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Rant: Found a hack for cleaning pottery sherds that saved me 3 hours at the lab
I was stuck washing hundreds of tiny sherds from a site near Flagstaff, and the usual toothbrush method was taking forever. Then a tech told me to soak them in a bucket with a tiny bit of dish soap and warm water for 20 minutes first. It loosened all that caked-on dirt without me scrubbing each piece like crazy. I tried it on a batch of 50 sherds and cut my cleaning time in half. Now I can process a full tray in about 40 minutes instead of 2 hours. Has anyone else tried this trick, or do you have a better shortcut for dealing with grimy artifacts?
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murphy.linda1mo ago
Soak time could mess with fragile painted surfaces if you aren't careful.
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jamesm481mo ago
My record for fastest sherd washing was shattered when I left one in my pocket and it went through the laundry... came out cleaner than any toothbrush ever managed.
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Actually soaking them first is standard practice in most labs, not really a hack. It's more like basic procedure. But hey, it's good you figured it out on your own. @jamesm48 that laundry trick sounds like it would work too, though I'd worry about the machine getting scratched up with all that grit in the water. You probably want to avoid using fabric softener on those sherds, it leaves a residue that can mess with dating or chemical analysis later. I've seen people also use a ultrasonic cleaner for really stubborn pieces, but that's more expensive than a bucket and soap.
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