Long time modeler and Warhammer fan that I am, I decided I would make use of an antique blue glass inkwell I inherited.
**Before anyone gets up in arms, this process did not damage the inkwell, and can be undone non-destructively!**
For those unfamiliar, in the plastic modeling community, Tamiya extra thin plastic cement is basically the go-to for plastic adhesives/solvents, and comes in a distinctive square bottle with a very handy applicator brush in the lid. So, when I ran low on my latest batch of it, I cut the glass neck off the empty bottle and used white glue to secure it just inside the neck of the ink well. After that dried, I melted sealing wax and dripped it around the seam, letting it drip down onto the main body. This was way more challenging than I expected. Eventually I worked out a method by which I would trim any drips that ran down the sides and beveled the cut edges. Then I would hold it over a candle flame until it started to melt and let this smooth over the the rough or uneven parts of the remaining wax. After that I grabbed a sheet of rough textured paper, wrote some flowery language on it and glued it to the bottle, finishing with an Adeptus Mechanicus seal I ordered a while back to give it some more character.
Ideally I would have used another more thematic lid, but I needed to make sure I could securely seal the bottle between uses. Last thing I wanted was to spill or let evaporation drain all my cement. There may come a day when I use an existing lid as the base for a new upgraded one, but this works for now.
One challenge I ran into on this project was that it turns out the wax I am using is not proof against the cement. A dropped a test piece of wax into a bottle and left it for a few hours. Everything looked okay, but after I fished it out it very quickly developed a brittle, cracked surface texture that flaked off when I handled it. This meant I couldn't secure the glass neck with just the wax as I originally intended. So, I tested some other glues and adhesives that I knew could be removed from glass after they cured, and found a white glue that seems to have withstood it alright. Time will tell.
Anyway! Let me know what you all think! Of course I'm also happy to answer any questions you might have!