I suggest wearing mechanics gloves or something that offers both dexterity and protection when doing this in order to prevent harm to your fingers and hands. Goggles and a mask are also a good idea for safety equipment.
To this end we bought an Ephrem's Bottle Cutter Kit.
To make an etch on the bottle you adjust the base of the bottle so that the cutting wheel is perpendicular to the etching surface and is a located a little above (or below if you are cutting the bottom off something) where you want the bottle to be cut.
Rotate the bottle towards you while applying light pressure. A shallow etch is preferred to a deep cut. All you really need is a scratch that guides the crack in the glass.
The result should be a shallow etch around the whole circumference of the bottle. You do not want to etch more than once.
Next alternate between even heating and cooling of the bottle. I use a candle in a holder we have for heating rotating the bottle slowly at first and then quickly so as to have the bottle heat evenly.
After the heating you apply ice to the etch. Alternate between ice and heat and eventually, with no tugging or twisting effort, the bottle should be separated along the etch which has now become a crack / cut through the glass. The cut will not be perfectly even, sanding will be required.
The kit comes with polishing powder. The powder is placed on a flat surface, in my case a plate that is a complete odd one out for us, and mixed with water. I strongly suggest wearing a mask (my wife and I use the HDX N95 Respirator Mask) at this point because glass dust is supposed to be nasty stuff for the lungs.
This step is also rather noisy and I use earmuffs. The grinding noise is not particularly pleasant.
The polishing powder does a good job with the rough sanding. It can also take a long time depending on how the surface was cut and how deep or how far out the imperfections protrude. Eventually we might want a tool like an 8 Inch Mini Lap Grinder as it would enable much faster grinding and likely give use more consistent results regardless of how the cutting process goes, in no way is one actually needed though for this project. This is just kind of on the tool wish list.
It takes a lot of even circular motions depending on how bad the imperfections are. This is the most time taking part of the entire process, swirling the cut surface around on the finishing powder until it starts looking more or less even and feeling even to the touch. Eventually that uneven surface looks like this:
Now is it time for finish sanding.
The Ephrem's kit includes probably a 400 grit sand paper which we do not even use.
Instead we use a large assortment of different grits to get a very smooth and finished surface.
I like to start with 3M Emery Cloth. Course, then medium, then fine.
Then I like to work my way through 3M Imperial Wetordry 400, 800, 1000, and 1500.
First I use electrical tape to make sure I do not accidentally sand off any of the bottle art I am trying to protect. When cutting sandpaper I use a set of sacrificial shop shears as sand paper is not kind to blades.
As you can tell by the sheet lengths in the image above you use a lot more of the lower grits than you do of the high grits.
When it is all done I end up with a glass that is as smooth, or smoother, to my fingers and lips than store bought glasses. The finished glass is much smoother than the untreated cut surface of the bottle neck:
There is also a useful tutorial, for those who prefer watching someone as do it in this video from Ephrem's Bottle Works:
This project will be ongoing as we have many bottles to cut. A lot of Angry Orchard Cider House Collection bottles, some scotch bottle, some wine bottles, and a Belvedere Vodka bottle which has some really nice tree art work. I do not know if we will be able to do anything with the Captain Morgan Parrot Bay rum bottles because they are square in nature.
My wife and I also previously did a wine and a scotch bottle, which are not shown, but both turned out fairly well for first efforts, though I may revisit my scotch bottle glass at some point to get rid of some imperfections.
Please leave any question or comments below and I will try to get back to you.
My friend Megan asked on Facebook: I have been tempted to do this for about a year. How long did you spend on one bottle, time wise?
ReplyDeleteAnswer: It heavily depends on how jagged or uneven the cut surface is. If it is relatively a clean cut I would say about 30 minutes total grinding and sanding. If it is not a clean cut the initial grinding with the polishing powder can take over an hour. Once the initial grinding is done it takes about 10-15 minutes of sanding with the various grits of sand paper to get the really smooth edge. Cutting is maybe a 2-5 minute process.