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Day #30 – does that how to cut a bottle with a string trick really work?

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My official answer is … I think so. 🙂

Update:  My official-official answer … not well enough to be a fun craft project. 🙁

Decisive, I know.

But here’s the deal, my BFF Sue tried it over the summer and totally couldn’t get it to work. And when my very Proud younger cousin who enjoyed her recent visit said she had also tried and couldn’t get it to work I knew I had to give it a go.

So I gathered my supplies.

how to cut a bottle with a string

  • bottle to cut
  • 5 gallon bucket with ice-cold water, or a sink
  • cotton string to tie around bottle – I used the same string I used for this project
  • acetone (or nail polish with acetone in it) to soak the string
  • lighter to set string on fire
  • scissors (not pictured) to cut your string

In preparation I had to take one for the team and suffer through a bottle of wine.*

*I’m not recommending you drink a bottle of wine immediately prior to doing this. That would actually not be very bright. There’s fire involved. So do the drinking the night before like I did.

I followed the instructions in this video tutorial.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vILNflmwFw]

And I ended up with this.

how to cut a bottle with a string

Ummm, not exactly what I was going for.

A few words to wise.

  • Ice cold water is necessary to “shock” the hot glass into breaking.
  • The glass actually breaks about a 1/2 inch above where your string is so take that into consideration when you wrap your bottle.
  • Beveled glass doesn’t seem to cut cleanly.
  • There is no way the glass is clean-cut enough to use these as drinking glasses as I saw around the interwebz. Fun candle holders with some sand in the bottom I think would be cool around a patio. Or cut much shorter for tea lights, that’s Sue’s plan. But I think not on the drinking glasses.
  • Update – the slower you spin the bottle the longer the string stays lit … not that that helped my results. 🙂

Here’s how it all went down for me and why I still haven’t actually cut a bottle with a string that I will keep. 🙂

My first attempt shown above was hindered by my ice strategy. Our ice maker doesn’t work and I was too cheap lazy to go out and buy a bag of ice so I used those blue ice things we put in coolers. And they float, so when I went to put the wine bottle in the bucket it was welcomed by this.

how to cut a bottle with a string

I think hitting the ice blocks caused it to break unevenly.

I resolved that issue with a stone from our yard to hold down a couple of the ice blocks and then I just wedged the others in place leaving enough free space to submerge my next bottle.

how to cut a bottle with a string

But I didn’t have any other bottles. Lucky for me I remembered seeing some on the street on my walk home from pilates this morning. 🙂  #classykeywest #fantasyfestremnants

how to cut a bottle with a string

The issues I think I had with these bottles were two-fold. The first try I had the string right at the point where the bottle starts to go straight down. But since the glass actually breaks above the string I think it was messed up trying to cut on the angle, so it just cracked in a really odd way.

how to cut a bottle with a string

And the other issue is that these bottles have a bevel in them. See the dark line where that arrow is pointing in that picture above. Well, when I moved my string down the bottle quite a bit, there was no way to avoid trying to cut it on a beveled spot, and the third bottle didn’t even break apart, it just cracked.

how to cut a bottle with a string

I’m going to have to give it another go with a plain wine bottle and report back. My instinct says that it will work, with all of the right conditions, and the right bottle and maybe I’ll grab a four-leaf clover just for good measure. 😉

But we’re going out on a boat tonight for a friend’s birthday (Happy 40th Cal!) and then it’s game 6 of the World Series. Go Red Sox!! #longlivethebeards

So I’m thinking I’ll drink a bottle or two of wine tomorrow night and try this little trick again on Friday.

I’ll definitely keep you posted.

how to cut a bottle with a string

Update: I gathered 4 more bottles of wine and tried a number of additional times and didn’t have much better luck. The cleanest cut I got was this.

how to cut a bottle with a string

Not even worthy of a tea light in my opinion.

There was a comment that it might be my string. So I wrapped it tighter to get a more even “cut” line and cut off the string by the knot.

how to cut a bottle with a string

And the dang bottle didn’t even crack. 🙁

how to cut a bottle with a string

So I figured I would make one last attempt with a clear bottle … maybe it was something with the colored glass???

how to cut a bottle with a string

Nope.

For me this project is a bust. If anyone has done it successfully and would like to share their secrets I’m all ears. Someone did comment that you might be able to use a heavy duty sanding tool, like a Dremel, to sand down the edge smooth. I say, have fun with that. I’m out. 🙂

Comments

  1. I’m with you! I’ve tried a bunch of times and it never seems to cut cleanly! I’ll try again at some point. My husband has a dremel tool now so maybe he could use that to sand the edges to a safe point? We’ll see! Haha. Glad to see I’m not the only one who didn’t have “internet perfect” results!

      • Ah, I think you are suppose to use YARN…it is the FUZZY stuff that sucks up the acetone, see if that helps….I am sure you can take ONE more ‘hit’ for the effort to PROVE it…ha ha~ Can’t wait to hear if it worked!

  2. Karah

    Next time, you might have better luck with one wrap of cotton string.

    I recall from the 60s that we actually could get a fairly clean break with minimal cleanup. I do think the string is the problem.

    Hope you don’t give up on this. And, btw, please make plenty of ice cubes for the next time.

    Your analysis of the shape of the bottle is very useful. Thanks for that–and for bringing back memories of another time in history.

    • Oh, that is interesting about the string. I am trying to gather more bottles to keep at it. Thanks for the tip … and the congrats, it was a fun night for sure. 🙂

  4. I’ve always wondered about that! You’re like mythbusters. 🙂

      • I have to admit, when I lit the first string I was like “what, that’s fire” … like it hadn’t occurred to me that was going to happen. lol The bucket of ice cold water close was a nice safety net.

  5. I think I won’t try this one. I am likely to hurt myself! (accident prone me) Just want to say – everyone looks so Happy in Keywest.

    • Interesting!! I drilled a hole in a vase once, I had to buy a special drill bit, not sure if it would work on a wine bottle or not … but now I want to try 🙂

    • You must have a special bit for drilling through glass or ceramic. I just bought a dset on Aamazon to turn dsome of my ceramic and glass into a garden fountain.

    • I think if you had some sort of a dremel where you could smooth it out you might end up with something useful … but not great results on their own

      • You can used a dremel to cut through the bottle, or just srore it before breaking. There are videos of all the techniques on You Tube.

  8. I’m thinking the string has a great impact on your break, I’ve seen this done with a single strand of plain white string. You may be using expensive type wine/beer bottles. The cheap stuff doesn’t have beveled design. 😉

    • hahaha, the last few times I tried with two buck chuck bottles of wine 🙂 I’ll definitely have to try a different string tho!!

  9. Ive been wondering about this myself. Surprisingly, when I cam home tonight my boyfriend (who is not crafty at all!!) had decided to give it a go. He used lighter fluid to soak the string instead of nail polish remover and found it worked best to to make sure the string was really level and to fully submerge the bottle in the ice water. Edges are still a tad rough but we expect to be able to sand them well enough. He used a much thinner string as well.

  10. Forgot to mention… He also used beer bottles which probably helped. And the first one did crack. Might be one of those “practice makes perfect” things

  12. You sound like me whenever I’ve tried the shrinky dink diys floating around the nt. They always curl up for me while baking, and I vowed never to try agai. On the other hand, I did the bottle cutting trick and it worked first try. It made a cute candle holder I sponge painted on the outside a snowy white.

  13. thanks for saving me the trouble of trying this. I actually paid 26 bucks for one of those cutting devices and that didn’t work either…..sigh. Oh well I continue to save wine bottles……

  14. My string won’t light on fire, i’ve tried with different strings and no result 🙁

    • Well that stinks Jess. I’m not sure what to tell you here, you’re using acetone? Maybe soak it longer and make sure it is totally saturated? I wish could help more.

    • The srtring must be all cotton, and whatever you are soaking it with must be set on fire immediately after soaking. The stuff that burns evaporates quickly.

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