TimS124
Member
Attached is a photo of two bottle openers I recently made from antler. The "little" one is about a half inch longer than the kit calls for but looks undersized due to being posed alongside the oversized natural-tipped opener.
The natural-tipped opener fits great in the hand. The photo doesn't capture the complex curves completely…it nestles soooo nicely in the hand…I'm really going to miss it!
The big one is being sent to the person that gave me the antler and the little one is being "field tested" by a fishing buddy. Initial reports indicate it's opening bottles nicely but the buddy wanted to do further testing…
Normally, I trim tines on the outer edge of an antler's main branch and use the main branch for pens. For the long opener, if I'd trimmed it like that, the tine would've been a bit borderline for getting the opener mounted.
Instead, I cut the main branch on either side of the tine, which extended the tine. Where the underside of the tine meets the main branch, there's a natural thumb-rest spot during use.
Shaping on the big one was done against a 1" belt sander while rotating the tine by hand. I drilled the tine's tip first, then used a spare 7mm tube as a pivot point (rotating the tine around the tube). The tube was glued in after the shaping was complete.
I wear a filtered mask during the belt sanding to avoid breathing the fine bone dust.
Seating the screw-in fitting that the opener's head threads into can't easily be done with a pen press, vise, etc when the tube end is so far off-axis from the tine's tip. I figured out a way to "persuade" that fitting into place that's effective but probably not very elegant.
The little one was turned on the lathe using a carbide-tipped tool. Only the ends were shaped so they flowed well with the fittings. There's also a nice flat spot for the thumb on this one as that piece of antler was somewhat oval at what is now the end by the opener head.
The freshly exposed/sanded antler is lighter in color than the rest of the antler, so I wipe on a bit of boiled linseed oil which gets the color close. I follow that with Stik Fast's CA finish so I can make the sanded area shine like the unsanded parts (which are also hit with the CA finish to give the antler a bit of moisture protection).
For the big opener, the CA finish is wiped on by hand. The CA finish is wiped on while wearing nitrile gloves of course…it's embarrassing enough when I glue the glove to the antler, I'd never hear the end of gluing myself to the antler! :biggrin:
The natural-tipped opener fits great in the hand. The photo doesn't capture the complex curves completely…it nestles soooo nicely in the hand…I'm really going to miss it!
The big one is being sent to the person that gave me the antler and the little one is being "field tested" by a fishing buddy. Initial reports indicate it's opening bottles nicely but the buddy wanted to do further testing…
Normally, I trim tines on the outer edge of an antler's main branch and use the main branch for pens. For the long opener, if I'd trimmed it like that, the tine would've been a bit borderline for getting the opener mounted.
Instead, I cut the main branch on either side of the tine, which extended the tine. Where the underside of the tine meets the main branch, there's a natural thumb-rest spot during use.
Shaping on the big one was done against a 1" belt sander while rotating the tine by hand. I drilled the tine's tip first, then used a spare 7mm tube as a pivot point (rotating the tine around the tube). The tube was glued in after the shaping was complete.
I wear a filtered mask during the belt sanding to avoid breathing the fine bone dust.
Seating the screw-in fitting that the opener's head threads into can't easily be done with a pen press, vise, etc when the tube end is so far off-axis from the tine's tip. I figured out a way to "persuade" that fitting into place that's effective but probably not very elegant.
The little one was turned on the lathe using a carbide-tipped tool. Only the ends were shaped so they flowed well with the fittings. There's also a nice flat spot for the thumb on this one as that piece of antler was somewhat oval at what is now the end by the opener head.
The freshly exposed/sanded antler is lighter in color than the rest of the antler, so I wipe on a bit of boiled linseed oil which gets the color close. I follow that with Stik Fast's CA finish so I can make the sanded area shine like the unsanded parts (which are also hit with the CA finish to give the antler a bit of moisture protection).
For the big opener, the CA finish is wiped on by hand. The CA finish is wiped on while wearing nitrile gloves of course…it's embarrassing enough when I glue the glove to the antler, I'd never hear the end of gluing myself to the antler! :biggrin:
