DIY: Glass Bottle Cutter

Bottle cutting is a great way to recycle bottles. You can make custom presents like vases, drinking glasses, candle holders and many other things.

Let's have a look at a simple way to make a bottle cutter.

I varnished a piece of wood I had lying around.

I cut off 2 pieces from a plastic pipe.

I drilled 2 small and 2 big holes in the each pipe.

(Big hole opposite the small one)

I sanded the ends as they were rough-ish.

I drilled 2 holes in a glass cutter and sawed off the handle.

I found a piece of steel (It's from ball bearing drawer runners)

It already had a hole, so I drilled another one.

Then I enlarged top's of the holes with a bigger drill bit.

I screwed the pipes to the wood and attached the glass cutter.

Distance from pipe to pipe will depend. I was measuring it with a wine bottle.

You will need to attach the glass cutter perfectly. It's best to use a test bottle to find the best spot.

When scoring the bottle, you should get a nice line. If there is no line, that means your glass cutter is not touching the bottle or you're not putting the pressure on it.

Speaking about the pressure, you should not apply too much of it.

If you score the bottle and find a lot of glass shavings, you should lover the glass cutter or change its position.

I attached the piece of steel.

I wanted to add an extra feature to this bottle cutter - a ruler.

I cut/bent a steel ruler to the same size as the steel piece.

As one end of the ruler was not pretty, I bent it.

I glued it on top of the steel and put some weights on it.

Epoxy glue was perfect for the job.

I used "L" shape bracket to make a slider.

I put some neodymium magnets on the bracket and used felt to cover it.

If you don't have a felt, you can use furniture sliders.

If you don't use felt or furniture sliders, your ruler's numbers will most likely fade away.

That's it!

Now we have a bottle cutter with a magnetic slider.

Ruler is handy to cut the same size rings.

Bottle can be put on the cutter both ways. With the neck facing the slider or other way round.

Score the line and use your preferred technique to split the bottle in half.

I used candle and ice method.

Heat the line on a candle and cool it with ice.

Repeat the procedure until bottle splits in 2 pieces.

Make sure the slider does not move when scoring the bottle.I first tried to use only a ruler without the steel piece.

Magnets did not hold as strong, so the slider moved a little bit.

Have fun bottle cutting!