Cutting Glass Bottles

2/22/23 ~ by Griz (aka Steve Stovner) ~
I wanted to cut the bottoms off some Drambuie bottles for a project I had in mind (see here). Google search yielded several methods including "flaming string" and "score-heat-ice". I had tried the flaming string method before and could not get it to work, so I went with score-heat-Ice. I made a simple jig to hold the glass cutter at a consistent height above bottom and turned the bottle by hand which yielded a nice deep score. Submerged bottle in water, boiled for 5 minutes, removed bottle, drained it and dunked the bottom (up to score) in ice cold water. Nothing happened. Several more attempts - same nothing. Mounted Demel tool with diamond blade in place of glass cutter and made a deeper score. 3 hot cold cycles later I got my first break but it was not the clean break I wanted. New bottle, much deeper score yielded better break but still not clean.

I figured I needed a significantly deeper score at consistent depth to get clean break on my line and hand turning the bottle was not going to achieve that. Video 1 is my new improved set-up for making the score. The deeper the score the better the break but still could not get a clean break. I was going to try one last shot with a very deep score when this happened (see video 2).

I increased blade pressure on the bottle by adding a few more rubber bands and 30 minutes later had a dozen perfectly cut bottles (with no bad breaks).