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A great way to upcycle used glass bottles is to cut them up and make craft items with them. When you cut off the tops, the remaining bottom can be used as a drinking glass, a candle holder, or a pencil cup! When you cut off the bottoms, the remaining top can be used as a hanging votive candle holder, a pendant light or a wind chime!
Cutting bottles is easily accomplished with a bottle cutting jig or with a diamond grit band saw. Bottle cutting jigs typically use a steel or carbide wheel to "score" a fissure around the outside diameter of the bottle. Alternating hot and cold water applied to the score will stress the fissure and crack through the glass, separating the tops and the bottoms.
A diamond grit band saw will grind through the bottle. In addition to a straight cut (like the bottle cutting jig), many saws have a high vertical clearance, allowing the user to pass the bottle through the blade both horizontally and longitudinally, to make a wavy or diagonal cut.
The best way to grind/shape the top surface of your cut glass bottles is with a disk grinder. With an 8-inch diameter flat surface you can grind/shape a 3-inch bottle in one pass. The result will be a perfectly square, flat edge.
There are other options, you can grind/shape the cut edge with a belt sander that has a wide sanding belt, or with a standard router-type grinder by using a straight-edge guide to help keep the glass edge straight against the grinder head.
The best way to further smooth and polish the tops and outside edges of the bottles is with finer grit disks and polishing pads on the disk grinder or belt sander. A cork belt on the belt sander gives a very nice and shiny final polish.
These methods will smooth and polish the top and outside edges. For the inside edges, you will have to rub them by hand with fine grit emery cloth or hold the cut bottle over the top roller of the wet belt sander, or with a cone on a bench grinder.
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