Bottles on the roof? Or bats in the belfry?

[Humabdos]

I put about 75 or so bottles up on the roof of my shop on tin foil about a three weeks ago. Some are turning Smokey yellowish. Others are turning green, blue, purple. How long should I leave them up there? Could it ruin them? We have had a lot of days over 90 and some 100. Is this smoky yellow a desirable effect? Most of these bottles fall in to the almost worthless so I was hoping to make them look a little more interesting.
Glen

 

[BARQS19]

AHH I'm glad you reminded me about bottles on the roof. There is a building here in town that have old bottles all over it. I talked to the guy about 3 months ago who cleaned it out and said instead of throwing them away, because he thought they may be worth something, he just threw them up on the roof. I drove by there and saw them. At first I thought it was leaves. Just bottles all over the roof. I need to get on that and see who the building belongs to now. Thanks for reminding me LOL

 

[Humabdos]

Hopefuly there not ACL's or they will be faded[:-]
Glen

 

[Tandy]

[] No, not bats in the belfry! A lot of bottles that were made with manganese dioxide and have turned amethyst/violet/purple will benefit by being left out on the roof. However, for every bottle that does go a deeper colour, there are those that will only turn the faintest of the range of colours. It seems to depend on how much manganese dioxide was used in the bottle's manufacture. []

I must say that I am impressed with the other colours of the bottles - I like your idea of "to make them look a little more interesting", if you are lucky enough to be able to do so, and thereby increase the sale price to double what you originally thought, then leaving them on the roof is a decided advantage. I'll have to try with some of the more common aqua or clear bottle we get over here.

 

[bigkitty53]

Hey Glen,
As Tandy said,bottles containing manganese (which when used in small amounts,'bleached out' impurities resulting in CLEAR glass.) will turn variing shades of purple when exposed to UV light.Circa 1910 manufacturers started using Selenium to de-colour glass.This glass will turn variing shades of yellow when exposed to UV light.I have never heard of glass turning blue or green before,(unless it's algae[])can you post a picture?I'm not too fond of yellowed glass,usually it's a shade like urine! Value of sun-coloured glass is like beauty,in the eye of the collector!L.O.L.

Oh yeah,Tandy,note CLEAR glass! Aqua glass won't change colour.[]

KAT

 

[Tandy]

[] Yep, clear glass.

[8|] In regard to blue produced by exposure, I have found a bottle that was what we describe as "black glass", with a blue patch on the base, where it was exposed to the sun's rays. Not cobalt blue, but a lighter tone and colour, medium blue.

[] Happy digging.

 

[Humabdos]

I forgot to tell you i'm color blind![][][]
Glen

 

[David E]

Another clear bottle that will never change color is crystal (leaded glass)

 

[kumtow]

Hi Tandy,

Most black glass that has a patch of blue (milky blue) on the base is a result of a pontil. I have a few black glass bottles that have this effect and they are 1850s blacks with improved pontil. The blue is caused by bits of glasgal? (old glass) used on the pontil to make the pontil stick to the bottle and refiring to smooth the pontil out. If your bottle is of this era, the effect is not due to the sun.

Cheers Alan

 

[VaChick]

Hi all, my father put over 100 bottles on their roof -- for at least 10 years. When we took them down, many had changed to an absolutely beautiful deep shade of purple.

However, there were wasp nests or other kind of bugs' homes in many -- and some had a yucky heavy brown glue like substance covering them (that took hours and hours of scrubbing). Worse, though, about 90% of them were cracked or broken. He'd stored them there upside down, so I don't think water got in them, froze and cracked/broke the bottles, I think they just broke due to temperature changes. He had some really nice ones up there too. . .

Just a warning about bottles on the roof. . . .

By the way, what can I do with all the cracked bottles -- they're way too pretty to throw away. . . besides, they were my father's and I don't feel right putting them in the trash.(many are complete, just cracked).

Can they be used for stained glass, mosaics, target practice[]??

thanks
VaChick