Making rods out of bottle glass
 

Hey, I wanted to experiment with melting bottle glass. I'm going to start by pulling stringer/rod out of broken pieces of a wine bottle. If I can manage to get "thicker" rods (thicker than 2-3mm) is it necessary to anneal the rods? Will the rods survive air cooling then being put back into the flame a few hours/days later without annealing?

Thanks in advance! :)

You can place the rods on top of the kiln to give them a preheat to avoid the spitting. Just be sure to leave a cool handle spot to hang on with. I would keep them Bullseye diameter or smaller. Stick 'em under the kiln handle (the top ones for lifting the kiln) and they won't roll away either.

I always pull stringer width to avoid that problem, but I haven't tried preheating them yet.

Don't mix your bottles... they're all different COE's but I believe they're usually treated as "float glass" for annealing temps/times. Stick with single color beads when you're working with bottles. Lots of surface decorations left raised are fun. It's also great practice cuz if you mess up, just melt it in and try again.

Sue

Heat the bottle pieces in the kiln first. I usually pull a bunch of thick stringer/rod and leave them on my table. Then make beads and anneal.

I had no idea using bottle glass was possible. Can I use frit on those beads? I guess I need to break some bottles tomorrow!

I've made plain large spacer beads out of Heineken and Budweiser beer bottles, and Skyy vodka bottles. I break the pieces with a hammer and use stainless steel chopsticks to carefully melt the pieces together to pull a stringer. Careful as in taking care not to make too many air bubbles.

It's soda lime glass, so I think a single layer of frit would be fine.

I don't anneal my rods that I make from bottle glass and there is some popping and spitting but I'm used to just sticking my rods in the flame. The glass is not the boss of me!

I have successfully used silver and copper foil, 96 COE frit and fine silver wire on this type of glass.

LOL! LOVE!

Bottle glass COE is between 90-96 depending on color and batch. There are couple of things to remember about bottle glass two bottles from the same case may or may not be compatible, and bottle glass is formulated to have a very narrow free flowing range to facilitate the automatic bottle machines. You can always do a pull test to see if to bottles are compatible. Oh, and the color is very dense.

I have always read that bottle glass is 88 or below?

Barbara

I think you are right, I can't type after a night of no sleep. The annealing schedule is the same as is used for other types of Soda Lime glass.

It's my understanding that the glass used for bottles has a hardener in it. With most of the colors readily available for under $5 a lb, why go through the effort to pull rods/stringers with a glass that is going to have compatibility issues?

With the popularity of recyled and repurposed items, beads made with bottle glass have a great appeal.

I've had many customers make requests for my beer and vodka bottle beads. One recently, so I'm going to play again. :)

I can sell beer bottle marbles all day long, esp. Guinness and local micro brews. The hardest part is getting the initial gather, I started using little 1.5" clay flower pots lined with kiln wash. I fill them with broken glass, run them through a cycle in the kiln to melt them into a puck. Then I clean the kiln wash off, and then back into the kiln to bring them back up to working temp. Around here peep's love the whole recycled/re-purposed bit.

Line of the day!!! :D

Maybe one could melt the pieces of glass into a rod shape? That would fit my kiln better anyway... :-k

About 7 years ago I took a class and the instructor was all about using recycled material. We broke bottles and just stuck the pieces (slowly and carefully) into the flame. Just make sure you use tweezers or hemostats to hold on to the glass. Dont just grab it and stick it into the flame.
We also used scrap stained glass. We ended up with some really neat beads. She also did something else with a flowerpot to melt the glass but I dont remember exactly what that was. We didnt do any of that in the class.

I know you do have to be careful to not mix up the glass.