4) The Do it yourself!

 (More to come on the HOWS with pictures to come!) 

 There are really good sites that will show you the basics of how to flake beer bottle bottoms in ways I can’t show you, things like serpentine edges, platforms, and step fractures. But Let me give three hints to those of you who really want to do or try this that seem to get lost in translation: 

 1) Grinding edges is your friend. Find a rough soft stone (Softer than glass but not so soft that it falls apart. Rough like a file but perhaps not a file since metal might break the lips– though there are times…). If you can’t get  purchase on a platform then roughen up the edge with your grinding stone. Truly this is one of the lost techniques in all of flaking. It makes the glass less sharp and makes annoying platforms suddenly flake-able. 

2) This is a complex theory that never makes sense in all the guides out there on how to do this that I hope I can make simpler, verbally. Most (like me) won’t understand until you actually begin flaking a couple of attempts — like 50-hahaha. When you make a flake on your glass it causes little grooves that goes in towards the middle of the glass (represented well in other sites). These dips of course  make ridges. Well come to find out that flakes follow ridges. If you can make a long groove then your next pressure flake will most likely follow that  ridge of the groove and be long too. if you make short ones… well the worst thing is accidentaly make a step fracture which you need to break off causing to aggressive thining and good chance of snapping the glass. I after a year of doing this still make step-fractures almost every attempt.  

3) Breaking edges. This is a simple technique done by Mr. Ratzat which takes the complexity of making platforms (all the different ways and techniques) easy for us layman out there. Basically you take your metal tool be it your presure flaker or even that file that I said not to use and you shear the edges when the  glass has got to thin to find purchase for your pressure flaker. What ever side you’re working you place that side face up on your leather pad and then break/shear/cut the glass with a downward pressure. This will set up good ledges/lips to presure flake from. You can all so grind edges to make platforms, but I have found (and i can’t tell you why) this will make for a smaller piece.