How Do I Flatten A Beer Bottle

[Pumpy]

Seriously Guys ,

I want to melt my beer bottles flat so I can drill a hole in them hang them on the wall ,one removes the lable first before melting them , many people shape them as ash trays but i dont smoke .

I wondered if anyone had any experience with this .

No I am not scrapbooking as I have seen flattening bottle caps

http://reviews.ebay.ca/HOW-TO-FLATTEN-BOTT...T:-1:LISTINGS:1

Serious answers please .

Pumpy

 

[goatherder]

You'll need some heat Pumpy. I know chucking a stubby bottle into a wood fire doesn't go close. What were you planning on using for a heat source?

Drilling the post-melted glass without cracking it might be a challenge too.

 

[homebrewworld.com]

Thought i had problems Pumpy !

 

[big d]

Lots of heat hey.Maybe try and source a place that kilns pottery as im sure it would do the trick as the temperature is slowly raised.

Cheers
Big D

 

[ausdb]

You'll need some heat Pumpy. I know chucking a stubby bottle into a wood fire doesn't go close. What were you planning on using for a heat source?

I beg to differ!
After the recent sandgroper steinbrew day we enjoyed a few quiet drinks over the remains of the bonfire GL had cranked up to heat the stones. Mrs GL and mrs Ausdb had polished off a few bottles of bubbly and we decided to see if the fire was hot enough to start to get the glass to melt as there was conjecture whether it would be hot enough to do it, so we poked a champagne bottle into the coals and left it there for a while. The bottle did start to deform but we could not get the whole bottle hot enough at the same time to actually flatten it.

I think a kiln of some sort would be the best way to do it and bit of creative googling would seem to support this
http://www.potters.org/subject64961.htm
http://www.warmglass.com/

 

[Guest Lurker]

The bottle did start to deform but we could not get the whole bottle hot enough at the same time to actually flatten it.

Yeah, because the bed of coals wasnt deep enough. I have done it successfully with a deeper bed of cherry red coals from a jarrah fire. Place bottle on coals and heap a good 150 to 200 mm of coals over the top. Leave completely covered until morning so it cools reasonably evenly. Ends up flattish, but a bit wobbly. I guess in theory there is a chance of a dangerous glass explosion, but that has never happened in all the times I have done it.

But I still think Pumpy has too much time on his hands.

 

[Ross]

Like this Pumpy?



cheers Ross

 

[Pumpy]

Thanks Guys for all your suggestions .

hey Ross you have a Fine example of what I was eluding too


pumpy

 

[Tony M]

We have done this many times in a camp fire. The problem is not melting the bottle but cooling it slowly enough to prevent cracking. We never successfully removed a bottle, even well into the next morning out of a cool dead ash bed.
I think if you stacked up a few bricks into a simple kiln and blasted your Nasa burner into it, blocked the hole when the bottle deformed then walked away without even one little peek for a day, you may be successful. Your best chance for a mounting hole would be to poke a hot skewer thru the bottle when it is bright red, plastic and still in the heat source.

 

[Simon W]

Heya Pumpy,

Dunno if you'r still interested in giving this a go, or maybe you've done it already?.
Try looking for a glass-work club, maybe in the clubs section of the yellow pages(I haven't looked), they usually have kilns for glass blowing and Slumping, which is what you want to do.
Ever seen those glass bowls with patterns all over? They're made with a sheet of glass slumped in a mould.

Simo