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Diamond Bottlenecks

How we create our hand-blown glass slides


Diamond Bottlenecks is proud to be the only true producers of commercially-available furnace-fired hand blown leaded and non-leaded crystal glass guitar slides in the World. There are a small number of glass slide-makers on auction sites & the www claiming to produce 'hand-blown glass' guitar slides ~ we know by experience these are mostly false claims, their products being 'lamp-worked' (or 'torch-worked') pyrex tubing - the pyrex tube is cut to length and the end is melted and reshaped using a high-heat blowtorch....this is not how you create a hand-blown glass slide!



Our own hand-blown leaded and non-leaded crystal glass slides begin their journey into your hand from the glass-blowing studios of our U.K's finest glass-blowers, using traditional glass-blowing methods ~ no 'hot-torches' in sight!


Our crystal glass tubes are 'blown' in 3-foot long bulbs (like glass Frankfurter sausages!) in a variety of wall thickness' and colors/patterns ~ usually about a dozen at a time.


These are then sent to our glass processing shop (a traditional, fully-equipped 'cold-working' shop) for cutting & measuring into individual lengths, then logged and checked to suit each order before the final shaping and polishing requirements.


We usually supply every order directly from our current tube stock ~ occasionally we'll have the correct glass color, but not the required wall thickness or sizing - if this occurs we'll always offer an alternative glass color to speed-up the process of getting a slide into your hands....if this is not acceptable we'll re-order your tube for inclusion into our next incoming shipment from the glass-blowers.


To keep our pricing at an affordable level for the working musician, we don't order each slide individually from a glass-blower ~ using this method would push the final costing considerably above a sensible working musicians price range....and that won't help us sell our slides!


So ~ by ordering our hand-blown 'bulbs' in quantities & completing the slide in our cold-working shop, we can keep our costings down. The downside to this production method is that a small number of orders may take a few weeks to obtain in a specific glass color or sizing ~ we'll do our very best to supply your slide as soon as possible - but ultimately it is in the hands of the glass-blower to produce the initial tube for us.


Hope this enlightens our customers as to how we produce our hand-blown crystal gems ~ many thanks for your time.


Slide On!

Ian McWee (Guitar Slide Consultant)