How do I cut a glass bottle?

[Fish_Fin-atic]

Does anyone know an easy way to cut off the bottom from a glass bottle? It's just an idea for a shrimp hatchery for now, and if it works, I'll post some pics, but for now, I need a way to cut off the bottom from a bottle, like a beer bottle. I know that if you somehow heat it in a thin line, then dunk the bottle in cold water, it will snap along the line, but I can't figure out how to heat the glass in a thin line. Is there an easier way, any ideas?

[Derock]

Can't you use a small plastic pop bottle?

Use a glass cutter for stained glass. "Tyco" make the best cutter. You can cut any shape and curve you like by PUSHING the cutting wheel away from you, not pulling towards you and it will break with a small light tap. Question: Why do you want to do that? Isn't pop plastic bottle make life a little bit easier. KISS principle. Paul!!!LOL.
Jimmy.

[korbi_doc]

:bounce2: :bounce2: I made mine with 2 2liter plastic bottles set in a 2gal aquar. tank. Very easy. Problem I see with glass is the sharp edges cutting you, be careful, just a thought, Dottie ;D

[LEM504]

Fish-Fin,

Yes it will work - some of the time. That's how we did it before plastic bottles. You will need quite a few bottles.
It won't break straight. ( with the heat )

Plastic will be cheaper - you won't need as many bottles, it will save a trip to the emergency room, and you won't have to clean up any blood -
You won't have to make another one when you drop it.

Larry

[heavyp83]

Just use the laws of physics!!
1) Get a beer bottle
2) Drink the beer
3) Drink 5 more beers
4) Fill a bottle up to the bottom of the neck with water
5) Put a paper towel around the neck and covering the opening
6) Slam the palm pf you hand onto the opening, over the paper towel
7) Wham-O! The pressure will break a perfect hole in the bottom!
8) Drink 3 more beers.

There ya have it, even if you don't use it for the fish. which to me, plastic sounds better, its a fun little experiment anyway!

Fish_fan: Pete's way works. Keep drinking the Canadian Molson triple XXX. I just had one without a bottom in my freezer. I left a warm one and forgot it for a few days. I found it without the bottom this evening. May not work for other brand. Make sure you use Molson Triple XXX with over 5% Alcohol. HTH
Jimmy.

[Fish_Fin-atic]

Hmmmm, very intersting idea guys, thanks for the tip! I'll definately give it a shot. The reason I'm not using plastic is that I just happen to have an ample supply of glass bottles on hand ;D and asside from recycling them in the blue box, I thought I'd try putting them to some new and innovative uses.

As well as a shrimp hatchery, and a filter idea I have, I was also thinking of using them as pots for seedling veggies and herbs. With the bottoms of the bottles cut out, and the bottles flipped upside down, any excess water would drain out. This idea might also be good for raising live foods such as white worms. As for the shrimp hatchery/filter ideas, I think the dark brown glass would be a bonus over the clear plastic bottles because it would keep algae down to a minimum.

I'm going to give the water fill idea a shot, and hopefully it works, thanks again! :)

[Moon]

Try this method. Fill the bottle with water to the mark where you want it to break top up with motor oil. Drop a submersible heater into the bottle. The heater should make contact with both liquids. The difference in specific heat will crack the glass at the liquid interphase.
I did this years ago to remove the necks from acid jars. I did not have submersible heaters but used an iron poker heated to red hot over a fire and submersed the red hot poker into the jar a few times. Worked like a charm. Try it.
moon

[CanadianGuy]

Brine shrimp need light to get proper hatch rates. You should only be keeping the water you use in a BBS hatchery for 1 or 2 hatches..after that replace it with new water. That isn't enough time to have any algea growth. Not to mention the small water volume that you would get in a glass bottle won't work well with BS. A 2 litre pop bottle will give you much better results.

[limige]

!!!!!!!!!

moon interesting idea, we're gonna have to try that method.....


MY METHOD
my buddy showed me this. take the nicrome wire out of a toaster or hairdrier, wrap it around the bottle once where you want the break and keep the point were the wire makes a full turn on top. use something on each side of the bottle like books or something to hold the wire taunt. now make sure the wire on the glass doesn't touch itself but make the gap as small as possible. hook a battery charger up to the wire on each side of the bottle, put the charger on high charge and let it heat the wire red hot, wait about 1 minute after the wire is glowing red and put a few drops of cold water onto the wire/bottle.

you should get a nice break. we used clear 1 liter wine bottles to make my BS hatchery. ;D get a rubber stopper and some 1/4" poly line and you have your drain/airline.

the setup of it all can be tricky but once setup you can do alot pretty quick..

make sure to sand the lip smooth!

[Fish_Fin-atic]

Boy, I'm glad I dug this old thread up again! After bruising my palms trying to smack the tops of the bottles (which works, but makes an uneven/unpredictable break) I decided to give something else a shot....the tile cutter! It actually works if you cut slow enough, and the heat melts the glass just enough to take the sharp edge off!

Beer bottles are too small, so I like the idea of the wine bottles, I'll try that next. Also, some very interesting ideas from Moon and Limige! Thanks guys, I'll give both methods a shot for comparison.