Bottle Stopper Questions

A couple wine bottle stopper kits and the necessary threaded chuck arrived from PSI today, and I'm wondering how best to attach the wood blank to the chuck. Do I drill and tap a 3/8" threaded hole in the blank, or just drill an undersized hole and let the screw chuck cut the threads in the blank? Seems to me the tapped machine threads in the wood would be better, and not really any more difficult to make. Am I on the right track? Also, once it's all turned and finished, do you glue the stopper onto the turned piece, or simply screw it on?

Thanks -

- Vaughn

this will sound a bit flippant but I am going to say it anyway, download the instructions from PSI. As for affixing the stopper it all depends on which stopper you are making.

No worries, Brad...not flippant. I hadn't realized PSI had the Download Library. Now I do. Thanks. I still might try tapping the hole, just to see what happens.

- Vaughn

What I did was get a bolt with the same threads as the stopper and chuck it in the lathe. mounted the blank to that.

Ed

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Originally Posted by Ed Snyder

What I did was get a bolt with the same threads as the stopper and chuck it in the lathe. mounted the blank to that.

Ed

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a friend of mine who makes a couple of hundred stoppers a month does something very similar he cut drill rods to 3 inches threaded a portion and turned them by the dozen with a collet chuck. After turning he sticks them with their indivual mandrel into a board so he can tent them and spray finish them all at once without risk to the stopper or the lathe bed from overspray.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ed Snyder

What I did was get a bolt with the same threads as the stopper and chuck it in the lathe. mounted the blank to that.

Ed

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I did the same thing but sawed the head off the bolt first.

I have used 3/8 all thread as a mandrel in the past but find the tapered mandrel works great and is not very pricey.

Personally I tap the hole. You can find inexpensive taps at auto parts stores and while they are not great quality they work fine on wood. If you are just doing one it may not be worth it, but if it is a regular thing it makes everything a little nicer.

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Originally Posted by Mike Vickery

I have used 3/8 all thread as a mandrel in the past but find the tapered mandrel works great and is not very pricey.

Personally I tap the hole. You can find inexpensive taps at auto parts stores and while they are not great quality they work fine on wood. If you are just doing one it may not be worth it, but if it is a regular thing it makes everything a little nicer.

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I think a lot of people never consider the posibility of tapping wood. I have taps for both my headstock and my oneway center and make all sorts of custom jobs.

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Originally Posted by Brad Hart

I think a lot of people never consider the posibility of tapping wood. I have taps for both my headstock and my oneway center and make all sorts of custom jobs.

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I agree with Brad about tapping wood. Very easy. I mostly use hard maple if I can. I also have taps for my headstock and tailcenter. I've made jigs, marking guages and a buch of other stuff with regular machine screw taps. Using a bit of BLO/mineral spirits helps lube the cutting, just like using a thread box. I've also heard that a little CA glue on the threads makes them stronger.
Good luck and have fun,
Don

Depends on the material... softwoods will cut threads with just a 3/8" bolt .. or a threaded chuck. Harder stuff you should drill and tap.. acrylics or stabilized wood you should always tap... best way I know of to do it...

I tap mine also. But do experiment on scrap wood first. I used a slightly smaller drill bit than would normally be used if one were tapping metal. Depending on what kind of wood you are going to turn, the suggestion to coat the threads (wood, inside) with CA before turning might be wise to to do. My most recent stoppers were with Osage Orange and doing that was not necessary with this tough wood.