Tips on How to Score Your Bottle Perfectly
- Remove label and clean adhesive as best as you can
- Remember to hold the bottle against the back brace while turning
- Turn the bottle only once around, but you may go over areas that weren’t scored as well a second time.
- Apply pressure in between the wheels but closer toward the cutter and it works even better by applying pressure to the bottle neck at the same time while turning.
- Apply enough down pressure and evenly while turning the bottle.
- This is the most important!
- Most of the time, we find that folks don’t have enough pressure applied while scoring the bottle.
- Lately, I have been recommending folks place the cutter on a lower area such as the seat of a chair or coffee table height while scoring it.
- This allows you to have better leverage forcing the bottle down more + better consistency. It is super easy this way!
- I guarantee this will solve most people’s problems cutting bottles and it will produce perfectly cut bottles almost 100% of the time.
How to Successfully Separate the Bottle
The bottle separates along the perfect score line that our bottle cutter creates by adding heat and then cold water. Follow these tips for success:
- You can use boiling water to heat up the score line or a heat gun. I find that a heat gun works better because the heat doesn’t flow down the bottle like water does which provides worse results. A heat gun is also less wasteful, more convenient, quicker, and less of a hassle!
- Low cost heat gun with a smaller attachment can be found here: http://amzn.to/2scCFCz
- Direct the same amount of heat all around the score line. Do this by holding the heat gun steady at the score line and turning the bottle at a consistent speed.
- There is a sweet spot in amount of heat to apply to the score line! Too much heat will make the bottle crack in undesirable places. Too little heat and it may not separate along the score line.
- I will be testing this in the future and recording the temperature to heat the score line with an infrared thermometer for the best separation.
- The amount of heat needed may differ for bottles with thicker glass walls (such as wine bottles) in comparison to thinner glass walls (such as beer bottles).
How to Smooth Out the Cut Bottle
You will need to smooth the cut line– it is sharp so be careful! Our kit provides sandpaper to manually sand the edges but for an less labor intensive solution I have been recommending this idea described here.