grinding/smoothing glass

Jay Lutz

Jay Lutz

Well-known member
Looking for some abrasive knowledge. Trying to grind/sand/polish (wet or dry OK) the edge of many many glass bottles in order to make cups from wine bottles. Can anyone advise an abrasive wheel or belt that should do the job? The stuff I've found at the hardware store does not seem to work well.

I can do a clean scribe OK using my metal lathe and a glass cutter on the compound but I need to get rid of the 2 sharp edges and generally smooth everything up.

Not very race car y.........but I'm guessing there are applications somewhere.

Thanks, Jay
 
http://www.instructables.com/id/Drinking-Glasses-from-Wine-Bottles/step4/Finishing-the-Edges/

http://www.wikihow.com/Smooth-Glass-Edges
 
Jay, I have smoothed several chips in nice glassware/vases,etc. The best advice I can give is to use wet/dry emory cloth with water and a few drops of dish detergent- somehow this works. Maybe start with 220, 320 grit, then 400 might be enough to finish rough edges like I did. If you want a perfect glossy edge, keep going down in grit... But be careful to only work the edges you want, or you could scratch the main part. Joel
 
I've tried these suggestions already.......man is it slow.

Of course I'm looking for a magic bullet that I can hopefully use on my metal lathe.
 
loving the sound of that.

seems like preheating in a hot oven then melting the top lip with an oxy acetelene torch could work but I'm also guessing that 500F is no where hot enough.

Or maybe just raising the whole glass temp in a ceramics oven just under the melting temp and letting it cool off. I need to talk to a ceramics artist ..........but who knows one of those?
 
Jay Lutz said:
I need to talk to a ceramics artist ..........but who knows one of those?
Click to expand...

My sister doos that. (well that's what her degree is in, but she teaches elementary art...)

She still plays with ceramics tho- maybe she'll have a good answer for you.
 
Tim posted some very good info. Rig up a grinding attachment for your lathe, motor with grinding wheel, pivoting from tailstock. :think:

Professionals who do this for a living will "flame roll" the edges of the glass making them shiny and smooth like a standard glass. Unfortunately that requires specialized tools and you'll want to carefully anneal the glasses afterwards to minimize the chances of cracking and breaking.

** You cannot simply take a propane blow torch and get the edge smooth! If you try it, it will simply crack the whole glass. If you really want to do that, you'll likely need a glass worker's torch (usually Oxygen/Propane).
 
Find your local glassblowing studio. They'll likely do it for inexpensive. Cold-working equipment is not cheap and hot working will require annealing.
 
Years ago I made some glasses out of old long neck beer bottles using an ordinary, cheap sand blaster and "play sand" from the building supply store. Poured the sand through a kitchen seive to get rid of the large grains. Originally, this equipment was for cleaning exhaust headers before painting. Cutting glass this way takes a little experimentation with angle of attack, closeness, and air pressure, but once you get a hole through the glass, the rest of the cut goes pretty quickly. And, it naturally leaves a smooth edge. I'd guess that you could smooth the ones that you have already cut
off.

Give it a whirl. As is often the case, simpler is better. Long live low tech!!
 
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