Champagne bottles aren't very tough, are they?

[Jeff Grossman]

Completely by accident I stumbled across a video of a guy who "sabers" a champagne bottle using the bottom of his glass: click

 

[Unknown]

next time you try this in the cellar, please stay away from Jay's roast beef

 

[robert ames]

yes it doesn't take much of an impact.

 

[Ian Fitzsimmons]

Well, there's a lot of pressure pushing out from within, right? So the glass is already under load when it's struck.

Have to try that some time, with someone else's stemware.

I bet it doesn't work with petillant.

 

[SFJoe]

Glass is very vulnerable to small surface injuries that propagate. Did you ever cut glass tubing in chemistry class by making a little scratch with a file?

 

[Jeff Grossman]

My only chem lab experience was a very long time ago. (IIRC we made sodium hexanitrocobaltate -- which I remember because I like the sound of it -- which was just some orange junk, but the point was to predict then measure the yield.)

But I have seen plenty of tile guys make a scratch on the vitreous surface and then snap the piece cleanly on the line.

 

[MLipton]

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
My only chem lab experience was a very long time ago. (IIRC we made sodium hexanitrocobaltate -- which I remember because I like the sound of it -- which was just some orange junk, but the point was to predict then measure the yield.)

But I have seen plenty of tile guys make a scratch on the vitreous surface and then snap the piece cleanly on the line.

It's all about the surface tension.

Mark Lipton

 

[David Erickson]

I think I want more substantial footwear for this.