Paul Monfils wrote:


>I personally use an outstanding method which easily cleans the interior of
>narrow shells, right down to the apex.  Unfortunately, it requires some
>special equipment that most folks don't have around the house; but I'll
>describe it anyway.  I use a vacuum oven, which is essentially a chamber
>designed to withstand the force of a full vacuum, and a powerful vacuum pump
>to provide the vacuum.  The vacuum oven can also provide heat (hence the
>name "oven"), but I don't use heat in cleaning shells - just vacuum.  I
>place shells like Terebra (augers), etc. in a glass or plastic beaker, the
>bottom of which is filled with glass beads (clean sand would also work) to a
>depth of about 2 inches.  I push the apex end of the shells straight down
>into the beads, which holds them in an aperture-up position during cleaning.
>Then fill the container with bleach solution, and place in the vacuum oven.
>Turn on the pump, and evacuate the oven (remove all air).  This causes any
>air inside the shells to expand greatly, and be forced out through the
>aperture.  Then the bleach can flow in.  Bubbles of gas are also formed by
>the action of the bleach on the organic matter inside the shell.  You have
>probably noticed this while cleaning shells in bleach.  However, under
>vacuum, these bubbles come out of the shell at a greatly accelerated rate,
>bringing with them many bits of partially dissolved organic matter.  You can
>see this because the vacuum over has a glass viewing port in the door.  When
>the bubbles stop, the shell is completely cleaned.  Then you just release
>the vacuum, remove the beaker, and rinse out the shells with water as usual.
>An average size auger will usually be clean in about 20 minutes, unless the
>whole animal was dried inside the shell, in which case it might take an
>hour.
>This method also works great with microshells, which it is almost impossible
>to clean internally any other way.  You don't necessarily need a vacuum
>oven.  A simple vacuum jar will do, and is much less expensive.  However, a
>good vacuum pump is still fairly expensive.  WARNING!!!  UNDER NO
>CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU ATTACH A VACUUM PUMP TO ANY CONTAINER WHICH IS NOT
>SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED FOR THAT PURPOSE!  The container may implode, causing
>serious injury to anyone nearby!


You can buy machines for vacuum sealing foods.  They're as cheap as
$120.  See http://www.tilia.com/shopping/index.htm and click on
"foodsaver systems".  I would think one of those might work pretty
well...and you can even use it with food :-)
--
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Ed Foster
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