal speed might avoid too much heat? IDK

I'd be willing to bet that, like Jim said, they can withstand a lot. I'm sure some of those have rolled down rivers for many miles and survived the heat of summer and the frozen winters.

 

[cowseatmaize]

I forgot you said the top and neck so where the stopple would be might be an issue. I'll have to find out what a stopple is but I think two are used, one at each end.
I really just like say stopple, that's another fun word to me.
The above may be true though so wait for some more opinions.

 

[AntiqueMeds]

the only thing that you can predict for certain about cracks in glass is that they never get smaller.

 

[blade]

Crack is Whack[] !

 

[chosi]

If it's a good bottle, I'd learn to live with the crack, rather than risk tumbling it.

That being said, the few times I've tempted fate and tumbled cracked bottles, they have survived without any noticable increase in the crack size. These were all thick soda bottles by the way, with cracks that weren't particularly large.

If only the inside of the bottle is dirty, then you can wrap the outside of the bottle up in electrical tape and tumble the inside-only. Still no guarantee it will survive, but the chances are good that it will.

 

[T D]

If all or most of the strain is on the inside, just tumble the inside. Put the normal amount on the inside and plug it with a whittled down cork taped down. I also like the packing it on the inside and outside with copper and free tumbling it. I use a test plug on each end when free tumbling

 

[stlouisbottles]

Re: RE: Tumbling bottle with crack

I have tumbled bottles before with cracks in them and 99% percent success rate. You just got to make sure you have the bottle secure in the tumbler and turning slow.