Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Greg Miller on July 19, 2010 at 7:19pm

Hey Isaac, i have made thousands of glass slides. Wine bottles usually work great, the thicker, and less tapered or flared the better. Certain Port bottles are excellent as well as cognac bottles. One problem with wine bottles especially is that once you find a vinyard bottle you like they will change the bottle design on you. I would definitley suggest picking up a Harveys Bristol Cream bottle. This makes one beautiful and very killer slide.

I have seen many methods of cutting the bottles. I always use small wet band saw with a diamond blade. Turning the bottle and cutting it all the way through. Its not the fastest approach to cutting. But there is very minimal chipping, it leaves a nice clean cut. This will save you lots of time shaping, grinding and polishing. The small wet band saw method is by far the safest method as well.

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Permalink Reply by uncle Lou on July 19, 2010 at 8:18pm

I agree coricidin bottle that what I always slide with


al hamilton said:

get a coricidin bottle....antiques stores about 10 bucks

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Permalink Reply by Isaac on July 20, 2010 at 6:49pm

Greg Miller said:

Hey Isaac, i have made thousands of glass slides. Wine bottles usually work great, the thicker, and less tapered or flared the better. Certain Port bottles are excellent as well as cognac bottles. One problem with wine bottles especially is that once you find a vinyard bottle you like they will change the bottle design on you. I would definitley suggest picking up a Harveys Bristol Cream bottle. This makes one beautiful and very killer slide.
I have seen many methods of cutting the bottles. I always use small wet band saw with a diamond blade. Turning the bottle and cutting it all the way through. Its not the fastest approach to cutting. But there is very minimal chipping, it leaves a nice clean cut. This will save you lots of time shaping, grinding and polishing. The small wet band saw method is by far the safest method as well.

Hey, thanks for the tips! Yeah, I chose a really nice little straight necked wine bottle, and gave it a shot las week end. I started cutting the neck off the bottle with a dremel using a cut off wheel, but it was taking so long I got hasty and tried to break it like I'd seen done in a few how to vids on YouTube. Total disaster! It' silly because I'm an archaeologist, and I can flintknap really well to make stone tools (out of obsidian and flint which are basically natural glass), so you'd think I'd be able to direct a good breaking blow to a wine bottle!!!! :)

I'll get another bottle and try again, perhaps a nice port or cognac! This time, I'll go all the way with the dremel!

And BTW, as an aside, I'm not going the coricidin bottle route because I need a stubby slide for the way I play. About 3 to 3.5 cm is perfect. Just so it fits from the tip of my finger up to my second knuckle (I use my middle finger). Longer slides really cramp my finger motions!

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Permalink Reply by Greg Miller on July 20, 2010 at 11:41pm

Isaac, It does take a while, but try to do a good job on the cut the first time and it will be a lot easier to shape and polish. If the dremel you are using is cordless or has a flex tool, I would try to drip some water on the part of the glass you are cutting. If it gets hot it could crack.

I tried some flint knapping about a month ago. That is definitely a hard art to master.........Good luck with the slide!

Isaac said:

Greg Miller said:

Hey Isaac, i have made thousands of glass slides. Wine bottles usually work great, the thicker, and less tapered or flared the better. Certain Port bottles are excellent as well as cognac bottles. One problem with wine bottles especially is that once you find a vinyard bottle you like they will change the bottle design on you. I would definitley suggest picking up a Harveys Bristol Cream bottle. This makes one beautiful and very killer slide.
I have seen many methods of cutting the bottles. I always use small wet band saw with a diamond blade. Turning the bottle and cutting it all the way through. Its not the fastest approach to cutting. But there is very minimal chipping, it leaves a nice clean cut. This will save you lots of time shaping, grinding and polishing. The small wet band saw method is by far the safest method as well.

Hey, thanks for the tips! Yeah, I chose a really nice little straight necked wine bottle, and gave it a shot las week end. I started cutting the neck off the bottle with a dremel using a cut off wheel, but it was taking so long I got hasty and tried to break it like I'd seen done in a few how to vids on YouTube. Total disaster! It' silly because I'm an archaeologist, and I can flintknap really well to make stone tools (out of obsidian and flint which are basically natural glass), so you'd think I'd be able to direct a good breaking blow to a wine bottle!!!! :)

I'll get another bottle and try again, perhaps a nice port or cognac! This time, I'll go all the way with the dremel!

And BTW, as an aside, I'm not going the coricidin bottle route because I need a stubby slide for the way I play. About 3 to 3.5 cm is perfect. Just so it fits from the tip of my finger up to my second knuckle (I use my middle finger). Longer slides really cramp my finger motions!

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Permalink Reply by Dobrohobo Brown on July 21, 2010 at 1:39pm

Hi
I looked at all kinds of methods for cutting slides. This one really works. The guy in the video is a little strange but I tried it and it cuts a clean edge. The secret is getting the water temp right, you need it hot but not boiling and be patient. Make sure you score one continuous line. It took a couple of scores for it to work but I just kept slowly pouring the hot water & then rinsing in the cold and you hear a slight crack and the top just comes right off.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFXngPx3w3M

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Permalink Reply by Chester Winowiecki on July 21, 2010 at 3:07pm

+1
I totally agree. I've used this method to make 30 or more slides in the past few months. I don't have a bottle cutter, but I made a homemade jig to hold a glass cutter so that I could just use the cutter we had. If i get motivated, I'll put up some pics. Just to be clear, this doesn't work all the time, but I can usually get a usable slide out of it. But when the bottles are free from the recycling center, I have a lot of chances. Mostly the problem is not scoring all the way around or not stopping at the same spot I started. But when I get a good score, the neck just falls off after a couple of hot/cold cycles.

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Permalink Reply by Isaac on July 21, 2010 at 3:45pm

awesome! That's totally my speed man! My inlaws are coming in to town tomorrow, so I went out to the store and stocked up on hooch (is it for me, or them? I'm not sure!), so I'll soon have a bunch of bottles to experuys!iment with. I'll give this method a shot, and if it fails, I'll go the dremel method!


Thanks guys!

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