How much strength to crush a glass bottle?

Factual Questions
1

I’ve seen this in a couple movies, and it’s obviously done with that sugar-glass stuff or some other movie prop… but regarding doing it for real I’ve wondered:

a) how much strength would it take?

b) would there be much in the way of technique to make it easier?

c) just how long would it take for the lacerations on your hand to heal? :smiley:

FTR they like getting Chuck Norris to do this movie trick; the two times I remember was when he busted a bottle of water he was holding while tied down to use the glass shards to cut through the ropes with, and the other time in a bar (what movie featuring a martial artist doesn’t have the obligatory “beat the crap outta a bunch of drunken bar flies” scene? :p) where some guy was holding a beer bottle and Chucky grabbed his hand and squeezed until the bottle broke in the guy’s hand.

I’ve squeezed wine glasses to the point where they start to bend a bit once or twice, but never put myself in the hospital by actually breaking them (it takes a fair bit of effort), but a thick bottle would be much harder I think. Anyone know if a mere mortal has a chance in hell of performing this feat?

2

One of the cool Martial Arts tricks I saw once or twice, till someone cut the bloody hell out of their hand was this:

Take a bottle, wrap it in 2 layers of newspaper to prevent cutting.

Palm strike the bottle.

Sweep up when you’re done.

3

Nobody here has tried being a strongman and crushed a glass bottle with their hand… or had a drunk friend on steroids try it?
Maybe my question was phrased to wordy… here it is again:

Does a human have enough grip strength to break a glass bottle with their hand?

4

I haven’t tried this in years but I was shown this trick once and have done it myself.

Fill a bottle with water almost to the top. Leave about a half of inch of air at the top. Hold bottle firmly in one hand and strike open palm downward on the open bottle. It is surprising how little strength it take to break most bottles in this way.

5

This isn’t going to be a factual answer, largely because I’m too drunk and too long out of the scene to make it one, but there is a place where you can get a factual answer.

I got to it off of either www.deepsquatter.com or www.doctorsquat.com, and it was a grip strength board. It’s home to people who have managed the Captains of Crush #3 gripper and who know about guys who’ve done the #4. Now that I think about it, those might be pretty good search tags. Anyway, if you have grip questions, they can answer them or are very determined to find out.

If you really want to break glass in a bare hand, though, you should probably get in touch with Jim Rose and ask him if there’s a good way to do that.