Good way to cut bottom off of bottles?

[castaway]

cutting the bottom off a wine or beer bottle is a simple process, it is the same as the process used to "crack" off the tops of factory made wine glasses.
Find yourself some sort of turntable, a lazy susan will do. You will need a propane torch with a fine pointed flame the smaller the better. Make a small glass cutter score on the bottle at the level you wish to cut it at, just a small score about 1/2 an inch long running along the line you wish to cut at. Place the bottle on the turntable and rotate is slowly while directing the tip of the flame from your propane torch at the line you wish to cut, keep rotating and heating untill the bottle cracks in a clean straight line around the bottle. this is a safe sure way to cut bottles cleanly, I have done hundreds.
cheers, Bernard

[C6H12O6]

After visiting the USA - your country is very big. As you have issues with illegal immigrants so do we. Surprise, surprise!!! Nigerians being part of our problem. Sadly, we live with the same scams by the Nigerian sthat are forwarded to you. Except we have the gangs/drugs brought in by these guys as well as the scams. I like to think of it this way. Africa is a Continent. Nigeria is a country as is South Africa a country. But we are civilised believe it or not . Come visit sometime....before making comments that the entire African Contitent is full of thieves and scoundrels. Too be honest do you even know where South Africa is - bet I know more about your country than you know about mine.

Actually I do know where SA is, and am fairly familiar with the country, and the surrounding areas. Back in the day (when I was just a kid) I had a shortwave radio and one particular station in J-Berg was on my list of contacts, and I finally was able to tune them in. I had a huge world map in my "shack" with pins stuck in the cities that I had heard and made contact with.

I also wrote several term papers in High School about the Boer Wars and the Churchhills...and while I don't claim to be an expert, I do know "just a bit" about southern Africa and South Africa the country.

Please don't take my comments as literally my thoughts, they weren't. I was just pointing out that "some" folks do paint with a broad brush...

[debx2]

Bernard:

That sounds great! One question - can I use a plastic Lazy Susan, maybe with some type of metal sheeting covering it, or will the glass get too hot and melt the plastic?

I am cutting the bottoms off of Corona beer bottles, a friend wants some windchimes made from the empty bottles left from his bachelor party to give the groomsmen in his wedding. Could be cool or really, really ugly.

[castaway]

Hi, I think your plastic lazy susan might get a bit singed from the flame, I would suggest a disk of some sort of particle board on it to protect it , the bottle gets too hot to touch where it cracks off but shouldn't burn the particle board.
cheers, Bernard

[rattfink]

Bringing this back from the past.. Has anyone fire-polished the cut bottles with a torch? I think I've found many ways to cut the bottle, but i want to nicely round over the edge for drinking glasses. I tried using my minor burner but i don't think it was hot enough to quickly melt the edge. I am able to heat up the edge, but it takes too long and i get a devit haze on the glass.. Any ideas?? Thanks for the help!

[rattfink]

Also, I've seen a video on YouTube that shows the gentleman using a hand torch (assuming it's a National hand torch of some type..) might that have a bigger impact as far as heat?

[funksizzle]

There's a youtube one where you just need a string, rubbing alcohol, and a sink. Make score, wrap in alchol string, light up for a few sec, put underwater, gloves, and twist I believe.

[crowkar]

I also like the video on Utube that shows the cutting with the torch....I have found that it's hard to fire polish the cut edge....but I have used a wet belt sander...it makes the edge safe...but not sure if you could use it for drinking...probably not....but maybe it could be fire polished after the wet belt sanding....ok...I will stop rambling and start experimenting with the above techniques...gnite.

[Lmo]

BUMP

HI all... I don't know how much time I wasted scoring and shattering wine bottles, champagne bottles, scotch bottles (I have a few of those) and the like, after watching the miscellaneous youtube videos on bottle cutting. They all look so easy....

What I discovered, finally, at the end of my rope, and what works 99% of the time (for real) is;

1) Score the bottle with a glass cutter ( I made a roller fixture out of plywood to hold the bottle on it's side ).

2) Heat a pot of water to boiling, or very near boiling. I use an old 14" deep stew pot that I got at Salvation Army.

3) Immerse the bottle into the boiling water only up to the scored line, and hold for about a minute ( + or - ). The "end" of the bottle to be cut off is the end to submerge ... in other words... the end of the bottle that you wish to use should remain a air temperature.

IMPORTANT: ONLY UP TO THE SCORED LINE - NO MORE!
4) Remove from the boiling water and immediately dip the hot end of the bottle into cool water again, only UP TO THE SCORED LINE.

5) Tink.. ... .. .

My theory... the boiling water is heating the glass at a faster rate than the end of the bottle that is at air temperature. Quenching it in cool water contracts the glass, stressing it, and causes the break.

Flame polishing... you've probably all seen this video> http://youtu.be/t6g5-AdJxJI

I'd add that it's easy to get "perfect" results when filming a video... you just edit out the ten or twenty bottles that failed to separate cleanly...