A good bottle digging buddy of mine came up with this one while digging in Northern California recently. I've strictly instructed him to save all insulators he digs, even the shards. When he made a quick wipe of the dirt on this one he thought it was full of cracks, but set it aside per my request. He later realized it was actually full of white milk, not cracks!

The upper photo is how it looked when he handed it to me. A straight steel rod pin with a thick lead cob was really jammed in the pinhole. The steel pin was actually bent, binding the lead even tighter. If it were not for the softness of the lead, this insulator probably would have exploded with that much tension on it.

I know some of you prefer the original hardware left on, but this thing has some wild milk swirls and could not be seen well with the pin in place, so the removal process began. Two months of soaking in muriatic acid, with occasional replenishing of fresh acid, finally ate through the steel pin, leaving the lead cob untouched. A hacksaw blade was used to score through the lead cob in several places, allowing it to be peeled out.

The lower pic is as it appears today, after a light two day tumbling to remove surface staining. A longer period of tumbling would probably enhance it more, but I prefer to leave a little of the rustic appearance intact--after all, it did come out of an outhouse. This is a mediocre shot with back lighting, which darkened the white swirls. It really looks great with base lighting.