You can believe that the beer bottle in the movie is actually made of sugar

Mondo Health Updated on 2024-01-30

Audit Expert: Meng Meng.

Associate Professor, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Do you know where many of the props in the movie came about?The elixir of immortality is Mai Lisu;The medicine that the ladies of each palace drink is cola or brown sugar water. There are even prop masters who were sentenced by the court because the prop banknotes in the movie were too realistic.

*丨pixabay

The common prop, the beer bottle, is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people because it often "participates" in wonderful martial arts scenes. But who would have thought that this seemingly lethal "**** is actually made of sugar gum or synthetic plastic.

*丨pixabay

The beer bottles in the movie are never real.

In the past, glass props were also called sugar glasses, and they were made with white sugar and corn syrup. After the raw material is heated and formed, cooled and dried, it looks like glass. During the cooling shrinkage, the stickiness of the sugar and the tension on the surface will make the sharp edges that may exist more rounded, greatly reducing the number of sugar glass shards cutting people. Still, these fragments can cause some damage to the actors. In addition, most of the sugar cubes are relatively brittle in their coagulation state, and they can easily disintegrate into small pieces after being stressed, so the dried sugar glass must be used for shooting immediately, otherwise the sugar glass will gradually become soft and sticky, and it will not be effective.

Now, prop glass is usually made of plastic or resin. The more common materials are polyurethane and acrylic.

Polyurethane is a kind of polymer compound, the chemical name is polyurethane, which is divided into two categories: polyester type and polyether type with monomer properties. Polyurethane is commonly used to make polyurethane plastics, polyurethane fibers (also known as spandex), polyurethane rubber and elastomers. In life, there are some artificial sponges made of polyurethane.

Acrylic, also known as plexiglass, its chemical name is polymethyl methacrylate. Acrylic is an important plastic polymer material developed earlier, with high transparency, strong chemical stability and weather resistance, easy dyeing and processing, and beautiful appearance, and has a wide range of applications in the construction industry. Transparent acrylic sheet has a light transmittance comparable to that of glass, but its density is only half that of glass. In addition, it is not as fragile as glass, and even if it is smashed, it is not easy to form sharp shards.

How to make a beer bottle at home that doesn't hurt to knock?

We can use the sugar glass method to make beer bottles.

First of all, you need to prepare a saturated granulated sugar solution, mix white sugar, corn syrup and water in a ratio of 2:1:2, and add a little cream of tartar and coloring. The main ingredient of cream of tartar is potassium bitartrate, which can reduce the crystallization of sugars. Because the white sugar is easy to caramelize in the subsequent heating process, and adding too much water to dilute it will reduce the viscosity of the syrup, and it is difficult to form a thin layer of sugar glass, adding corn syrup and cream of tartar can reduce the crystallization of sugar and help melt, which is a key step to make the finished sugar glass more uniform and thinner.

Once the solution is configured, it can be heated, taking care to stir well during the heating process to avoid crystallization. After the syrup temperature reaches 150 degrees, it is filled into an oiled bottle mold while it is hot, and it is cooled for more than a day to remove the mold.

After drying, the sugar wine bottle can be filled with water, but because the bottle is made of sugar, the load-bearing capacity is not strong, and the water content cannot exceed one-third of the bottle.

If you want to make a more realistic prop wine bottle, learn about the hot 3D printing.

With the development of science and technology, 3D printing technology has gradually penetrated into the field of film props production. 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, is a technology that uses a three-dimensional model as the basis to create a three-dimensional entity by adding materials layer by layer. Compared with traditional processing methods, 3D printing has the advantages of short manufacturing cycle, low cost, and high design freedom. In the production of film props, these advantages are fully reflected.

3D printers.

*丨Encyclopedia.

The 3D printing accuracy is high, which can improve the realism of the props. In the case of wine bottles, for example, the details and textures of the bottles can be accurately represented using high-resolution printing equipment. Whether it's labels, labels, or scuffs and scratches on the bottle cap, they can all be perfectly reproduced by 3D printing technology. Such a bottle not only has a high ** effect, but also adds more realism to the atmosphere of the movie.

The manufacturing cycle of 3D printed props is also very short. While traditional prop making often involves multiple steps such as modeling, material selection, cutting, sanding, and coloring, 3D printing can transform complex 3D models into physical objects with exact dimensions in a matter of hours. This saves a lot of time and money for filmmaking.

In addition, 3D printing also provides greater design freedom for the production of movie props. Designers can freely design the shape, texture and color of the bottle through 3D modeling software, and then print it directly. This not only allows for complex designs, but also allows for rapid iteration and modification during production to better meet the requirements of directors and cinematographers.

The world's first 3D printed car, Urbee

*丨Encyclopedia.

3D printing technology is widely used, not only in the production of movie props, but also in medical, aerospace, military construction, furniture, daily necessities, stationery and toys, 3D printing is used in various manufacturing fields. The world's first commercial 3D printer based on FDM technology came out in 1992, and now the same 3D printer based on FDM technology can be owned by ordinary households. All you need is a computer connected to it and you can print out everything you want. If the requirements for precision are lower, we can use a more affordable handheld 3D printing pen for creation.

Let's make a beer bottle that is as "amazing as in the movie"!

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