cutting a glass bottle

Somehow in my youtube junk I came across this.  Wow! 

The guy has all sorts of glass cutting experiments that fail and after lots and lots of failures, he comes up with something that works really well.

When I was growing up in the 60's it was a fad to make drinking glasses and flower vases from bottles. You could buy kits that had all the stuff to do it there were also tons of books out for all sorts of crafts using cut bottles.

Chuck wrote:
When I was growing up in the 60's it was a fad to make drinking glasses and flower vases from bottles. You could buy kits that had all the stuff to do it there were also tons of books out for all sorts of crafts using cut bottles.

Yeah, I had one of those! It was a simple set up - the bottle laid in a trough, and I pushed down and rotated the bottle to score the glass (there was a metal wheel, maybe with a diamond coating). Then I heated the scored line with a candle, and submerged the bottle in cool water. It usually snapped clean where it was scored, and then just needed some polishing on the edge to make it safe.

Another good video on this:

When we were in the army in South Africa in the early '80 it was something we do to keep ourselves busy when not on patrols.  We would take an empty beer bottle  and tie a string dipped in diesel around the level were you want it cut. Then you light the string and let it burn till it fall off. Then you submerge the bottle up to the heated line and the top will just pop off. A piece of sandpaper and a little sanding around the top and you have a cool glass or by adding a wooden handle a nice beer mug

The thing I like most about the first video is that he has devised a way to salvage both the top and the bottom or the bottle, most cutting techniques destroy the top.

very neat! I love it when people don't accept that there isn't a better way to figure out how to do something. Well done.

Wow! Thanks Paul for posting this!

I also remember the kits and wanted one badly. Unfortunately, Santa didn't come through...

I actually spent some very frustrating time trying to cut jars to make a glass chimney for a candle holder last winter and accomplished nothing more than ruining a number of jars. (tried to insert a pic of the holder but can't seem to manage it)

Definitely going to try to jury rig a cutter like the one he used!

i got a cheap craigslist tile saw just for this.

Need something to do with all those bottle tops you didn't waste? Check this out!
http://www.instructables.com/id/Outdoor-Chandelier-Lighting-made-with-Trash-and-Kr/

... aaaand yet another method, for the real man in you (...),
and complete with a use for the bottles you produce:

http://our.windowfarms.org/2010/10/24/using-wine-bottles-preparation/

That is really neat! Other than drinking glasses, or christmas gifts, what could you use those for?

Dymmesdale wrote:
That is really neat! Other than drinking glasses, or christmas gifts, what could you use those for?

Percolator cone for making tinctures

You can do cool things with this. I remember first seeing my parents do it when I was a child. More recently I did this with my wife and kids to make a dog house (our test) and then later wall of bottles in our bathroom. See:

http://images.google.com/images?q=site:flashweb.com+glass%20bottle

http://SugarMtnFarm.com/blog/2007/10/bathtub-bottle-wall.html

We had a lot of fun with it. Better than the commercial glass blocks which is what I had been going to use. I plan to do more of this on our house.