6 years ago I was asked if I could cut different types and colours of glass beer and wine bottles.
I friend that now passed onto the great vineyard in the sky was building an outdoor bar and had the idea to?
build a support wall using ends of bottles with cement between them.
Never say "NO" and after a few trials and tribulations and enjoying the emptying the full bottles LOL, as I eventually
over a period of 4 months cut at least 250 bottles I came up with this concept.
Pictures always better than words.
I used a standard carbide wheel glass cutter held in a swinging tool holder.
Ah what is a swinging tool holder you may ask.
A tool holder I designed and made primarily for screw-cutting.
Principle being that the cutting forces on the threading tool in the normal anti clockwise kept the tool forced down?
accurately to a base plate in the tool construction, upon returning the saddle to start another cut, it was just a simple case of reversing the spindle direction?
and the tool would "swing" up, the underside of the tool would clean the thread and importantly there was no need
to wind the compound or cross slide out to clear the thread.?
I made 2 versions for external and Internal threading.
If any interest I will go into more details at a later date.
Next subject at a later date will be the use of soft jaws, and the manufacture of see photos holding the base ends of the bottles.
Next a revolving center in the tailstock.
Because bottles are not 100% concentric, these were just nipped in the soft jaws.
The lathe spindle ran clockwise and with a little hand pressure on the top of the swinging tool holder the cutter was pushed down onto the glass, any eccentricity of the glass?would lift the cutter in a upwards direction, and?achieved a full score mark around the total circumference of the bottle. see photo.
By running in a clockwise direction it was impossible for the cutter to dig in a non concentric surface.
Job done, taken out the lathe and then the bottle was immersed into boiling water just past the score line for 10 seconds , immediately?
dunked into a bucket of ice water.
The bottles broke exactly around the score line leaving very little ragged edge.
see photos.
I? will attempt go into deeper depth with the swinging tool holder and soft jaws manufacture.
The tool holder is with a friend in Australia now, I no longer need for screw cutting as I adopt the auto screw cutting module of the RELS.
PS to Charlie
I cannot post and so I do not subscribe to the 7 x mini lathe group,?
Sorry the? 7 x forum is just not my scene. We do not have to many "know it all armchair engineers" on this forum, thank goodness.
but members that discuss issues and do what they say they are going to do.
An old friend always said, don?t kick the can down the street, but make the tooling that makes the can.
Hope of interest.
--
John
John Lindo
