oh yea, for the alcohol, i'll pour the alcohol into the peice (not alot, but it needs to be a good ammount) swish it around a bit, to make sure the whole thing has atleast been coated in alcohol, then i pour in some more (in my bong it's about a half a cup total, probably less tho) then i pour in a very generous ammount of salt (i'm not sure how this helps, but i'm pretty sure it acts like an abbrasive when shaken, kind of like you'd use sand paper or a wire bristle brush to clean off dirty as fuck car parts) and shake it like hell for atleast a minute, then i just have to rinse it out and it's like new again... tho, be very careful about this method if you have any thin glass peices, i used this on the slide part of my bong, and less than a week later it broke, i didn't hit it, jar it, or put much pressure on it at all... i'm almost positive that this weakened the slide, but a slide is pretty damn thin too... my pipes/bongs been cleaned with this method and i've not had any problems, just with that damn slide... i had to rig my pretty bong.. damnit.. now instead of a slide i have a combination of a bic pen, a 'plastic sheet' from a 20 oz dr. pepper bottle and a bunch of electrical tape, it works well, and unless you look down inside you can't really tell that it's not supposed to be that way (i made sure to 'make' a clean-looking slide, as i don't judge on hits alone when it comes to bong, looks are a major factor in it...)