# Reply to Mr. Black Velvet.



## suzanne (Aug 16, 2013)

Go ahead and read it, it's worth your time.  Here goes:

 You try to help people and they get up on their high horse over e-mail. Now you wonder if it was a good idea to try to reach out to them because they seem too darn pig-headed to learn.

 It's hard to get people to listen - let alone go out and purchase some materials and then actually take action. It's hard to describe a process on demand and get all the information out there without forgetting details. Then you wonder if by some miracle someone actually read your post, tried your method, and screwed up their most favorite bottle because you (dumb-ass) left something out. And if you don't happen to remember it in 5 minutes you can't edit your post. Bottleheads wearing jack-boot's march in like storm troopers to stomp on your head.

 One would think that posting the information once on the forum would be the best way to get it out there.

 Wrong.

 If you title your thread, "How to Clean Bottles," I can promise you it won't be long before someone else
 posts a new thread titled, "How do you Clean Bottle's?" Too lazy to even read what's already there. Unbelievable.

 5 years ago I wrote a book about cleaning; actually I shake with sand or bleach to get the heavy clots of crap out and then use the same method as you do to polish the insides. I cut up a plastic clothes hanger though instead of fiberglass rod's, mainly because a lot of them are laying around. Each one of my daughter's has more clothes in their wardrobe than I owned in my entire life.

 The book cost about 4 dollars to make and shipping was usually around 7 dollar's so I was asking 14.00 - that way I made 3.00 and wasn't spending a lot of time putting stuff together for everyone in the world for free like an idiot. Many forum members reacted with rage. You would think I was asking for a million dollars. I wish I could remember some of the names I was called, some of them were pretty clever. Bottle collecter's, by and large, seem to be pretty financially strapped. Very unfortunate. I feel their pain.

 And as far as tire shine? Who really gives a rat's hiney how you are displaying bottles at your residence. Once I was asked to prove myself so a forum member sent me a broken bottle. It did not go well.

 Then another member of the forum sent me a couple bottles to clean that he apparently retrieved from a large body of polluted water in a former industrial site. They were so bad that the first one I gave up on and the other took a lot of time and energy for a modest improvement. He could have just used Tire Shine. Sounds like your a motorhead, Mr. Black Velvet. Anyway the second guy sent 14 bucks for a book so I sent him a free one but I am not sure if it helped him. I think the bottle's he was looking at fixing were pretty far gone.

 Half the trick of bottle cleaning is choosing the bottle's wisely. What if you were a doctor and someone brought in a dying victim of gang violence with one foot in the grave and said, "Can you perfecty restore this man's former good health?" And then you have to explain that only Jesus can do that. But if someone comes in with bronchitis you can fix that. It is the same way with bottles. You kind of have to learn how much you can realistically improve a bottle without losing mold seams and some embossing, cracking the bottle, resorting to coatings, etc. That is if you don't have a magic tumbler which will take all of the work out of the process along with the mold seams and embossing. (that's a joke, tumbler people, please don't hunt me down and kill me, I have a family)

 (previously posted on Mr. Black Velvet's thread)


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## lblackvelvet (Aug 17, 2013)

Hello Suzanne,
                         I posted my reply on my thread if you want to read it? Thanks for your inspiration and opinion.  If I would not of posted the thread, I would not have met some great people!!   As I stated in my thread " It works for me"  I did not expect to change the world of bottle cleaning!!!  If I helped at least one person, Then my job is done.  I do know that a tumbler is the way to go if you can afford one, Which I can afford to buy one, But why spend 1500.00 on a machine when I can use that money to buy 1500.00 worth of new bottles. That's my story and I an sticking to it!!!  LOL !!!     Kevin.........


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## suzanne (Aug 18, 2013)

I think you met some A-holes too Kevin but fortunately they are in the minority.  Good for you.  We are simpatico.  It is fast and  easy to clean most bottles by hand.

 I know you replied already on your own thread and I thank you,  but Sara read it and thought it was funny so I decided to repost it as a new thread because I love attention and couldn't figure out how to delete the former reply.


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## glass man (Aug 18, 2013)

HOWDY SUZANNE!![]  JAMIE


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## FitSandTic (Aug 18, 2013)

I think it was nice of Kevin to share his process on cleaning bottles! Your always going to have people coming at you with negative comments on these forums the best thing to do is ignore it. I have been tumbling bottles for over ten years and some bottles are so screwed up that even cleaning them really doesn't help them that much. I can also tell you that tumblers are expensive if you do not build them yourself and let me also say that tumbling bottles is nasty, dirty work. People who have not done think its so simple but clean up after you have tumbled your prized bottles sucks. The black foam that comes out of my canisters bubbles out of the drain in my bottle sink. I don't even offer a cleaning service because it is not worth the trouble for $15 to $25, but I will tumble bottles for good friend when they need it. I really commend anyone who is willing to try and help people with a cleaning process. I also want to salute the guys who offer tumbling services to the public, you guys are doing a lot of hard work for little reward. Thanks you guys!


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## GuntherHess (Aug 18, 2013)

This forum is polite and well behaved compared to many of the internet forums.
 Brutal truth and constructive criticism can be hard for some people to accept and may appear as rude or negative.
 Many normal friendly communication nuances are lost in written posts compared to personal spoken conversations.
 It can be hard to separate humor , sarcasm , and other emotions in informal writing.
 One must invest the time to get to know people on a forum to understand where they are coming from.
 There may end up being some people you never see eye to eye with but that what the little green button is for.


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## suzanne (Aug 18, 2013)

Hey there, Mr. Gunther.  Haven't heard from you in a while.  I just wanted to let you  know that You Are 100% Right!

 Remark's out of context are confusing.  I alway's look up to you as one of the more intelligient guy's on the forum, along with Jamie, Rick, (who said I had no class, Wilkie, Cyberdigger Charlie, Ryan the army guy who had a bottle tumbling service, which is what it is, Bob who said I was a Snake Oil Salesman, and so on.  I walked in on the forum and said I had a new way of doing thing's. and was doubted.  I would doubt me too.  

 But I really did  have a new way, just like Kevin the Blackest of Velvet's does.


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## suzanne (Aug 18, 2013)

Thank you for the song, Jamie.  Luv, luv, luv, Van Morrison.


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