I gave this instructable a test drive yesterday and failed miserably. I'm not sure why, because I followed the steps exactly as they were outlined, and considering how straight forward they are I shouldn't have missed anything. I used vegetable oil in the beer bottles and made sure that the screw being heated turned glowing neon red before dropping into the bottle. i inspected the bottom for a separation line, but nothing was showing. so i reheated the screw and dropped it in two more times. i'm not sure if the oil can be reused so those extra steps might've been futile, but I even heated the bottom of the bottle over the flame to help continue the fault line. but after filling it half way with water and slapping down on the opening nothing broke off. has anyone successfully done this? oh, and i forgot to mention i tried bud and heineken bottles. that could be why. thanks ubiq.tv for the added info about why this tutorial is supposed to work the way it does.

How did you get the base to adhere to the top of the bottle?

My Father and I did this project yesterday, we used a tile saw. it worked pretty good except we had to use a belt sander for the polishing, we tried to melt the edges with an oxy/acetylene torch and the bottles shattered almost immediately. Anyone have a good idea how to get the edges smooth? maybee if I got some polishing disk for my dremal? or does anyone know a detailed process of rounding the edges with heat.

I had a hard time hearing the guy talk on the video because of the music. What happened to the end of it?
Anyway....
Using a twenty dollar, aluminum bottle cutter is much easier and safer than the way the guy in the video did it. If you use a bottle cutter, only make ONE cut. Don't go around and around with it. Take the scored bottle to a safe work place and pour boiling hot water over the cut SLOWLY. Twirl the bottle around slowly too. The hot water heats the glass and the bottle will break exactly where you scored it.
You then can either sand the edges or use a small torch to smooth the glass.
I saw a lot of hand-made glasses on Etsy and they are awesome. Some are hand painted, some are etched.
It might be better for some people to just buy a set of glasses from a merchant on Etsy than to make them but if you are artsy, it's a lot of fun to make your own.

The possibilities are endless with making items from glass bottles. Practice on a bottle or two that you don't care about first. Remember too that you can use the other parts of the bottles. You can cut rings to make necklaces, bottle tops to make hurricane lamps or chimes. Just be safe no matter what you make.

oooh could i use this method to make lanterns? got some red glass from christmas.

Look here for instructions on using heat.
http://www.learnglassblowing.com/art_proj.htm

I did it successfully 1st time by using preheated oil to about 50deg C in an oven & pour into the bottom of bottle.I then use about 10 pcs of 6mm x 20mm stainless steel bolts & nuts all heated in a metal dish.whe it is hot ,I just pour in all and it worked as the preheated oil takes shorter time to reached cracking temperature.

tried this myself and well instead of a nail i used a bolt, i assumed the larger amount of metal would transfer more heat. got the thing red hot, dropped it in and boiled the oil... cue beer bottle spewing a 4 foot tall tower of smoke and filling my garden shed with fumes... now you cannot tell me it wasn't hot enough if i managed to boil the oil...

grolsch beer rules!!! :-)

Okay not sure what we're doing wrong, but me and my roommate tried it half a dozen times and never once got even a crack. We're using regular vegetable oil, budweiser bottles, and have used a nail and screw. the torch looks to get it hot enough because the screw gets bright orange. does having a hot/cool glass to start with help or what are some extra tips?

I just tried this with two bottles and different amounts of oil, and it didn't work for me. How thick is the bottle you're using in the video? It looks thicker than mine, but I'm not sure. Maybe my bottle is too thick? I guess I'll try to find some thinner bottles.

What do you do about the undoubtedly sharp edges that are left?

Great video! We'll be trying this tonight. I must say, though, it was hard to hear the instructions over the loud (porn?) background music. Heh. But really, we'll try this tonight and I'll let you know how it went.

Even if it's not possible to get uniform results (and I plan to try), this is a very cool way to cut a bottle. Much props to the originality.

i did this over the summer with the same bottles. im not really sure how well it would have worked if you had the metal hot enough, i will try it the next time i make them, but using the glass cutter isnt that hard and it looked like your edge wasnt straight and the bottom broke as well. i think would look better if you were making a set, to use the glass cutter. the trick with the glass cutter is to only make one cut. if you go around the bottle more than once it wont work. to get the same height i just screwed the glass cutter to some scrap wood and clamped that to a table and turned the bottle. but if the method you used works with the metal being hot enough well then its worth doing.

Nice job! That looks awesome.

Nice recovery from what seemed to be a failed attempt to break the bottle. I'm not sure how the hot metal in oil is supposed to work. Does the oil catch fire? Or does the hot oil create a thermal difference between the glass in the oil and the rest of the glass - and the glass breaks at that edge??? Perhaps when you get a video showing that, you could post it as another step. I am guessing that the hot metal would have heated the oil but how hot? Would you not have to know how much oil you started with and how much mass of hot metal you have? Anyway I'm curious to see it work the way you first tried. Also how do you flame the edge of the glass to smooth it?