Making Bottlestoppers

[rflaherty]

20

I am making bottle stoppers for my office staff’s Christmas presents this year, and they are proving to be a lot of fun and pretty easy (see above). The necessary materials are:

A block of wood approximately 1½” x 1½” x 2” long. Most woods will do, but lately I have been using poplar, available in short lengths at my local Home Depot. The dark green and the green and white striped pieces are quite pretty. I have ordered some cocobolo, bloodwood and bocote to try as well.
A mandrel or pin chuck to hold the wood as it is being turned.. Although you can turn the stoppers between centers (and probably will need to do that with soft wood like redwood), I much prefer using a pin chuck. I have found it to be very satisfactory for this kind of turning, and I don’t see any advantage to using fancier (and more expensive!) mandrels. I have attached information about making and using a pin chuck.
The actual stopper plug. This usually consists of a cork or silicon plug attached to a wood or metal dowel that is then glued to your turning. I like the silicon stoppers from Penn State Industries (http://www.pennstateind.com/store/bs5.html). Note that the pretty wood is not included, only the stepped dowel and the slip-on silicon seal. Contrary to their instructions, the silicon piece does need to be glued to the dowel…I use Gorilla Glue.


After turning, I finish the wood with friction polish or Crystal Clear Krylon spray.

Have fun!

--Bob

[Greenvilleguy]

Thanks! That really a neat idea.

I'm not near so creative -- I've been using a plain old fashion "jam chuck", i.e. a piece of wood (1/2" dowel works)tapered to fit well up into the 3/8" hole of the stopper on one side and my chuck on the other. I just jam the bottle stopper blank on and it usually stays there -- usually.

By the way, very nice looking stoppers.

[deanthom]

Nice pieces.

If you want to play a little holiday game, and if you can find some good, red cedar to go along with your nice green poplar, you can "ho, ho, ho" all the way through your holiday party!

[twig/al]

rflaaherty, One question, are the stripes, painted, decal, or inlay? Either way they sure look nice!!!

[Greenvilleguy]

I've been looking at the "X's" on the bottle stopper. I often laminate stripes into my pen turning, but the "X's" stumped me. I'm thinking you laminated some thin sheets into the blanks, but I'm not sure how. All I can figure is that:

1. Cut the bottle stopper blank into a rectangular block
2. Prepare some contrasting stock into 3/32" sheets
3. Cut the bottle stopper blank at 30 degrees
4. Glue in a piece of the stock from 2
5. Cut the laminate from 4 at 30 degrees (this must be tricky to make sure the X's line up properly.)
6. Glue in a piece of the stock from 2

Am I close??

[rflaherty]

Thanks for your comments. These are actually laminations, twig/al, and greenvilleguy is on the right track. And yes, alignment can be tricky, but I have made two jigs that are very helpful. I am in the middle of treating a local flu epidemic right now, but I hope to have some time to upload more information here next week.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
--Bob

[rflaherty]

Greetings--
I haven't forgotten my promise. I have tried for several days to upload a Word .doc file (1.01MB) with pictures and plans for two jigs for the laminated bottlestoppers. The forum computer says there is a database error, but I am unable to contact the forum tech person for help. If the tech person reads this, please let me know what to do. I had no problem uploading the pin chuck instructions previously.

I'll keep trying.

--Bob

[Greenvilleguy]

Thanks Bob. I'm still out here waiting.

You inspired me to make some bottle stoppers, but I didn't have the stopper kits. On a whim, I mounted a regular old wine cork on a dowel and try to turn it. Guess what -- it turned fine. Here is my process.

1. Drill a 3/8" hole in the cork, slip in a 3/8" dowel, mount in jacobs chuck and turn round with a taper. Slip the cork off of the dowel.
2. Drill a 3/8" hole in the upper blank, glue in the 3/8" dowel with about a inch extra, mount in the jacobs chuck and turn / finish.
3. Glue the cork on the dowel so dowel goes all the way through.
4. Trim dowel and cork on the bandsaw and finish on the belt sander.

It's a fun project and can be completed in an hour or less.