I purchased a bottle cutter l while ago and cut a bunch of wine bottles to make some drinking glasses. That all went fine and now I have about 2 dozen cut. But I'm finding the hand grinding of the edges to be extremely tedious (the bottle cutter kit suggested using grit in the bottom of a pie pan and work up through the 3 various sizes of grit until finishing with fine sandpaper). Has anyone used a mechanical glass grinder on bottles? I'm wondering if I should go ahead and get one, but I'm worried that it may not work well with the curved edges.
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Re: Bottles cut, now for the sanding/grinding..
Mon, March 20, 2006 - 12:30 AMThe "grit in pan" method will work but even as a wet slurry will take forever. Depending on the size of bottles you could cut a corresponding rubber ball in half (tennis ball for beer bottle for example, so ...kids soccer ball?... for wine bottles) and use it as your slurry bowl. This would allow you to roll and twist the bowl as you do same with bottle. A plastic or rubber bowl would also work but less flexible. Does that make sense?
In an ideal world you would find access to a wet belt sander (and be done in 10 minutes); force and mechanization help but lubrication is the key. Diamond pads are great but not cheap. Even fine wet grade emery paper mounted on pads or blocks is a quick and cheap solution, but you need to dampen constantly, whether by sponge or damp rag, trickling tap (good), or spray lubricant for tools. I use both a 4"x48" wet belt sander and for quick and dirty work use a 1"x24" Makita dry belt sander, about the size of Mad Max's bread knife. Lots of grit belts available; even cork for polishing. Works like a hot damn. -
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Re: Bottles cut, now for the sanding/grinding..
Mon, March 20, 2006 - 5:31 PMThank you for the suggestions Eric/Elric! I'll try the rubber ball method and see how that works. Ultimately I may invest in a wet belt sander as that does seem like a quicker method. (and I'd like to make these on a consistent basis) The grit-slurry-pan method does work, it just takes too long. I've only finished about 6 glasses and gave those away. -
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Re: Bottles cut, now for the sanding/grinding..
Mon, March 27, 2006 - 12:09 PMi have to agree with Eric...for fast and efficient work on this, you should have a wet belt sander. once you get the production up and KNOW you want to do a lot more, you could even look into a diamond wheel. spendy, but it will last ya and you won't have to replace the wheel as often. -
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Re: Bottles cut, now for the sanding/grinding..
Thu, March 30, 2006 - 11:34 AMthere are small 8-12 inch diamond grinding wheels avaialable for somewhere around 200-300 dollars if you poke around a bit. I think you can get one at www.hisglassworks.com....but I might be wrong.
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Re: Bottles cut, now for the sanding/grinding..
Thu, March 30, 2006 - 4:59 PMhow finished do you want the edges? polished, or is a little sandblasted looking ok? I've ground a wine bottle cylinder's edge in a few minutes with my dremel. I use a silicon carbide grinding stone tip.
www.dremel.com/en-us/atta...-detail.htm
Like I said, it's not a high gloss finish, but it looks and feels fine. -
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Re: Bottles cut, now for the sanding/grinding..
Fri, March 31, 2006 - 5:48 AMThat's a good idea too! And not quite so spendy. Sometimes I want a very smooth edge, like if I'm using them for glasses, but sometimes it can be a bit rougher as when the bottle is going to be used as a vase. The dremel would still give me a jump start on the sanding of the edge though I think. -
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Re: Bottles cut, now for the sanding/grinding..
Fri, April 7, 2006 - 3:50 PMThe 3M diamond pads I mentioned above will give you a much faster and far nicer finish than a Dremel ever will. If you're hoping to have people use these to drink from you owe it to your customers to give them as smooth a lip as possible...or their lips will pay the price. If you are going to use a Dremel (or any flex shaft or high rpm drill) clamp the drill and use as fine an emery drum as possible (they also have felts and corks for actual polishing but a bit of a pain at this scale; really designed for jewellery) and use two hands to rotate the glass against the drum. Much more control. Remember to keep your drum/glass wet. A sponge or drip feed will work but remember also to keep the water away from your Dremel with a splash shield of some kind; even a cut off plastic pop bottle will work. If you're using a flex shaft attachment for your Dremel (or have a Foredom) you don't need the same pecations as the motor is what you need to protect. That said, once done with any type, wipe it all dry with a towel and give it a light lube after to prevent rusting.
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