First I took a large flat piece of MDF that was long enough to accommodate a wine bottle. I know I would need to hook it over a table to prevent it from moving, so I measured a piece of 2 by 2, to the same width as my base. With three screws I attached the 2 by 2 to the bottom of the base bit and tested to make sure it hooked over the edge of the table alright.
Next I needed to make a ‘compartment’ for the bottle. But not all of my bottles were the same size. Some were considerably chunky whilst others were short tubby bottles. The compartment needed two sided, so that any sized bottle could be pressed against the two edges.
I cut another piece of 2 by 2 for the top of the base at the edge furthest away from me. This gave the base an ‘s’ type shape. One hook down over the table and one hook upwards.
On the right hand side I found a long thin piece of MDF which I screwed onto the upwards facing hook and down along the right hand edge of the base, forming an L shape.
I had an idea of how tall I wanted my finished cut bottles to be, and I drilled a rectangular slot in the thin piece of MDF where I wanted the blade to come out to score the bottle. If you wanted assorted sizes, you could make a few slots at regular intervals.
The slot needs to be vertical, so the cutters wheel is the right way around when you off up the bottle.
And that is your finished bottle cutter, its not overly attractive, but a snip at just £2. Videos on Youtube suggest adding wheels to make the bottle turn smoothly, but its really not necessary if you are just doing a bit of crafting.
To Use the Homemade Bottle Cutter…
First make sure that you get the labels off the bottles and rub them over with a scouring pad to get all the glue off. You also need to watch out for bottles with plastic labels, these are a devil to get off; no amount of soaking seems to loosen the glue. You just have to pick away at it.
Once cleaned, you need to score them. So with your bottle cutter hooked over the edge of the table, lay in your bottle so that the base of the bottle is facing away from you and it pressed against the upward hook. Push and hold the glass cutter through the slot, and then press the bottle against that side whilst still pressing it backwards at the same time. Keep hold of the glass cutter to apply pressure to the bottle, and with your other hand roll the bottle with your palm, towards the glass cutter. Make sure that the bottle turns 5 times or so and is scored well.
Then gently heat the scored line over a couple of tea light candles. Keep the bottle turning, and hold the bottle so that the top of the flame almost touches the glass. It will take about tem minutes to heat the glass, and a ring of soot will appear over the scored line.
Depending on the type of bottle you are cutting, will depend on what happens next.
If the bottle is a thin wine bottle, the glass will start to ping and pop like popcorn. It does make you jump and it is a bit nerve racking the first couple of times. When it has pinged twice, take it to a bucket of cold water and immerse it and it should break. Sometimes they need a bit of encouragement, just tap the bottle, under the water against the side of the bucket and it should go.
Thicker glass bottles such as beer bottles and Champaign bottles, or any bottle designed to hold fizzy drinks under pressure tend not to pop. Hold them over a candle until there is quite a thick line of soot, and then take them to the cold bucket of water, where they usually break.
Note that if you heat a bottle with a lid or stopper in it will heat the air inside the bottle and create a vacuum, and the bottles pop quite vigorously, and not always neatly.
I have seen videos on Youtube of people using a kettle of boiling water instead of a candle to heat the bottle. I haven’t tried this myself, but the video explains to pour the boiling water very slowly, and then immerse in cold water. This way apparently causes less stress lines into the bottle. The candles do more often than not have small cracks in the bottle. But this was probably because the glass heated up too quickly, and the bottle needed to be further away from the flame.
If you want a smooth edge on the cut part of the bottle, you need to sand the edge with some wet and dry paper. Put the paper on the table and rub the glass around in circular motions, it does take a good five minutes or so to sand the edges.
