I saw wine bottles heated, and smashed into plate and bowl shapes. Can you heat bottles with a cutting torch?

Question

I'm new to this, didn't know how to respond. I tried it, of course it broke. Thanks for the 5 answers. I'll just order the $20 one I saw online. You guys are very helpful. May try the campfire method someday! THANKS

Answer 1

I suppose you can. I never tried it.
We used to flatten out beer bottles in the campfire and make ashtrays. The trick is to cool them slowly so they don't break.

Answer 2

You really need an oven to heat them evenly. Even a small temperature differential between parts of the bottle will cause stress fractures and it will end up breaking before it gets cooled off...

You can try it and maybe you can find a specific wine bottle that will work ok with a torch... but I would try to have some kind of enclosure to prevent drafts from cooling off parts while you heated other parts.

Answer 3

No! There is a process called "annealing" with glass, and it's important. It means bringing down the temperature slowly so the glass does not explode. Glass will develop tiny stress cracks if cooled too quickly. This causes an unstable piece that can randomly explode. It can happens months after the piece is finished.

What you are talking about is a process called slumping, and you use an electric kiln to slump glass. Do a search on "glass slumping" and you will find an explanation of the process. You can do it flat on the shelves, or you can use molds like bowls and shapes.

Answer 4

The problem with heating bottles is that first, they are pretty cheap glass and so just tend to break, and second, that the heat needs to be applied evenly. If one part of the bottle is trying to expand from the heat, but another isn't, the bottle tends to break.

So, I would guess that it might be possible if you had the bottle rapidly spinning or something, but quite difficult I suspect.

Answer 5

if you hold the top with pliers and heat neck and let bottle fall about a foot when the glass gets soft after heating with torch... you can twist neck into shapes, after a few tries it becomes easy and you can sell the distorted bottles at local venues or cart on mall.