Finish for wine bottle stoppers?

[James A. Brown]

Turned a stopper for my wife and not only enjoyed doing it but wife loves it so win/win. These will make nice presents for some family members and friends so plan to do more. I use Tung Oil on most of my small turnings but want to use a finish that will hold up well. I got some "Mylands Friction Polish" for the project and love how it goes on and looks with about four coats.
Problem is the stopper she is using seems to be loosing the finish. This is a shellac finish and I am guessing the alcohol in the wine is causing the problem. I will change finishes for the stoppers but what would work best, I don't want to go to something else that doesn't work. Thanks much, Jim.

[Marvin Hasenak]

Most of the time I do a CA finish on bottle stoppers, but sometimes I do a few coats of spar varnish.

[John K Jordan]

Turned a stopper for my wife and not only enjoyed doing it but wife loves it so win/win. These will make nice presents for some family members and friends so plan to do more. I use Tung Oil on most of my small turnings but want to use a finish that will hold up well. I got some "Mylands Friction Polish" for the project and love how it goes on and looks with about four coats.
Problem is the stopper she is using seems to be loosing the finish. This is a shellac finish and I am guessing the alcohol in the wine is causing the problem. I will change finishes for the stoppers but what would work best, I don't want to go to something else that doesn't work. Thanks much, Jim.

James,

As you guessed, I think the problem with Mylands friction polish (which I use a lot on smaller things) is it is shellac based and soluble in alcohol. I sometimes use shellac sander sealer first but cover it with something durable.

For bottle stoppers I've had success with several finishes. What I've used depended on the wood, the look I was going for, and the time I had. Here are some:

- CA: Either the Parsons 3408 slow drying CA or normal medium CA, applied with the oil chaser method. Not good for some exotics such as Cocobolo.

- "Danish" oil. Takes a while since it needs multiple coats with drying time between.

- Lacquer. Usually several coats of thinned lacquer, brushed on, fine sanded, and buffed.

- TruOil. I understand this is actual a varnish of sorts. Pretty durable. Other good varnishes should work.

- Poly, several coats of wipe-on or thinned normal poly wiped on (the same thing)

- No finish at all. This seems to work well with some exotics like cocobolo, lignium vitae, and ebony. I polish on the lathe or off with a metal or plastic polish. The black-and-white ebony stopper in this picture is the bare wood polished by hand.

Olive, Purpleheart, B&W Ebony, African Blackwood, Maple.
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=374860&d=1514568534

I wrote a note about the finishes I used in this thread: https://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?260751-A-few-bottle-stoppers

"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."

I suspect a good spray acrylic would work but I haven't tried it yet.

JKJ

[Neil McWilliams]

Sound advice.

[James A. Brown]

Thanks for the help but now this gives me another question. I have about 10 of the bottle stoppers already finished with Mylands friction polish and will need to re-finish them. Looks like the CA will be where I go now and in the future for the wine bottle stoppers. Will it be possible to use the CA over the Mylands or will that have to be removed first? Thanks, Jim

[John K Jordan]

Thanks for the help but now this gives me another question. I have about 10 of the bottle stoppers already finished with Mylands friction polish and will need to re-finish them. Looks like the CA will be where I go now and in the future for the wine bottle stoppers. Will it be possible to use the CA over the Mylands or will that have to be removed first? Thanks, Jim

Almost anything will go over shellac, in face shellac is sometimes used on purpose under a variety of finishes. I have not tried CA over shellac but it should be easy enough to test. Remove any wax first and maybe scuff any gloss with fine sandpaper or steel wool. Apply the CA and test it with alcohol.

You could also remove the Mylands with denatured alcohol and a cloth. I've done this several times on a finish gone bad, sometimes applying a different finish like lacquer instead. The surface might need more fine sanding or steel wool.

BTW, this is a great article about shellac by Bob Flexner, an acknowledged finishing expert:
https://www.woodshopnews.com/columns-blogs/shellac-as-a-sealer-its-all-just-hype

JKJ

[Bert Delisle]

Turned a stopper for my wife and not only enjoyed doing it but wife loves it so win/win. These will make nice presents for some family members and friends so plan to do more. I use Tung Oil on most of my small turnings but want to use a finish that will hold up well. I got some "Mylands Friction Polish" for the project and love how it goes on and looks with about four coats.
Problem is the stopper she is using seems to be loosing the finish. This is a shellac finish and I am guessing the alcohol in the wine is causing the problem. I will change finishes for the stoppers but what would work best, I don't want to go to something else that doesn't work. Thanks much, Jim.
One could consider a hardwax oil like Osmo Topoil, it is a hard wax oil product that is impervious to water and alcohol. Very tough finish. It takes a bit of getting used to as it is applied very sparingly, almost dry, per coat. But it is worth the effort two coats of Topoil and then after curing a coat of Osmo Cleaner which is the same product wax component less the oil. Once cured can be buffed to a smooth sheen, not shiny but very smooth.

[Mel Fulks]

I just read that Flexner piece. It's pretty curmudgeonly. Homer Formby doesn't like shellac!! The title should have been
"Why I Hate Shellac". He mentioned nothing about its reversibility; conservators always do.

[Chris Wdowiak]

I do a CA finish on them. Here is one that I did. Also here is the link to the process I follow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z97IYfvpPnA&index=19&t=1072s&list=FLJg3Hqd5-of0wu-vQOgs7Dw

Best of luck. 377367 377368