Hanging Lamp With an Empty Whisky Bottle

by gparmar1 in Living > Decorating

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Hanging Lamp With an Empty Whisky Bottle

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Ever felt sad throwing away this stylish looking liquor bottles when they were empty because the missus wants to get rid of "junk"? Ever felt that if only I could make use of this stylish bottle in some way around the house so that I can still keep it. Now, you can convince your wife that I am gonna make a lamp for you with my liquor bottle :)

In this tutorial I will show you how to make a hanging lamp from a whisky bottle.

Materials Required

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Following is the material that you will require for this project:
1. Whisky/Liquor bottle - 1
2. Glass cutter - 1
3. Medium Grit Sand paper - as required
4. Drilling Machine and bits - small to large
5. Common electrical wire - 2 meters
6. Bulb holder - 1
7. Two pin plug - 1 
8. Screw-in Hook - 1

First Cut the Bottle

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Step 1. Cut the bottle
Since this bottle has flat walls as opposed to circular walls I used a steel ruler etch the walls near the bottom of the bottle with the glass cutter. When the markings were made I used this technique

Step 2. Sand paper the edges of the bottle
When you cut the bottle with this technique the edges are usually a little sharp and uneven. You need to now sand paper the edges of the bottle in the technique as shown in the video above.

Step 3. Drill a hole in the cap of the bottle. 
You need to drill a hole in the cap to pass the wires. First, drill a hole with a small drill so that a guide path for bigger drill is made quickly and with less damage. Then gradually keep increasing the hole so that our wires pass through the hole. The bottle I was using had a guala cap(which is used to prevent pilferage or adultration with low grade stuff). The core of the guala cap came off while I was drilling which was just what I wanted.

Step 4. Remove labels from the bottle
This step could have been done right at the beginning too. Well I kept pushing it to the last stage :) Just let the bottle sit in water for a little while. Most paper based labels come out this way. Other kinds of labels might need sanding them off the bottle.

Prepare the Bulb Holder

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Now is the time to prepare the bulb holder. 

Step 1. Peel off the ends wire for the bulb holder. Fix them in the screws of the holder as you can see in the picture. Tie a knot of the wire below the cap of the holder as shown in the picture. This is important because this knot is going to bear the load of the bulb holder, bulb and the bottle when hung by the electrical wire. Without it the whole load of the bulb, bulb holder and the bottle would be on the wire joint with the bulb holder which is not so strong.

Step 2. Fix the two pin plug on the other end of the wire. But first pass the wire through the bottle`s cap.

It`s Done!

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Fix the bulb in the lamp and the making of the groovy looking lamp is done!

Now all you have to do is to find a spot where you want to fix this lamp. Drill a hole and screw the screw-in hook and hang the lamp to it. Voila, and that`s it!

P.S.: Please be aware that it is a good idea to use a very low wattage bulb in this lamp because if not then the bottle could get very hot and may eventually break. Causing a lot of mess and/or harm to someone.