I finally made a near perfect cut of a wine bottle neck using a jig and the hot/cold water technique. I'm wondering now about the best way to smooth the cut edge. I usually use a Dremmel with a grinding wheel but that is dangerous and gets fine glass dust everywhere including your lungs and eyes even though I use a mask and goggles.
Does anyone know if a propane torch gets hot enough to melt the cut edge so it will be smooth and rounded like commercially made glass slides are?
I Know I can just try it but I figure someone here has already.
Thanks for any suggestions.
Bluesheart
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Didn't want to buy 6' of pipe, so I bought a 2" long copper coupling to experiment with. It looks clean and smooth, right? Now I can feel very tiny metal frags under the skin of my slide finger. Yuck! Now I'm using the same emery cloth I bought for smoothing glass to polish the cut ends of the copper pipe.
Managed to drop a bottle neck on a concrete floor while packing up after playing last night. Ugly shards of glass all over...
Reinforces my notion that I may use broken bottles for my own amusement (I really LIKE the sound.), but I'd hesitate to sell or give them to anyone--particularly youngsters.
Thanks for the tips and the lead Tom T. I guess I just like using a homemade slide on a homemade guitar! Ain't worth trashing my health for though. I think the underwater sanding sounds like a good idea.
Diamond disc and water spray
I use Colavita balsamic vinegar bottles - the short fatter bottle with a longish neck - as the necks are straighter than wine bottles. I score with a glass cutter and then pour boiling water over the score and dunk in a can of iced water. 2 to 3 times drops it off. To take off the imperfections I use wet dry sandpaper dipping the slide in water often to keep it very wet. I start with 60 to take out all imperfections until it's totally flat on both ends. Then 220 and use that to round the edges, then 400 and then 600 to polish it off. Just a 3 or 4 inch square with a small board underneath (to protect the coffee table). I usually do this as I talk with someone or while watching TV. It takes 1 to 3 hours depending on how good the break is.
I'm glad you referenced the time required. (I've been treating 15 minutes as a l-o-n-g time to work on one.)
Maybe I can go snorkling while I sand!
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