Removing Broken Stopper

This might be a good application for my Dremel using a very small drill bit. Thanks!

Might be able to vacuum it out....haha

Food saver

Hey... this is perfumes.... yuck....

Ah, I see what you mean. I don't think I can push the stopper through, at least not with the tools I've got. We definitely have plenty of screws around the house. With luck one will be the right size. Thanks!

Tiny eyelet screws in picture hanging kits might be about the right size.

I voted Randall a GA for for suggesting those earlier.

We have not established the hardness of the plastic stopper, but since it all seems to be the same material, it must be fairly soft.

But, that brings compressed air (instead of boiling water) into play. Picture a CO² wine cork remover. I'd use an air compressor and a blow gun. Drill hole, press air blow gun to hole, apply pressure, Voilà, stopper pops out.

The air pressure method was also suggested along with the hot water in #11

Noted. Should have acknowledged it.

With it being plastic I would attempt using a small Exacto knife to loosen between stopper and bottle walls first.

Depending on the plastic, a hot pin could be melted into the plastic and used for extraction after cooling.

I like it -- I'll dig through the junk drawer for the small Exacto knife. Thanks for the ideas!

Any short piece of solid wire (like piano wire) makes a fine drill bit for drilling through oak or tiny plastic stoppers.

Combining some tips from above.. I think the smallest hole with the tip of a long thin screw heated hot then pushed in and turned a bit would grab nice.

Test on the broken T bar part any method you consider.

Whatever you do, don't use any screw with a tapered thread. The act of tightening the screw will expand the stopper material making it even tighter in the neck of the container.

If i had this problem, I would get the thinnest round needle file that I could find, use the Dremel tool to drill a slightly oversized hole, then use crazy glue to bond the file to the stopper material. The machined surface of the file provides a bit of extra grip for the glue, and if you're so motivated, you could drill a matching hole in the T-bar, add some more crazy glue, and fasten the T-bar (almost) back into its original position.

All the needle files I'm familiar with are hardened all the way through, so very brittle, and likely to break.

I would use a tapered screw (well under the size of the stopper), and I'd drill the undersized hole, but I'd hold the screw in a screwdriver that has some way of gripping the screw, heat the screw until it is hot enough to melt the plastic, then screw the screw into the hole quickly until it cools to the point that it does not easily melt the plastic. Let it cool completely, then wiggle the screw around and around 'till the stopper loosens. The longer the screw, the better! A 2-3" deck screw would be great, if you can find one small enough.

... and immediately after the stopper comes out, it will be followed by most of the contents of the bottle.

No it won't...The air is at the top and that's all that will escape when the stopper comes out.

Judicious use of pressure or heat - just sufficient to do the job is to be expected of any smart operator.

I love the hot water approach for multiple reasons but you missed a critical caveat. Increasing the internal gas pressure can only work to break the seal if the remaining stopper is making an airtight seal. At the same time it is the seal of some quality that is preventing the stopper to move. [My Exacto knife suggestion is trying to break that seal.]

What I actually like best of your suggestion is the hot water should make the plastic stopper more pliable.

Lastly, unlike all of the other suggestions, placing the bottle in hot water cannot make things worse if it fails.

Why not drill it out? Start with a small drill and work up, if it's better. Use a sharp centre-punch first to locate the first drill.

Alas, returning the bottle to the store isn't an option. This bottle is part of a collection of five perfumes I bought at the Charles de Gaulle Airport duty-free shop three years ago. I can see the look on Mr. Best in Show's face if I suggested a quick trip to handle the transaction.

He could take you on a romantic weekend and kill two birds...........

A doctor's prescription is required to obtain a hypodermic needle here in the US.

That's only true for sharp needles. Blunt ones are easily available, with attached containers, for instance for applying acrylic solvent to join acrylic sheets.

True, but they wouldn't be considered "hypodermic".

Just being technical.

If you haven't chewed the stopper up too much, the hot water trick is quite effective. You may need to support the bottle so that it won't tip over and spill its contents. You can generate more pressure on the inside than you can achieve with a vacuum from the outside. Consider that water expands to something like 1600 times its original volumn when it changes from liquid to gas at one atmosphere. If hot or boiling water doesn't do it then consider the drill.

What about a tiny eye screw:-

Drill a hole in the stopper which is very nearly the outer diameter of the thread, but, not all the way through; put a drop of epoxy (araldite?) in the hole with a cocktail stick, and, screw in the "new" handle; don't allow any glue to flow to the junction between the stopper and the bottle; let it set.

Hopefully it will work as well as the original design (was supposed to).

I haven't posted an update because I have to remember where I left my little perfume bottle -- clearly it's in a safe place. Stay tuned for results.

probably laying on its side,... ever so slowly leaking its aromatic elixir...

... which means that I'll be able to follow my nose to find it !

If you drill a hole all the way through the plastic, it should make it easier to remove the stopper because it will equalize the pressure.

Use a tiny drill just slightly larger than the head of a straight pin. You can then hold the straight pin with pliers, insert it head first, and then pull it to one side (or wedge it in the hole with another object), snag the underside of the stopper with the pin head and pull. It might work.

Have you abandoned all hope of ever find that tiny bottle of perfume and solving the cork in the bottle mystery?

My record for procrastinating is still secure here, for now. I think it took me over a year to solve the limestone, chert rock mystery.

Grind off the end of a big nail. use it as a drift to push the stopper into the bottle.

I've been assuming that the opening in the bottle is tapered, and of course that the stopper is too. Pressing in on a tapered plug can exert VERY large sideways forces, virtually guaranteed to shatter the bottle.

If the stopper were soft enough to allow pressing into the bottle without shattering it, then it would presumably also be soft enough to allow her tweezers to penetrate, and she already tried that.

IF the stopper is not tapered, there would still have to be enough empty space in the bottle for the stopper to enter completely before forcing liquid out. Perfume is not something you want squirting into your eyes!

Stick with ezyout or coarse thread screw then.

Right. Judging by the fact that it broke, and the description of the break with a dimple in the center, I suspect that the stopper is made of a brittle plastic like acrylic.

She said that the stopper was about 1/8 of an inch across, and the bottle about an inch wide. Based on her photo and the one inch dimension, I think the stopper is a little bigger than 1/8", but it is still incredibly small. I'd suggest to drill a 1/16" hole around 5/16" deep, then enlarge that to 3/32" to around 3/16" deep, and try a #6 deck screw.

Actually, If I were doing it myself, I'd drill a #46 (0.081") -#43 (0.089") hole most of the way through the stopper, tap the hole with #4-40 plug and bottoming taps, and use a long #4-40 screw. I'd find say a 1/4" long spacer with a hole large enough to accommodate the stopper but small enough to fit the lip of the mouth, and a #4 washer bigger than the spacer, and a large diameter #4 nut or thumbscrew. Tightening the nut would pull straight up on the stopper, thus avoiding sideways forces, which will tend to fracture the plastic more.

I'll make a drawing...

If you look at the image you will see the stopper is a translucent plastic (HDPE?) and not the clear, brittle plastic of a acrylic resin like what the bottle itself might be. (Yes, I know an agent like titanium dioxide could make this resign translucent.) I suspect the whole stopper was a single molding of flexible plastic, like my proposed HDPE. This would allow for a good seal between stopper and bottle without precisely controlled sealing geometries like a ground glass stopper.

Sharp eye! I hadn't noticed that translucency, even though I used it to guess the size of the stopper hole.

I agree with your suspicion of a single-piece stopper, and a very good point about a little softer plastic sealing better. Yet the plastic was hard enough to break off, so I still think it may be possible to drill and tap it, if she has the tools.

Here's my concept:

I've shown a round bottle, because it is easier to draw, and I've cut away 1/4 of everything but the screw for visibility. Obviously I'm guessing about all of the bottle and stopper details. Again, tightening the nut on top will pull straight up on the stopper. If this fails, then just drill on through the stopper!

Now the first thing she has to do is to find where she put the bottle!