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cool beer glass made out of bottle

video cool beer glass made out of bottle

how to make a cool beer glass out of an empty bottle as well as a tip on how to cut the bottle - no! not using a glass cutter or the burning (acetone soaked) string and water bath - however this didn't work out as it was supposed as I didn't get the metal hot enough :(

25 comments

Nov 17, 2011. 1:57 PMpetrino says:

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

Oct 26, 2011. 6:12 AMmgauvin8810 says:

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

May 31, 2011. 5:27 AM

Chuck Priest says:

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.

Jul 2, 2011. 9:16 PMCherjr says:

If you want to melt the rim you need to slowly heat up the glass. It takes a little trial and error to get good at it. Look up glass bead making and that will give you basic glass melting how-to.

Jun 1, 2011. 6:55 PMTimothy Wooi says:

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.

Jun 21, 2010. 4:35 AMallix69 says:

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...

Aug 5, 2010. 8:14 PMcool wasp says:

did it cut the bottle?

Aug 26, 2010. 6:28 AMallix69 says:

nope just boiled some oil and filled my shed with fumes, still smells to this day :L i did get it to work eventually. just score it once with a tile/glass cutter then pour boiling water onto it then cold water, repeat and it eventually cracks all the way around the score

Jun 4, 2009. 11:55 AMpizzahoofdx says:

grolsch beer rules!!! :-)

Feb 11, 2009. 9:28 PMsdlyr8 says:

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?

Jul 22, 2008. 11:57 PMUBIQ.TV (author) says:

I used it on many bottles but also failed sometimes, the key is for the nail etc. to be realy hot, best if you can use a oxy-acethylene torch, getting the metal almost to the melting point.

Jul 23, 2008. 11:33 AMMeatwolf says:

Okay, I'll try just keeping it in the flame longer. I don't have an oxy-acetylene torch, just a torch attachment for camp stove fuel tanks.

Jul 22, 2008. 7:37 PMMeatwolf says:

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.

Jun 15, 2008. 7:28 PM

dwaku says:

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.

Jan 11, 2008. 5:09 AMmrmath says:

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

Mar 30, 2008. 7:12 PMVery Keri says:

If you don't have a torch, a good, safe way to sand down your sharp edges is to get a shallow plastic dish, place a piece of sand paper in the bottom of the dish and then fill the dish with about a half inch of water. You can anchor the sand paper to the dish by either holding it down with some tweezers, etc... while you sand, or you can fold the sand paper up along the edges of your container and tape them down. The water keeps the glass dust out of your lungs, skin and other work surfaces.

Jan 11, 2008. 10:19 AMUBIQ.TV (author) says:

normally with the oil + hot metal you get a much even cut around the circumference - this time it didn't work because I didn't get the metal hot enough -it should be glowing red. Of course the edge will still be very sharp - you can use find sandpaper/sanding stone to grind it down, but it is much better to use a torch to 'flame polish' the edges - the sharp corners of the edge will easilly heat up to the melting point and will become rounded and smooth

Mar 4, 2008. 9:26 PMcassiemodo says:

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.

Feb 7, 2008. 3:33 PMjoknrok says:

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.

Jan 15, 2008. 9:31 AMjcl236 says:

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.

Jan 16, 2008. 10:37 AMUBIQ.TV (author) says:

The glass cutter is OK, but you need to make some contraption to make a nice even line, and even so sometimes you end up with a crack going the other way, with the oil + hot metal it is much quicker and also usually makes a much cleaner cut therefore it's what I preffer to use

Jan 10, 2008. 4:07 PMGorillazMiko says:

Nice job! That looks awesome.

Jan 11, 2008. 12:29 AMUBIQ.TV (author) says:

thanks, Grolsch or Carlsberg bottles make realy nice glasses.

Jan 10, 2008. 3:00 PMdchall8 says:

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?

Jan 10, 2008. 3:31 PMUBIQ.TV (author) says:

the way it works is that oil is an excellent heat conductor whilst glass is not when you drop the red hot piece of metal it almost instantly transfers the heat to the glass, which rapidly expands in the part contacting the oil, whilst the top part remains the same. This usually gives a very nice and even cut, then you just need to 'flame polish' (i.e. head up the glass with a torch and any thin sharp edges melt and become rounded) When the weather gets better I'll try to make a vid of just the cutting procedure, for which I usually use much better mineral oil and a thick nail heated with an oxy-acetylene torch (much quicker and can easily melt the nail away, not just turn it red-hot)