Thanks again for all the ideas. I used WD40 on the outside of the bottles today and cleaned glue off 19 bottles in
about 35 minutes. They already had the label paper scratched off and had been soaked for 12 hours. I washed them off
outside and in then dried them off with an old towel.

Pretty good results and no taint inside bottle - though I know its not the ultimate solution. It seems to work on the
hard glue and latex types. The odd extra squirt helps clean the gunge off.

Jim

"Steve Landis" <sdotlandisatcomcastdotnet> wrote in message ...
> jim wrote:
> <snip>
>> My first question is: What cheap chemicals/products (preferrably
>> readily available in the UK) are good at removing label glue. About
>> 50% come off with hot water and plenty of elbow grease. Others seem
>> to resist my nails, chisel (!) water and just about anything else.
>> I've managed to get it off with a solvent cleaning spray I have but
>> its very expensive and not particularly efficient. I was thinking
>> maybe petrol used carefully or something would be the optimum cheap
>> solvent. Any ideas?
>>
>> The second question is has anyone had any problems corking screw top
>> wine bottles? I have corked a dozen or so bottles which were
>> previously screw tops with no problems, but the neck glass seems to
>> be thinner. I am using a portuguese floor standing bottler with
>> commercial corks which are a tad larger than some of the home
>> bottling corks. I was wondering if I should be wary?
>
> I keep a plastic pail filled with water on the back porch. It will hold about 4 bottles. I fill the bottles with hot
> water to help loosen the label initially and to keep the bottles from floating, hand cork them
> and let them soak for a few days in the pail. I scrape the labels off
> with a stainless steel scraper. Most of the labels usually scrape off
> easily, some require extra effort.
>
> I cork the random screw top bottles that I get with 9x1.75 corks with no
> problems to date.
>
> Steve