Antique Way

Cleaning Antique Bottles.

Bottles are worth more when they are clean and in at least near mint condition. Many old bottles are called "dug" because they were dug up after having been underground for many years. Being underground for a long time exposes the bottles to water which stains them on the inside and outside (the chemicals in the water do the staining). A good scrubbing with a brush and warm soapy water does a good job in removing most dirt, but is usually ineffective in removing stains. While chemicals like muriatic acid (dangerous), Lime Away, Efferdent, or Dexters can provide some help in removing this water stain, these chemicals usually do not work to completely remove the stain. Tumbling the bottles with copper shot for many days is usually the best way to remove most of this stain. Professional bottle cleaners use tumblers and usually charge about $15 per bottle.

Bottles that have been dug out of the ground often have a white stain on the inside, outside or both. While this stain cannot be removed by washing or scrubbing the bottle, it can be removed by "tumbling". Tumbling involves suspending a bottle inside of a piece of tubing, usually PVC or sometimes acrylic plastic, then adding a polishing compound, bits of copper wire, and water. The tube is then slowly rotated so that the liquid with the polishing compound and cut copper wire tumbles over and over the bottle. After around four to six weeks the bottle is removed from the tube, washed and inspected to see if all of the stain has been removed. The process is very much like the process to polish rocks.

Many new to the hobby are curious about cleaning their bottles. There are numerous "professional cleaners" who will, for a fee of around $10-$20 clean your bottles and return them to a nearly mint condition. The degree to which this is accomplished depends on the skill and experience of the person doing the cleaning. The time, effort and cost of using and building a bottle tumbling machine make cleaning bottles worth less than the price of cleaning unprofitable.

There is a great interest on the part of many collectors in building their own bottle cleaning machine. I usually advise people to build a machine that will be big enough to pay for itself and be salable if you tire of cleaning. Build a machine that allows you to do a little cleaning for friends and that will pay for your supplies and equipment. It take on average about two weeks to thoroughly clean a bottle, if you build a machine that can only clean one bottle at a time you can clean about 25 bottles a year. If you were charging $15 each, the machine would generate about $375.00 a year, which is not half of what it will cost to get a machine, supplies, and copper together. Building a machine that can clean four to ten pieces at a time will pay for itself within a year. The cost to build a larger machine is insignificant compared to the initial outlay.

Cleaning your dug bottles

To clean bottles you have dug yourself can be a difficult task, I have a few tricks that can help.
When bottles are dug from the ground the other items that were buried with the bottles can play a major role in the condition of the bottles when you find them 100 years later. Some household rubbish when it breaks down can create acids and other chemicals that can attack the glass and leave stains that are very hard to remove or marks that cannot be removed without the use of a professional bottle polisher.

Leaching:

Is when acids or chemicals in the soil have attacked the glass and started to break down the Lime in the glass, this results in the Lime leaching out of the glass which leaves a flakey cloudy or white substance on the surface of the bottle. There is not much you can do about this even polishing the bottle won't help in the long run.

Water Staining:

Is what happens to bottles that have been found in the Ocean. It is not really the water that stains the bottle but the effect of the waves or movement of the water which rolled the bottle around on the sand and has a similar effect if you rubbed the bottle with Sandpaper. This movment on the sand takes all the shine off the bottle and starts to rub away the glass, so a badly water stained bottle can have embossing rubbed off as well. Most bottles that are dived have water staining to some degree. If the bottle is worth saving i.e still has the embossing this can be fixed by getting the bottle Professionaly Polished.

Clouding & Contents Hazing:

Clouding is when chemicals in the soil attacks the glass and Contents hazing is when the bottle has been attacked by chemicals in whatever was in the bottle the contents. This can be fixed by getting the bottle Professionaly Polished.

Manganese Oxide:

Is the black substance that forms on the outside of the glass on bottles found in creeks and rivers, it is a fairly stubborn stain and can be removed by scrubbing with water and a stiff scrubbing brush.
It can also be removed quite easily by soaking in a 25 parts water to 1 part Sugar Soap (Hydrochloric Acid) soloution over night, then rinse in fresh water and scrub with a stiff brush, this is very effective on glass. If you use this method on Underglaze transfered stoneware once the stain is gone you will need to soak in fresh water (changing water every day ) for at least a week or you will find that your Transfered bottle no longer has a Transfer.

Professional Bottle Polishing:

There are a number of bottle polishers in Australia you would need to contact your local bottle club to find one in your area.
Bottles are tumbled in a machine with polishing and cutting agents, I don't know a lot about what is used as it is a heavely gaurded secret amoungst bottle polishers, in Australia it is a fairly expencive proccess and usually costs around $60.00au to $100.00au each bottle. Personaly I have never worried about polishing, I would just rather wait until I dug a mint one :-)

Dipping:

Is the proccess of dipping glass bottles into a mixture of Acids, this takes a thin layer of glass off and leaves the bottles looking Mint, BUT there are major risks if you try to do this yourself.

Caution

Please note: I DO NOT endorse the use of 'Bottle Dipping', this is a warning about the dangers involved. There are a few people who are selling instructions on eBay and other places on how to Dip bottles, although the proccess is quite effective. I beleive these instructions do not warn people about the danger of handling one of the Acid ingredience. This Acid is called Hydrofluoric Acid, this is so dangerous it is not worth the risk.

There have been two Deaths of Bottle Collectors in Perth Western Australia which have been related to the un-informed use of Hydrofluoric Acid while trying to Dip bottles.

Basicly these two men were not informed of the risks involved when handling Hydrofluoric Acid. Now I think most States in Australia you have to have a licence to purchase and handle Hydrofluoric Acid. If you buy any of these Instuction packages for Dip Polishing bottles and it calls for the use of Hydrofluoric Acid please thow the instructions away it is not worth