Slump-able bottle? No

Glass Working
#1

Someone left us this bottle, most likely because they thought it looked cool. Indeed, it does look cool, but this bottle logo is not enameled. You can slump (fire) bottles with enamel logos. This style, where they’ve gone cheap, doesn’t work in the kilns. The logo is paint under a heavily glued clear plastic. I was trying to get a pic of the edge of the plastic in the 2nd shot, but it’s just a blip to the top right of the top logo. You can see the edge, but it doesn’t photograph well.

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And while I’m on the topic of enameled bottles, there’s no guarantee it will come out well. The Mexican Coke bottles have an enameled label, but the red burns out at slumping temps, so you just have a white rectangle. No experiments yet on the Sprite bottles…

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#2

Good for cups

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#3

Or they could remove and clean the current label then use printable clear vinyl/sticker stock to print a new label, if they really want it slumped and absolutely had to have the label on it.

I’ve done something similar on other projects before.

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#4

Yeah, but then they would’ve kept it, instead of just dropping it off in GlassWorks.

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#5

True.

I was just throwing it out there for the “the more you know…” aspect for anyone that might be looking for a solution to slump a bottle that had a label that wouldn’t survive the process.

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#6

Just for everyone’s knowledge, can you advise which bottles you have had success with?

#7

Are you trying to gather glass bottles to do this?

If so, this seems like a perfect write up to make a sign about. Then also place that sign where you would like to gather the bottles. That way there is no question why the bottle is left and you also gather the bottle types you want.

#8

Actually – no. Most people taking the bottle slumping class already have their own bottle that they want to slump. Folks just randomly drop off bottles that they thought were cool. This post is more by way of discouragement.

#9

We really haven’t done that much with the enameled bottles. Pretty much people bring their own bottles for the class. I’ve only seen 2 enameled bottles slumped, and one was that Coke bottle where the red faded to white. The other was a wine bottle with a frame on the front and a picture that showed through. That one came out pretty good, but the bottle collapsed a bit unevenly.

Generally when we’re doing a class, I’m expecting people to bring wine bottles. That makes what we’re putting in one kiln consistent in size. Champagne bottles are weird because they’ve got a thick base. I haven’t tried slumping one yet, but the inconsistency in wall/base thickness has a potential to cause problems.

#10

I just watched This Video where they used a wine bottle and a Corona beer bottle. I had no idea this technique was possible! Are there classes offered on this?

#11

Every now and again. Probably sometime in July.

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#12

I am hugely amused that his website is called “Primitive Pathways”. Okay, making glass bottles is at least a couple of centuries old. But electric kilns to heat glass? Tres First World…

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#13

Dropping this here since it seems modestly relevant:

Located in In Farmers Branch, no less :–)

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#14

Just for the heck of it, here is a link Warm Glass to the middle of my aging page showing pictures of slumping and fusing including thin clay molds with kiln wash to make defined shapes. I took bottles apart as well as slumping. Due to lack of updating, site is not flexible so you will probably have to zoom to fill the screen

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