Lots of firsts....black palm, mother of pearl, etc.

[Steve LaFara]

Well, I guess if you are going to jump in it might as well be with both feet, right? This is my first attempt at making some bottle stoppers and I had to start off with black palm. What a PITA it was even with stabilizing with CA about 15 times! The finish on the two palm stoppers is BLO & CA with HUT wax. The other two are Bocote and Rosewood with mother of pearl inlays. Fist time for inlaying as well. Lots of fun and learned a lot! The finish on those is just the two step HUT wax.

Who says you can't turn wood on a little Sherline metal lathe? Sorry for the crummy cell phone pics. I will have to get my wife to take some better ones after she sees them on Christmas day.

[Gary DeWitt]

Much better than no pics, we can at least comment on your style, which I like a lot.
Funny, I was looking through some old used jewelery today and some mother of pearl caught my eye...hmmm, I bet I could inlay some of that...

[Jude Kingery]

Steve, you did a very nice job with the black palm, that stuff gave me fits. You did a great job all round! More power to you! Bet she loves them! Merry Christmas! Jude

[Dean Thomas]

Nice shapes. Very practical and classic.

I'm not really an artistically creative guy. I can take an existing shape or idea and make it my own or give a reasonable copy of shape so that it pleases my eye, but for just stepping up and creating a "new" shape, that is a real challenge for me. Not sure why, but it is.

In one of my bottle stopper phases, I decided to try to get "creative" with some shapes, some ideas that I'd seen on other products, not bottle stoppers. One was a narrow, well-pointed water drop. I made them out of cocobolo, finished them and waxed the bejeebers out of them. I mean, baby, them stoppers were smoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooth. And the curves on the drop were really good, not a flat spot to be seen. And this was a bit of a stylized drop, kind of long and thin. Took them to the party and presented them to the host who promply opened a couple of bottles of wine and inserted them.

A bit later, 10 minutes tops, I looked over at the area where the wine was being served and noticed a small crowd concerned about something or other. It seems that the stoppers were actually stuck! Could not get them out. I'd formed them in such a way that there was not enough space at the bottom of the drop where it nestled in the rim of the bottle to get one's fingers under it! And remember that they were smooth with a long smoooooooooth point upward that compounded the issue. Nobody could get a grip on the stupid stoppers. Oops. They went home that night and got remade.

Your stoppers have the nice little side indentations so that fingers have a chance at getting to the wine. They remind me a little of old-timey pull stops on pump organs and small pipe organs. Very easy on the eye. Good job!

[Steve LaFara]

Thanks for the compliments!

Boy are those crapy pictures! You can't see any of the details on the mother of pearl and the palm looks like mud. I really, really need to learn how to use our camera.

I will definitley update these as soon as possible.

[robert hainstock]

Every time Isomebody posts with black palm I think of those four pen blanks I have to turn. eewww.
Bob

[Bernie Weishapl]

Those are all beauties. I really like the mother of pearl inlay. Really stands out.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Nice work Steve! Great form on these stoppers! Inlays look really nice - but I am sure they all look better in person! Looking forward to seeing some more of your work!

[Tom Sherman]

Very nice Steve

[Steve LaFara]

And just to show that you really don't have to have a fancy shmancy lathe set up to do nice stuff, here's a pic of what I'm getting by with for the time being. The tool rest is nothing more that a piece of 1" angle iron with the edge polished. It's a little high but works OK if you're carefull. Just wish I could turn something bigger than 2" dia. Maybe someday I'll have a real lathe to mess with.

[Dan Forman]

Nice stoppers. I've heard about the evils of black palm, brave of you to take them on. The inlays turned out well.

Dan

[Steve LaFara]

I wish there was a way to edit my original post and replace those lousy pictures, but I guess this will have to do. Thanks to my wife, here's a couple of better pictures showing a little more detail.