CUTTING WINE AND BEER BOTTLES
Double your fun by cutting off those empty beer and wine bottles to make drinking
glasses. Making them is easy with the fixtures I describe and is well within the
capabilities of the beginning glass worker or hobbyist.
Although any beverage bottle can be made into a usable drinking glass, look for the
bottles that have the ceramic painted label. These labels are fired on at a high
temperature and will not be affected by any glassblowing operations. They will remain
on the glass when the cut edge is fire polished. Soak off any paper labels prior to cutting
the necks off and make sure that the inside of the bottle is drained dry. Place the bottles
overnight in a bucket of water, and by morning the labels are easy to remove. Beer
bottles make excellent juice glasses and wine bottles are ideal for iced tea and water, as
they hold a lot of ice. If we could get people to recycle even a fraction of the bottles
thrown away today, it would become a worthwhile project!
Cutting the necks off becomes easy when you construct a cutting fixture to the
dimensions I describe. It can be cut from a foot square piece of 1/2" plywood and a
couple feet of 1" x 2" stock and a hinge. It is adjustable and will take any beer or wine
bottle. I put mine together with brads and glue. You can use wood screws if you like. I
must confess that as a carpenter, I make a good glassblower, but it’s simple and it works!
This fixture uses a glass cutter of the “Red Devil” type for cutting sheet glass and can be
purchased in a hardware store. If it has a ball at the end of the handle, it can be removed
with a sharp blow of a hammer. Insert the cutter through a 3/8 inch hole drilled in the 1"
x 2" handle directly above the “V” trough you made for the bottles. Making a good seal
from the metal cutter to wood is accomplished with a glue gun, filling the void around the
cutter and the wood with hot glue. Use a scrap of the 1/2" plywood for a stop against the
bottle bottoms, so that the cut bottles will be of the same height.
Using the cutting fixture is simple. Place the bottle in the trough against the stop, bring
the handle down until the cutter is against the bottle. Grasp the handle firmly, holding it
against the front support. Now put pressure on the cutting wheel, rotating the bottle
against the wheel. Go either direction, scoring the bottle all the way around. Do not
retrace the cut a second time. The ground glass in the cut will destroy the cutting wheel
in no time at all if you do. One score is sufficient. Try rotating the bottles in both
directions, you will find that one direction works better for you. I like to mark a number
of bottles at a time and fire polish them in batches also.
The cutting wheel will last longer if you keep it lubricated with kerosene or 3-in-One®
oil.
To cut and fire polish the bottles, ideally, you would need a glassblowing lathe. I find
that there is a practical substitute for a lathe sitting in nearly every home. I use my old
record player. E-Bay is a good source of record players also. They rotate at four speeds
and is rugged enough to support the bottles during cracking the necks off and fire
polishing as well. I cut a six inch plywood square on my table saw and drilled a hole in
the center to accommodate the center post of the record player. I didn’t want to saw off
the center post of the record player, so I built up the plywood disc with 1/2" plywood
blocks until the center post no longer protruded above the disc. The speed and weights
required allows you to merely set the plywood disc on the player turntable, without
needing to attach it permanently. In case a bottle breaks during fire polishing, the
plywood disc also prevents hot chips from burning up your record player. To place
plywood wedges on the disc to locate the bottles at the center of the disc, I placed a bottle
on the disc, started rotation, and bumped the bottle until it ran on center. Then glueing
one edge of the small triangles, I placed them in four places, barely touching the bottle.
When the glue dried, centering the bottle was no longer necessary, the bottles just drop
into the center of this fixture.
When your record player is modified, place a bottle (already scored) in the plywood
holder. Start the player at 45 RPM. Light your small propane torch (shown on the yellow
cylinder above) and adjust if for a small, intense flame about 1/2 of an inch long. You
can use either the propane in the blue cylinder or the MAPP gas in the yellow cylinder.
Either gas works, the MAPP gas is a little hotter. Direct the flame against the bottle,
tangentially across the surface of the bottle, with the tip of the flame just touching the
score line. Hold the flame very steady and concentrate on heating only on the score line.
It takes only about fifteen seconds or so of heating the glass at the score line to induce
sufficient strain to crack the glass. Some bottles are heavier than others and require a
longer heating time. Once the crack occurs, stop heating and the crack will progress
along the score line until it completely encircles the bottle. Use a drill or other metal rod
to tap the neck of the bottle to remove the neck. Practice will sharpen your techniques.
Keep in mind the fact that you want to use as little heat as you can to cut the bottle off,
just enough, no more. You will get so that you can predict the amount of heating
necessary and remove the flame a second before the CRACK that happens when the two
pieces separate.
A larger torch tip is used to fire polish the cut edges, so cut the bottles in batches and you
will not have to change torch tips as often. I use a “Hush” tip, 3/8 inch for fire polishing.
Wear your Didymium safety glasses during all cutting and heating operations.
See Video for process
Place the cut bottle back on the record player and center it up so it rotates evenly. Use
the National torch with the Hush, 3/8" tip to preheat the bottle. Start with a yellow flame,
heating the top inch of the bottle. Direct your flame across the edge of the bottle and at
one side. Add oxygen gradually, until the carbon deposited from the yellow flame is
burned off. Adjust your torch so that you get a strong blue flame about four inches long.
Change the speed of rotation from 33 to 16 RPM for fire polishing. Heat the cut edge
until it flows and the edge rounds off. When the edge is fire polished all around, heat it
off using a softer flame directed against the last 3/4 inch of the top of the bottle. Burn off
the carbon about an inch from the end. Take your time, you want to relieve the sharp
strain left from the fire polishing operation. Gradually reduce the oxygen in your flame
and continue heating for about 30 seconds, at which time the end of the bottle will get a
rich coat of carbon from the flame. This carbon deposit actually helps slow down the
cooling of the glass and it indicates that you have flame annealed in the proper manner.
Remove the bottle from the record player and place it in a draft-free place to cool. If,
after cooling, a circular crack results near the fire polished surface, that indicates that you
rushed the flame annealing. You should increase the cooling down time when this
happens. Champagne bottles are particularly heavy and really should be oven annealed
after fire polishing. The yield rate on them is very low, but the thinner bottles average 80
percent yield. Keep in mind that you are working a soft glass and very uneven at that, so
accept the losses in breakage. Oven annealing the finished glasses is preferred, of course,
but flame annealing in some cases is sufficient.