A few bottle stoppers

[John K Jordan]

A bottle stopper gift was suggested so I made a few to pick from. I had forgotten how easy they are to make.

I use Ruth Niles's stoppers. Some are the newer style with four o-rings. (The new ones stand up nicely with the flat!) I like the looks of the brass one on the Olive.

Olive, Purpleheart, B&W Ebony, African Blackwood, Maple.



I tried some end-grain stippling with a small carbide burr in a Dremel tool.

BTW, if anyone is looking for stopper hardware I can personally recommend those made by Ruth Niles. The new "cork" style fits better than even her earlier design which has been copied by several others. https://nilesbottlestoppers.com/stoppers

JKJ

[David M Peters]

Your stippling attempt turned out really well! I like how it looks.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

John,

What are you using for finish on those stoppers?

BTW....nicely done stoppers!

[John K Jordan]

Thanks, good fun!

Ken, the maple wood has several coats of "danish" oil, dried well then buffed. The purple heart has about four coats of lacquer sanding sealer, thinned and less thinned to fill the open pores, sanded to 1500 and buffed. The olive and blackwood stoppers each have one coat of Parfix 3408 CA wiped on/wiped off, buffed - the 3408 is a thin CA with a 40sec working time. The b&w ebony stopper is bare wood sanded to 1500 and polished by hand with some metal or plastic polish, I forget. All stoppers have a coat of Renaissance Wax at the end. I didn't this time, but I sometimes use TruOil on small things that get handled a lot since it holds up well.

David, I love the stippling, it sort of glitters as it moves in the light. The photos don't show it as well as I had hoped since I ran out of time when photographing and didn't get the highlighting the way I wanted it. This picture shows it a little better:
stoppers_ stippled_IMG_7385.jpg
This is the same stippling I use on other things with a small egg-shaped carbide rotary cutter, for example:
crops_comp_texturing_.jpg carved_bowl_IMG_4211.jpg
I mark the extents with a pencil, stipple, then clean up the edges with a sharp groove. Some day when I get bored with this one I'll try a different method!

JKJ

[Sid Matheny]

Some mighty fine stoppers there John. Didn't think anyone used those here in Tennessee. I have made several but everyone asks why you would want to cap an empty bottle.

[Ron Stadler]

Beautiful stoppers, love the stippling. I am gonna have to make some now, my girlfriend got a wine making kit for christmas so we'll have plenty of wine to drink for awhile.