Introduction
Sooner or later if you keep playing with water rockets, you're going to want to do some more complex rockets. That means splicing and/or painting. Unfortunately, clean bottles do not fall off trees (especially if that's where they land) so you're going to have to do the cleaning yourself. To save the more skilled people extra reading, I'll bottom line it for you...mineral oil and/or alcohol will get off most of the glues used (in the US) on soft drink bottles.

Removing the label
Still with me? Great, let's get started. First things first, the label. While you can just grab the edge and yank the label off, it will often leave little pieces of the label stuck on the bottle. These annoying cling-ons around Uran...er uh...I mean, these annoying pieces of label that remain can slow down the process of removing adhesive by preventing the solvent from dissolving the glue. To prevent the problem, simply fill the bottle up with hot water (not so hot you can't put your hand in the water). This softens the glues hold. You'll probably want to put the cap back on the bottle while you're working with it.

After peeling, if the bottle has an unusually large amount of glue remaining you might want to stick the label back on (a part of the label without any glue on it obviously) and remove it again. Once you're done with the label, empty the bottle or the hot water might (after prolonged exposure) shrink the bottle slightly.

Removing the glue
Now that the label's off it's time to deal with the remaining glue. There are two solvents that work pretty well, mineral oil and alcohol. You'll have to test to figure out which will work best since different manufacturers use different glues. Once all of the glue appears to be broken up or dissolved, wipe off any excess solvent and make sure all of the glue is gone. If not...wipe it down again (and if that fails, try the other solvent). Be aware that some solvents may weaken the bottle.

Cleaning
If you used mineral oil, you need to clean off the bottle with a generous amount of dishwashing detergent. Any brand should do the trick. Finally, dry the bottle with a towel...or just leave it to dry for a while.

Well, there you have it...a clean bottle ready to paint or splice. Now get out there and make yourself a fantastic looking rocket.

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