Slightly over four years ago, this magazine published a letter from a collector wanting information on cleaning insulators. Mr. Letcher, are you still an active collector? I hope so, because this article is a response to your inquiry. I hope it will also be of interest to others.

One of the less rewarding aspects of our hobby is the time required to occasionally dust our collection. Sure, we enjoy admiring, handling, and examining our most prized units, but how many of us really enjoy the essential job of dusting? Not many! Frankly, it's a nuisance, because it's a repetitive and tedious job. It's even discouraging, because you realize the entire process sill have to be repeated in a few months. Therefore; why not take advantage of this opportunity to determine if your glass is in need of cleaning?

How can a collector determine whether or not his collection is clean? One good way is to feel the surface. A nice clean insulator will have a smooth, slick feel, as opposed to a dirty one that will feel greasy. A second way is to look at the dome of a freshly dusted unit. Does it sparkle and shine, or is the reflection dull and dingy? Finally, turn the insulator upside down, and look through the skirt area. If you see a light-colored stain on the inside of the skirt, your insulator needs some scrubbing.

So -- how does a person go about this? What will he need in the way of supplies, and how difficult will it be? Let's take these questions in reverse order. Cleaning dirty insulators is not difficult. And -- it is not a time-consuming task. The materials you will need are:

1. A plastic container, such as a waste basket or a scrub bucket. This will be your soaker bucket.
2. A soaking chemical that acts as a reducing agent. Don't ask me to define reducing agent, because I'm not a chemist. But simply put, a reducing agent will change the greasy grime on your insulator from an almost impervious coating, to a softer compound which can be more easily removed. Examples of reducing agents are muriatic acid, oxalic acid, or any cleaning compounds which contain oxalic acid. Such a compound is "B.K.F." (Bar Keepers Friend). This product should be available at your full-service grocery store.
3. A package of SOS pads. Do not use Brillo pads
4. A can of cleanser. Ajax, Babo, Bon-Ami, etc. 
5. An old toothbrush. 
6. A pair of rubber gloves.

Now -- let's assume you are equipped with the needed supplies. If you are using the "B.K.F.", you will want to add about one-third of a can into your soaker bucket. Next -- add about one gallon of water. Before you add the insulators, make sure they, and the liquid in your soaker bucket are allowed to reach room temperature. It is very important to not add cold insulators to warm water, or vice versa. The reason for this is to reduce the possibility of developing a fracture in the glass. This can easily happen, because your insulator is old, and the quality of the glass is very often poor. With inherent defects, you must be careful to not subject your jewels to drastic temperature changes.

The amount of time your insulators will need to soak in the acid will depend on how dirty they are. A normal accumulation of 50-60 years of grime can usually be softened in twelve hours. An unusually filthy insulator that served its time in a smoky train yard or a grimy industrial area will require a full day of soaking... perhaps even more. If you are working with unusually dirty glass, remove them from the bucket after 12-24 hours, and wipe them with a paper towel. You will be flabbergasted at how much grime wipes off. Then, replace them in the bucket and soak for another 12-24 hours.

The next step is the scrubbing. You will be using your SOS pad, and a lot of elbow grease. This is where your dirty piece of glass is transformed into a shiny jewel. The scrubbing step is quite self-explanatory, so there's little need for me to tell you how to do it. But there are several things to guard against:

1. Choose a time when you will be free of distractions. Do not begin, if your mind is on that other project, phone call, family visit, that will be taking you away in a few minutes. Also -- make sure you will not have to compete with other family members for the use of the sink. The reason for this warning is to remind you that you may be working with a jewel worth several hundred dollars. You need to give it your undivided attention to minimize your chance of dropping it. 
2. Do not hold the insulator in a gloved hand while scrubbing it. You may wish to use rubber gloves while removing it from the acid. But after that, take off the gloves. You will need to be able to grip the insulator firmly. Its wet surface will be quite slippery, and the soapy cleanser will make it even more difficult to hold. So -- use your bare hand to reduce the possibility of a prized unit slipping from your grasp.
3. You'll need to occasionally rinse the insulator to see how the scrubbing is proceeding. Make certain to neutralize the temperature of the rinse water, so it will closely approximate the temperature in your soaker bucket.

As you proceed with the scrubbing, pay attention to the area containing the embossing. Take a little extra time to scrub this portion of the skirt, so that the flat surfaces between the letters and between the rows of embossing get cleaned too. Also -- if your insulator has long sharp drips, it may require an extra cleaning step. Use your old toothbrush to clean this area. The bristles are long enough to reach between the drips and scrub clear down to their base, end even get the grime deposited on the smooth area between the drips.

Now you are through, and ready to inspect your handiwork. Rinse away the soap and dry completely. Then turn the insulator upside down and look through the skirt again. That hazy white stain should now be gone. If not, you forgot to scrub in there, so it needs more work with the SOS pad. Also check the surface of the dome. If it does not sparkle, it's still not clean.

Now -- let me tell you of an experience I recently had cleaning a valuable insulator. Approximately eight months ago I purchased a dark purple H. G. Co. beehive. This beehive was almost mint, but it did have an open bubble on the base rim. Open bubbles rarely bother me, because I consider them to be a factory defect, not a damage defect. But this bubble was ugly! It was located on the front side, directly beneath the embossing. Further, the accumulation of grime had penetrated up into the inside of the bubble, so I really needed to clean this area too. The problem was -- the opening of the bubble was so small, I could not find any scrubbing instrument small enough to fit inside. Several weeks later, I found the perfect tool in a drug store. It is a specially designed toothbrush, called a Proxabrush. It consists of a tiny wisp of bristles about three-quarters of an inch long, and no thicker than a BB. After soaking the beehive, I sprinkled some cleanser into the bubble, and slid the Proxabrush inside. It worked perfectly! I was able to bend the brush to scrub all portions and angles of the bubble firmly enough to remove nearly all of the stain. So -- if you ever need to do some scrubbing in a tiny area, try using a Proxabrush.

Before ending this article, let's talk just a minute about the periodic dusting needed to keep your collection shining. I have tried several materials during dusting, but found that glass cleaners work better than products such as Pledge or Endust. The glass cleaners include such products as Sparkle, Glass Plus, and Windex. These products are designed for glass, and they sees to keep insulators clean for e longer period of time than the wood dusting products.

There you have it... the tips needed to determine if you need to scrub your collection. Also -- the materials you will need, and even the scrubbing procedures which produce the best results. The total expenditure for you will be less than five bucks! My suggestion is to inspect your collection, choose a few grubby pieces, invest the five bucks and a little time, and scrub them clean. If you do not notice a definite improvement in the "before -- after" comparison, give it up and quit! But I predict that the inherent beauty in your collection will be so obviously improved, that you will end up cleaning more units than you originally intended.