Hi guys,

welcome to my 5-step guide to make shot glasses.

Surely you have some old glass bottles laying around somewhere - perfect! Because that´s all you need for this build.

Ok, thats not completely right. But nonetheless it´s very cheap.

You´ll also need:

some woodlike material (really anything for the glass cutting appliance)
a glass cutter
glue (i used epoxy)
sanding paper (if available you want to use a orbital sander)
a bottle cap

For protection:

gloves
working glasses
face mask

Step 1: Building the Glass Cutting Appliance

This step is more or less optional.

But to cut the bottle you´ll need a straight cut around.

The device i build for that is shown in the picture and works like this:

The bottles is placed (bottom to the left) on the wheels. Place the glass cutter, which is fixed in position by those two wood strips, where you want to cut the bottle. Wíth high pressure hold the bottle down and turn it, while also with high pressure yo press the glass cutter onto the glass surface. You end up with a perfect circular cut.

The same result also get you´ll get, when you clamp the glass cutter for example in a vice and turn the bottle on it. Keep it fairly steady and you also get a nice cut.

Step 2: Break Off the Glass

After cutting the bottle it´s time to break the tip off.

For this step it helps, when the bottles heated up (e.g. by boiling hot water) and then quickly cooled down (e.g. by ice cold water). TIP: Use ice cubes to get the water even colder.

Then, hit the bottle on the cut and it should break. If this doesn´t work try this step again.

Warning: Please watch the small glass shards - you probably want to do this outside.

Step 3: Sanding the Sharp Edges

If succesfully done you now have a glass bottle tip. Be careful now touching the glass. The sharp edges can really be a pain in the ass. Also for this step please grab some gloves, working glasses and also you might want to use a face mask. You really don´t want to risk anything when working with glass.

And that´s why they need to go! Grab some sanding paper or your trusted orbital sander and start sanding.

It´s also possible to get some wet sanding papers. Then you don´t need to worry about the glass dust.

Step 4: Fine Sanding

This step is optinal.

Depending on the quality of your edge after sanding, you can finish the sanding with a diamond sanding sponge, which is normally used for stone.

If your edge is still fairly rough, you might want to use a more fine grid.

Keep on sanding until you are happy with the result.

Step 5: Glueing the Bottle Caps

To finish the project we need to glue on the bottle caps. For this step I chose epoxy, a very strong two component adhesive. I think most of you will be familiar with it.

Just mix up the epoxy and drop a bit in the bottle caps. After pressing the glass bottles back in the caps I also put a few drops on the bottom.