Wine Bottle Stoppers

   The last few years I have tried to come up with a simple yet somewhat unique Christmas gift that I can hand out to those whose paths I cross during the season's various Christmas gatherings.     Most years it is a project that doesn't take a lot of talent or time to make  and something that I can mass produce fairly easily.      Probably if the truth were told,  I think the situation is such that the project is usually something that I really enjoy making and those who happen to get stuck on the receiving side have become practiced at reacting in a surprised, kind, gentle, and even happy way. 

  This year's Christmas project was a wine bottle stopper.     To make this work, I had to buy a special mandrel to fit on my wood lathe, a tap to install treads into the wood,  and a drill bit to make the hole.   (I already had that sized drill bit, but shopping for more tools can always be fun.) 
   I also purchased several chrome wine bottle stopper cones for me to mount wooden handles on.

     From there I just grabbed whatever "hard" wood scraps I had on hand and cut them down in size into blanks that would fit on to my wood lathe. 

   I used hard maple, walnut, some cherry wood, and some hackberry.   I discovered that the more unusual the grain pattern, the better the end result turned out to be.

   I even went out to the fire pit and grabbed a log.    I trimmed it down to the heartwood and made a few wood blanks from that. 

  It would take about an hour to whip out the little wood handle that could then be threaded on to the chrome cone.
  Until today I did not realize that there was no picture of me at the lathe turning those homemade blanks into handles.    (Next time I will set the camera up and show how this is all done.  I know - you can hardly wait.   There will be a next time as I plan on doing some more of these in the future.)

   I was surprise as I started to hand these out.   A few did not know what a wine bottle stopper was.    So if that is the case for you, here is the answer - once you have opened a bottle of wine but only used about half of it, you will find that it is a struggle to try and get that original cork back into the bottle.   With one of these, you can easily just toss the cork and plug the bottle. 

 Well, here is a collection of girls that I handed out my first samples of wine bottle stoppers too.   They seemed pretty happy about their little stopper.... (but I have to admit that this picture was taken after a lot of the wine was consumed...   Maybe they were just happy...)










    (Perhaps in future projects I should let the varnish dry a little more before I let the cat check out the results.)

   I will talk to you again in 2018 sometime.   Have a happy New Year.