"G" is for Glasses

Here we go again! It's time for G!

G is for glasses!

These were all purchased specifically for this project...I promise. Though I admit that we didn't cry when we had to drink them to make them useful.

If any of you are on Pinterest, then you've undoubtedly seen one of the pins for making glasses out of beer bottles. Of course, I saw this and thought it would be fantastic considering we always have beer bottles hanging around the house. That really makes it sound like alcoholics… I promise that's really not that bad.

Welll...initially, this project was our first (and had to be probably one of our worst) Pinstrosities. 

Depending on which method you come across, they either tell you to use alcohol or acetone on a string. This string is round wrapped around the neck of the bottle, lit on fire, and then the bottle is dunked into cold water to cause the bottle to crack.

Well…we tried every method known to man. None of them worked. The acetone didn't work. The alcohol didn't work. Running the bottle under ice cold water after lighting the cord didn't work. Dunking it in a bucket of ice with water didn't work. Thick cord didn't work. Thin cord didn't work. It was extremely frustrating. Every time we tried something, the glass either chipped along the edge when it separated or cracked down the side. Not a single bottle came out in the shape that I would use for someone to drink out of.

I was about to just give up all together when I was saved by the Googles. I love me the Googles.

Just when I was about to throw in the towel, I came across a video on YouTube. The video said the same thing we had figured out...none of the methods with lighting a fire work. Instead, the guy in the video recommended and demonstrated an etching apparatus to score the glass before using the hot and cold water baths.

I managed to find one of these kits at a local Michael's craft store. It wasn't too expensive, I think it ran us less than $30. There is still a learning curve to it, but the success rate was much higher and we like it a lot better. 

You place a plunger in the opening of the bottle and score evenly around the neck. (Evenly is the primary trick here...both in height on the bottle and depth of the score.)

Once it has been scored thoroughly, you place the top of the bottle in boiling water until you hear a slight cracking. 

Next comes the dunk into ice cold water. The neck of the bottle should continue to crack and either fall off into the water bath, or slight pressure from your hands will cause the neck to separate cleanly from the rest of the bottle. 

Even with this method, things aren't perfect. I think we ended up having one out of every six or seven bottles break or crack. A nice, even score line is key.

After separating, a quick run around the rim using some coarse sandpaper will remove any rough edges and allow someone to drink from the glass without it cutting their lip. As a potential user of these glasses, I can say this a fairly important step. I don't advise skipping it.

And once you're all done, hopefully you have a nice set of glasses that serves as a pretty good conversation piece. We seem to like them.

Thanks to all of you stopping by from A-to-Z Challenge! I love new readers. Make sure to leave me a comment below so that I can return the favor by visiting you.