I work with stained glass a lot and often use the bottoms of wine bottles in my windows. The bottles with the pushed in bottoms look really cool with the sun shining through. It's a fair bit of work to get the bottoms cut and shaped for use, but well worth it.
Check on YouTube for several different ways to do this. I have over 30 years experience working with all kinds of glass and have cut up hundreds of bottles.
By mr. Tim from Tinley Park, IL
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I've been cutting glass for over 30 years now and the steel wheel cutters are junk. They get dull after only a few cuts and then you wonder why you can never get the glass to break properly.
If you are going to cut glass, get a good carbide wheel glass cutter with an oil feed. The carbide tip will stay sharp and the oil feed lubricates the score. However, they don't sell them at the local hardware store.
www.ameriglasco.com/
The cheap steel cutters cost $5 to $10. A good carbide glass glass cutter only costs around $25 to $30 and you will save ten times that amount by having less broken glass, not to mention all the frustration that it will save you.
I have all the tools and supplies, patterns etc if you are interested in purchasing. I can no longer do stain glass due to health problems and would like to sell what I have. Saws, grinder and more.
I have seen this done with cement, too. You have a round or other shaped mold, set the bottle in, pour in the cement and let dry. When it's dry, undo the mold, break the bottles tops off, and you have a nice piece for a wall section, etc. This was from a book of handmade homes, but I no longer have a shot.
There is a place in Prince Edward Island, Canada that this man spent years and years making buildings/structures from old bottles. It is totally amazing.
Beautiful! And what a kind offer to help others. Kudos.
This is beautiful. I have had no training in stained glass and having looked online it is clear it is not a cheap hobby. Is there anyway you can contact me? I have looked on youtube and at the moment cant find the links you mention.
This is my second reply I had to reset password and not sure it went through. If you are interested in stain glass as a hobby I have all the tools and supplies but can no longer do it.
Reminds me of the antique windows made from the bottoms of mouth-blown glass. I've always wanted to try this. Unfortunately, it will have to wait longer.
Is there a link to your youtube video you mentioned? I'd like more info or basic instructions on how you made this.
This is just beautiful
Hi Tim,
I want to make a window similiar to yours but with other recycled glass items such as the bottom of a glass butter dish with an etched design. Any good ideas for cutting off the lip of the butter dish so that I just have the bottom? I have a wet tile saw but when I tried to cut the lip off, I cracked the butter dish bottom in half, so that ain't working. Any help would be appreciated!
Mr. Tim, I just love love love this window!!! Fantastic! Soooooo beautiful!
I would like to make a similar some day. I have worked with copper foil and lead in doing stained glass and I am versed in cutting wine bottles. A few question: if you used copper foil did you also incorporate a support like the braided material or other support? I imagine it would be heavy. Have you ever connected glass to pvc with some sort of glue? If so what did you use or what would you recommend? Thanks for your help.
I would like to be able to cut a wine bottle into rings from top to bottom, to make a wind chime. Any advice on a cutter that could do this? Thanks, Stephanie amick
You can use a rotary cutter but you may need to go through several bottles before you get enough usable ones for a wind chime. Here's a craft project that I submitted in the past that uses one of these cutters.
www.thriftyfun.com/
I have found that bottles that contained sparkling wine or water seem to hold up better than standard wine bottles. The other bottles seem to be thinner and tend to break during the process. Even with the Perrier bottles, I would have about a 75% success rate, with some of the breaks being more jagged than I would have liked.
Good luck and do let us know how it turns out.
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