"Land Shark" Glasses

My husband and I recently received a creative surprise made by my father and our son Thomas!  “Land Shark” beer is one of Ken and Danny’s favorites, so it seemed like the perfect choice for making a fun set of glasses!    I thought it would be interesting to share how they created the glasses.

Materials:

Clean empty glass beverage bottles

Glass cutting tool

Wood

PVC pipe

Screws 

Rotary sander

Sandpaper 

Large pots for water 

Instructions:

First - some tips they have after creating several batches of these bottle glasses - always start with about double the amount of bottles that you expect finished glasses for.  There is a high chance of breakage in the various steps involved.    Also, because of the potential breakage issues, we would recommend you wear work gloves to help decrease the chance of being cut.  

The first step was to “empty” several glass beverage bottles, then wash them and let them dry. 

Next, he built a “jig”.  Two pieces of scrap wood were used as the base.  One on the bottom, and one on the left edge.   A piece of pvc piping was screwed to the outside edge of one of the boards to create a “stop” and help hold the bottle in place.   He used a bottle to determine where he wanted to make the cut in the bottles, then he cut a notch in the wood and mounted a glass cutting tool to the block in the right location.   The finished “jig” is held in place with a clamp. 

The bottles were then placed on the jig, and rotated to create an etching line.

A large pot of boiling water and a large pot of ice water are the next two things needed. 

Carefully submerge the top of the bottle just to the etched line in the boiling water.  Wait       15-20 seconds then remove and immediately place into ice water. 

The glass will break clean on the etched line.  Repeat until all bottles are cut. 

Sand the rough edge of the glass to smooth.  They began with 80 grit wet sanding and worked up to at least 320 grit until the rims were smooth enough for drinking.  If you have a rotary sander available, it can help speed up the process somewhat, but hand sanding will still be required to get a smooth finish. The sanding will take quite a bit of time - patience is a requirement! 

The glasses are now ready for use.  We recommend hand washing them as the labels are more likely to come off sooner in a dishwasher, etc.  If you are using bottles where the “label” is actually painted on the bottle, a dishwasher would probably be fine! 

The guys plan to do some experimenting with other colors of bottles and have been on the search for green, blue, and brown bottles - even without the labels they would make colorful additions to our glassware!