# Cleaning Stained Bottles



## ConsDigginVids (Aug 21, 2010)

I have alot a white stained bottles, and i was wondering how to remove the stain?


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## cyberdigger (Aug 21, 2010)

Well, to put it bluntly, it aint easy!
 This staining is also referred to as "sickness" ..a sick bottle can not be cleaned because the glass itself has permanaently interacted with minerals. The traditional way of restoring a sick bottle is by having it tumbled. This is an expensive process, involving days of slowly grinding away the sick glass in a mixture of abrasive grit and copper pellets, turning inside an enclosed cylinder.. it only makes sense to pursue this technique if the bottle is valuable, or if you have your own tumbler setup. 
 There are ways to "cheat" like keeping the bottle filled with water, or coating it with mineral oil.. this will make the sickness less visible, but it does not fix it. Do not do this if you are trying to sell the bottle!!!


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## Poison_Us (Aug 22, 2010)

Several members here do tumble as a service.  Or if you want to do it yourself as you have a lot to do and think you will have many more in the future, you can invest in a tumbler.  http://www.jardoctor.com/   has just about everything.  A few members were selling tumblers just a while ago.


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## ConsDigginVids (Aug 22, 2010)

thanks for the help guys.... altho most of the stain is inside the the bottle. So how do i try to get rid of it???


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## GuntherHess (Aug 22, 2010)

try muriatic acid. If its just hard water (lime) stain it may make an improvement.


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## ConsDigginVids (Aug 22, 2010)

alrighty thanks Matt.. picked up a mission beverages from frederick MD today


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## GuntherHess (Aug 22, 2010)

If I ever ventured into collecting sodas I think it would be art decos, they are too cool.


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## holygeez (Aug 27, 2010)

To clean some of my bottles, I used regular table salt.  Whether or not it is recommended (before I get pummelled)...it worked for me.  I used salt with a little hot water and swished it around.  This took out the dirt I couldn't get to and that lime scale.


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## nhpicker (Sep 12, 2010)

I have been using wood bleach (oxalic acid) with pretty good results. You can get it in almost any hardware store. It is usually by the paint and wood stripper chems.[]


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## Bixby Bill (Sep 18, 2010)

I like to use denture cleaner in my bottles, use one tablet for a small bottle, 2 for something like a blob top soda, etc. Let it soak for a couple days and it will loosen anything in there that can be loosened without tumbling it. It won`t remove cloudiness, but I`ve had some bottles that I thought were sick but just turned out to be content stain, and the Efferdent loosened it so it could be cleaned out.


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## Dale (Oct 7, 2010)

I use the Works toilet bowl cleaner, you need to use elbow length rubber gloves. I got mine at an auto parts store. The Works is very corrosive. If you get any of it on your skin or eyes, wash it out with water immediately. The Works is about as good as anything else I've tried. If I have alot of bottles to clean at one time I will take a 5 gallon bucket and pour one bottle (1 qt) of the Works into it and fill it about 3/4 full of water and let them soak, depending on how bad they are, from 30 minutes to 2 to 3 hours. And then I use a small brass chain, about a foot long, I got the chain from the hardware store, it is used for hanging lamps and decorations. I have another 5 gal bucket filled with clean water that I will rinse them out with. I will put the chain with a little bit of water in the bottle and shake it around the stained areas. You may have to do it several times, but it will usually take most of the stains out. If I only have 1 or 2 bottles I will pour the Works directly into the bottles and let them soak. After I'm thru letting them soak I will pour the Works back into the bottle to reuse. On the outside of the bottle I will use some scotch brite.
 Dale


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## suzanne (Oct 8, 2010)

Be careful using toilet cleaner because if you leave the bottle in it too long it will make the glass dead looking.   I found this out when I was using double blind studies to see if any common household products would remove sickness.  I put one bottle in The Works and one in white vinegar for a week to see if either of them would help.  At the end of the week the vinegar bottle was clean but still sick and the toilet cleaner bottle was still sick and also had taken on a permanant unattractive dullness.


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## Dale (Oct 8, 2010)

Thanks for the info.  Dale


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## 2467ALPCA (Dec 5, 2010)

Good to know stuff here. I'm sure glad I joined this group. I've collected bottles for almost 40 years, I used to dig them but lost all my spots through the years. Cleaning the inside of many bottles has always been a problem. I've just found the solution.


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