This past week has been an adventure in glass working without the proper tools. I started out following a few tutorials on how to cut glass bottles using various household supplies such as acetone soaked yarn, a candle, and finally some boiling water. Each of these involved scoring the glass with a diamond edged scorer and then rapidly heating and cooling the glass to create additional stress until the glass cracked along the line. All the tutorials made this look like an easy task but with each of my attempts I would get a partial cut up to the score line, and in trying to finish the rest of the cut, the glass would crack along the length of the bottle.
Failures 1 through 3: Not my picture but the general idea
After failing with these attempts I decided to wait until I got at least one proper tool for cutting glass and I ordered these diamond edged drill bits.
These drill bits made cutting the bottom hole but they did not come without many challenges. Getting the cut started and centered was a near impossible task as the drill bit would walk all over the glass until if finally created enough of a cut to steady itself. I tried to resolve this with a bit of cardboard to hold it in place but had limited success. The piece I may end up using for the final product has a slightly off center hole which causes the vortex to wobble slightly.
After the bottom hole I needed to cut a side hole to feed the piping through. This hole was supposed to be the same size as the piping but the smaller drill bits I had were unable to cut through the glass. Instead I tried to use the same drill bits designed for the glass but cutting on the rounded side surface caused additional stress which caused the glass to crack rather than create a clean hole. Luckily the crack did not propagate very far so I was able to patch it with some super glue and fill in the space around the pipe with some rubber putty.