Letter Openers and Bottle Stoppers ...

[Ron Smith ... Richmond, VA]

Just playing around in the shop this morning enjoying the 100 degrees. It sure feels good not to need a jacket, doesn't it ... anyway, a couple of folks at work requested letter openers and two wanted wine bottle stoppers. To do the bottle stoppers, I borrowed the ideas from some of the very talented folks at the Creek and put virginia quarters in the tops.

The Letter openers are just kits from Woodcraft at Willow Lawn that I already had on hand. I used Bloodwood and Olive Wood on the stoppers and Pink Ivory and Cedar on the openers. Sanded to 400 grit and used my Mylands friction polish to finish. Nothing as fancy as some of the more talented folks are doing here, but still fun. It's the sharing of ideas that I really like, to give us others encouragement. Thanks for looking.

[Keith Burns]

Those look great to me. Great forms and colors !

[Ernie Nyvall]

Good looking stuff Ron. Did you do the letter opener on the right with a ring tool? An interesting handle.

Ernie

[John Hart]

Very Nice Ron! I too like the letter opener on the right. It looks fitting for a key fob as well. I you can't take the heat...get on the lathe!!

[Ron Smith ... Richmond, VA]

Actually Ernie, I did it with a small skew. It's all done pretty much by eye, then like the famous artist said ... take off everything that doesn't look like a bead ... or something to that effect. I had made a couple of slimline pens with the repeated beads and the lady liked the feel of it. I just thought it would be fun to do something different.