Glass Cutting: A Tale of Errors

I started collecting clear glass bottles about a year ago.  I had come across some pictures that looked like this and thought they would make great wedding centerpieces:

Sources:  Weddingbee / The Knot

What I really liked was the staggered look and the bunching of the candles.  While glassware and candles seem pretty inexpensive on their own, I was worried about the cost of having to buy/find the different sizes in mass, especially with the taller vases/pillars.   I also knew that I didn't want to use floating candles, which is a great, less expensive option for the style here. AND...I really wanted the height of the candles to match the glasses.  Thus, my brilliant side came out, and I decided, "hey, I can do this stuff myself.  I just need some glass and some wax and BAM! We'll have ourselves some candle centerpieces."

Attempt #1:

I had seen on Pinterest a post about cutting glass using fingernail polish remover and string.  I also found some videos that made it seem easy enough:

Well, I was a big failure.  For about the first 10 times, I couldn't even get the class to cut.  I played around with the types of string, the number of times I wrapped it around the bottle, how long I waited until dunking it into the water...nothing worked.  Finally, something changed and I did get the bottle to break, but every time it did it actually made two cuts:  one above the string and one below the string...weird.  If I did happen to get lucky and only get one cut, then it was all jagged and crazy-like.  Plus, the smell of the burning acetone was awful, not recommended.

Attempt #2:

While I was seemingly frustrated that my plan had failed, I still had two rubbermate totes filled with glass bottles and a determination that wasn't yet waning.  I did some searchin' on the interweb and found this post on weddingbee, My DIY Wine Bottle Centerpieces, where she cut the bottoms off of wine bottles to make centerpieces that looked like this:

The girl that posted it had used a glass scoring tool sandwiched between phone books.  

Source

She had her finance hold the scorer steady and she would rotate the bottles to make a score line on the bottles.  Then they would pour hot water on the line and then run it under cold water to get the "thermal shock" and break the glass along that line. Ok, I got this.

I tried doing it by myself, pressing down the phone book/scorer sandwich with one shoulder and rotating the glass bottle with the other arm.  We had a score line!  I tried the hot/cold water combination and it worked!  

As I continued to score the bottles, my score lines got worse and worse as my arms started to get tired.  The lines on the bottles weren't matching up and the bottles were cracking in all the wrong places.  I had about 4 out of 10 that I thought could use for the wedding.  I figured that I could press on, but after about 5 wasted bottles, I gave up for the day.  My shoulders were so sore the next day that I skipped another day of progress.  

On the third day, I came back to my supplies ready to rock and roll.  My first few attempts were pretty poor and my arms got only more tired from there.  I started to worry as I only had about 5 votives and I was going to need around 60!  And I had wasted about 20 bottles in the process.  My odds weren't doing too good.  

Thus, I needed a new plan.

Attempt #3:

I did some more searching and came across this YouTube video.  It's a long one!

While the process was essentially the same, the "host" of the video used a glass cutting contraption to help steady the bottle. 

I, however, thought that spending $50 on the device was counterproductive to my "saving money by recycling" point of view.  It did get me thinking if there were other similar products out there, and there was!  Hobby Lobby had one for $25 (but with your 40% off coupon, it makes it only $15).  I felt okay paying $15, and I'll tell you...SO WORTH IT (and a little dance to go with it).

So fast forward about 2 weeks and we have this:

I think this post has been long and boring enough, so I'll continue next time with a step-by-step of my third and final glass cutting attempt/success.  If anything, hopefully I saved someone out there the time and energy that I spent "trial and erring."