# Bottle Tumbling Small bottles...



## Staunton Dan (Oct 26, 2009)

Here's something that was suggested to me recently and so far it has worked pretty good. I am currently cleaning larger bottles that will fit into 4" diameter canisters. I couldn't figure out how to do the smaller bottles like say medicines. Someone suggested that I put them into plastic containers and let them free tumble inside with the copper and grit just like the larger bottles. I filled the small bottle a little over half with copper and added grit and water then put a rubber stopper in it. I then put it in the plastic jar with the same mixture but just let the bottle free tumble. I was able to do 2 medicine bottles at one time (2 plastic jars) by placing the now full plastic jars in a 4" canister with rags around them to keep them from banging around. Three to 4 days was all it took to get this kind of results. Anyone else doing something similar on smaller bottles?


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## Staunton Dan (Oct 26, 2009)

Here's the 2 plastic bottles loaded with the medicine bottles (one in each plastic jar) before placing them in the 4" canisters.


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## Staunton Dan (Oct 26, 2009)

And here is the 4" canister (topcanister) on the tumbling machine.


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## GuntherHess (Oct 26, 2009)

Hi Dan , I got the Hites bottle, thanks.

 I use that free tumbling method sometimes. It works good for round bottles and rect ones with thick enough glass. I wont do the early rect medicines because before they started doing good mold venting the corners can be paper thin.


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## Staunton Dan (Oct 26, 2009)

I am not ready to tumble thin walled bottles yet using any method. I still need to practice on bottles that I wouldn't mind breaking by accident.


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## justanolddigger (Oct 26, 2009)

I free tumble a ton of stuff. I would not do a good bottle that way. The big key is to get your bottle in a container that fits the size of the bottle. I use spice bottles for small druggists and vials, peanut butter jars for bigger squatter bottles. I use small flat containers for doing fruit jar lids and get excellent results. You don't want an excess amount of copper weight against you bottle, so make the container as snug as possible. Small bottles don't get much action that way, so you might want to run them a little longer, but you cna put a bunch of them in a 6" tube.You do have a slight risk of breakage, but the trade off is worth it for me. I have broke one lid out of around 200 I tumbled......Bill


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