Fitting Hoses Directly To A Glass Vase?

[agentscot]

Ok, I've seen a lot of pictures on here of people that have cut holes in their vases to directly attach the hoses. For those of you that have done this or know how, I would be interested in learning how to do this.
Is it something that can be done with just a glass cutter, or do you need a blow torch or something?

[ryno]

I went to Lowes and got a glass cutting bit for a drill. It was around 9 bucks, not too bad. Its shaped like a spade and worked great on a Bacardi bottle. Just find something to seal up the hose with and you'll be good.

[bbf]

If you decide to use a spade shaped drill bit like ryno suggests (which is what I did at first), make sure when you go to Lowes or Home Depot you ask the little helpers for a glass/tile drill bit. These bits work differently than what you're used to for drilling metal or wood as they don't actually drill the glass so much as they grind the glass. Make sure you don't put too much pressure on it, let the drill do the work. Also make sure you have something cooling the bit and the glass down as you're doing this, if it heats up too much from the friction (which it absolutely will without some effort on your part) the bit won't last very long and you are likely to fracture your glass; and potentially cut up your hand, I've still got a nasty little cut from my mistake with that. You might want to fill the tub and have the glass in a shallow pool of water, but BE CAREFUL that's how inattentive people get electrocuted. Slow down when the bit is about to reach the other side, because when it finally gets through to the other side, that's when you're most likely to fracture the glass.
And you really ought to get a whole set of the bits ranging from the tiniest you can get up to whichever size hole you want at the end of this process. You need to start out with a little tiny pilot hole going through the glass, and then use the next bigger size, and then the next and the next until you've got the right size hole. You're much much much less likely to fracture the glass by doing it this way.

This is an absolutely grueling totally boring long drawn out process that can take up a good chunk of time, and it will very often result in broken glass.

Which is why I am SO TOTALLY THRILLED about hole saws! A good one is only around or under $20, and you can get a perfect hole in just two minutes. Just google 'diamond dust hole saw for glass and tile' and you can find some online retailers that carry them. Check Lowes and Home Depot first, but I've never had any luck finding them there; I ended up getting a couple from khue.com and I'm happy with them.

This works a little differently from what we were talking about at first. Instead of grinding a hole through the glass, it grinds the outline of a circle through the glass. Think of it as grinding a 'O' instead of a '.' , leaving a little circle of cut out glass in the middle of the hollow drill bit, and a perfect hole in the base of your hookah.

And as far as sealing the hose up, if you don't care too much about looks, you can just have vinyl or latex tubing that's a little wider than the hole, jam it in there, and it will seal itself up air tight without needing any adhesives or epoxies. Or if you want something pretty, you can puruse the plumbing section in the store for some nice metal hardware to Goop to the glass around the hole which you can then attach the hose to.

Hope that helps!

[blow_some_O's]

i made a whole in an absolut bottle once for the base of my hookah. i used the spade shaped glass/ tile drill bit. what i did was covered the area i drilled with a piece of duck tape. then start drilling VERY SLOWLY. going to fast will make the glass hot and cause it to crack. stop drilling every 15 seconds or so and spray some WD-40 lubricant on it. This will make it easier for the bit to cut the glass. trust me it worked like a charm for me first time.