How to Remove Labels and Prepare Bottles for building Water Rockets.
Introduction:
This tutorial will show you how to prepare your bottles for Water Rocket Construction. Before you begin building water rockets from bottles, they must be properly prepared. Failing to do so can result in the rocket leaking or exploding under use, or may shorten the longevity of your rocket. If this method does not work well, we suggest you try the method described in our other bottle preparation tutorial. Tutorial 21: Water Rocket Bottle Label Removal and Preparation V2. To prepare your bottles, the labels and glue must be removed, and the bottles must be cleaned of all contamination from their contents and oils left from manufacturing or handling.Clean bottles also simply make for nicer looking rockets as well.
Tools and Materials Required:
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Materials Required:
- Plenty of bottles
- Paper Towels
- Solvent (the type depends on the label type on your bottles)
- Dishwashing Detergent
- Water
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Tools Required:
- Scissors
- Rubber gloves
- A sharp knife
Step 1:
Using your knife or scissors, slice the label vertically down the entire length and peel as much of the label as you can off the bottle. Some labels will peel off completely, leaving only a glue residue behind. Newer bottles have a laminated plastic shrink-wrap label that delaminates when peeled off. The delamination leaves a pearl white material adhered to the bottle which is very difficult to remove. If you think you have this new type of label material, you may skip ahead to Step #3, because every other method will be frustratingly slow and labor intensive.Gallery
Step 2:
If you are unfamiliar with the type of glue a particular bottle uses, you may want to try the common methods for removing labels which have been worked in the past. You can test commercial glue removal products such as "Goo Gone". If that fails to remove the label you should test and see if mineral spirits will work. If the glue is stubborn and requires a lot of rubbing and scraping to get off the bottle, then you may want to try using acetone. If any of these methods is successful at removing the label, you can skip ahead to Step #6.If all of these methods prove difficult or time consuming then proceed to Step #3 for an easy solution to these difficult labels. ...