Coke Bottles Lamp

I a big fan of the everyday objects and what you can do with them.

This interest lead me in to an idea where to use coke bottles as lights.

The problem i encounter was how to get an light bulb into the bottle, heating issues and how it could spread the light in a good way.

My solution to this was to drink a lot of coke :-) and experiment with several bottles how to best present them with light source inside them. what came out that was. if i cut open the bottom of get to the bottle as close as the edge as possible.

So i got to work and tried different techniques with ways to cut bottles.

I tried the burning tread, oil version but it end up making my own glass cutter.

There is some god glass cutter you can buy out there but i preferred to create my own and i could then customize it for my needs.

So here is the material used for this project:

• 4 coke bottles 250 ml or the 330 ml
• 4 caps
• 4 lamp sockets
• 4 of 7 w small E14 light
• Some solution for hanging them
• 5 m Red 1.5 mm2 cable
• 5 m Black 1.5 mm2 cable
• Wago connection or cable connections for 5 x 2 pairs cables
• Glass paint, brown, red, white
• 4 m 40 mm diameter PVC pipes for hanging arrangement (you can steel hooks or something similar)
• 1 PVC 90 degree bend 40 mm
• 2 T-connector 40 mm

Tools:

• Drill
• Glass cutter (your choice)
• Paintbrushes
• wire pliers

When all material is in place you need to start cutting the bottles at the bottom in able to get in the lamp sockets and paint the bottles. The bottles on the picture is cut 5 mm from the bottom in able to save as much bottle as possible for a more realistic effect.

This is where you can choose different techniques i chose to build one glass cutter but there is bottle cutter you can buy for a cheap price.

After you cut them you need to remove the label on them so that you can paint the label later on. you can save it but i wanted to have a glowing effect trough the glass.

So my procedure for painting them was:

Starting with the brown, i did it on the inside of the glass and leave a little unpainted on the top to simulate a real coke is in the bottle. If you don't paint on the inside you don't get the effect of glass and liquid inside.

After the brown has dried i started with the red label. But i masked out the coke just glued the logo on masking paper and sticked it to the glass so that i can later paint the white on those areas. why i do it this way is because the light is not going to shine red and then white

When the red has dried i removed the masking and painted white on those masked areas.

After the bottles was completed i drilled a hole on all caps for all bottles to running the cabling trough.

Now to the cables part of the project.

I choose to make a red and black twisted cable. To make that combination i used a electrical drill and tied both cables at one end and put the other 2 in the chuck of the drill and started to spin them together to get a long twisted cable.

After the cables was completed i drilled a hole on all caps for all bottles to running the cabling trough.

When cabling is done you need to connect it to the lamp sockets and remember to run the cabling trough the caps and the bottle.

If you choose to use my hanging arrangement its made of PVC pipes that is painted black so it will mimic steel pipes. Its good to run the cable for connecting to the wall socket trough the pipes.

The electric cables was connected to the connection splitter so every pair was one blue to all other blue and the brown to all other brown (so every pair is connected blue to blue, brown to brown and one outgoing pair to the power socket)

For this you need some pipes and bends and connections depending on how your setup is looking.

The hanging constructions is standing on the floor and has only 2 point screwed to the wall, one in the bend and the other at the top end in the wall. and all cables are hidden in the pipes that is a cleaner look.

You can hang the bottles with regular metallic hooks or however your wall or installation is constructed. I can recommend the PVC pipe because it making a cool look and you can hide everything in them.

Go nuts