Used to brush dirt off with my hands, now I use a $3 toothbrush

Digging last month near the old railroad cut outside Pueblo. Found a small glass bottle, looked like medicine from the 1800s. Old me would've just wiped it with my thumb and called it done. Chipped a pottery shard that way back in 2019, still feel bad about it. Now I carry those cheap multipacks of toothbrushes. Soft bristle, wet it, work in circles. Slow but worth it. Took me 20 minutes on that bottle, but the embossed lettering came out clean. How do you guys clean small finds in the field without wrecking them?

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hill.andrew24d ago

Sounds like overthinking it, glass that old is already tough.

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bens8124d ago

Spent years digging and honestly I've never seen a toothbrush make or break a find. Glass and pottery that's been in the ground for 150 years is either already stable or it's gonna flake apart no matter how gentle you are. The chipped shard from 2019 probably had a hairline crack you couldn't see, not something your thumb did. Wiping with a wet rag gets the job done in 30 seconds and I've never ruined anything that way. Your mileage may vary but 20 minutes on a bottle feels like a lot of time you could spend actually finding stuff.

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