I’ve been saving glass bottles and jars to recycle into utensil containers, paint rinse cups, vases, candle holders, windchimes and whatever else. At this point i could break half of them and still have plenty. I have a glass bottle cutter and the stuff to sand down the cut rims afterward. (I read somewhere that the sanded rims are fragile and it’s best to heat the glass rim with a propane torch, but i dunno if i’m up for that.)
I’m thinking about how to turn these plain containers into nicer items, ideally so i can keep saving my bottles and recycling them into gifts. I’ve read about engraving glass with a rotary tool (which i own, with plenty of diamond bits, and i’ve engraved on metal), and the only other thing i know of would be using armor etch, but i’d have to hand cut the stencils and it sounds tedious and messy.
I don’t know how concerned i should be about the glass shattering as i am engraving. I have glass cutting oil, or do i need to rig up some kind of tub with a water drip to engrave in? I know glass dust is a problem, too. I’ve waited until summer to start this project so i can work outside, at least until i get the feel for it.
Has anyone engraved on glass or done a similar decorative project with recycled bottles and jars? Or just a project with cut down containers? How’d it go? What did you make?
My wife used to do glass painting. You got tubes of glass relief which you draw into the glass. It hardens into grey / black lines and looks like stained glass lead. You then paint inside the relief with the glass paint. It’s quite beautiful once it’s done and finished
I guess like this: https://youtu.be/u2NjmmvFX50 ?
How resistant is that to UV light? Might de-color or get brittle in direct sunlight quite quickly, no?
We had a mirror painted which caught the sun for years (through a front door) and some glasses on a window edge. Both seemed to be fine.
Interesting topic. I can’t really help much, but melting down glass cuts with a blow torch is no big deal and easy to do if you don’t apply to much heat too quickly.
This only makes sense if you already have one but, I’ve seen a lot of cool things made on glad with the cricut vinyl machine. A cool one I saw the other day was making stencils for etching with it.
