Bottle stopper question

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Neededwill

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Jan 18, 2013
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Kensington, MD
I want to make bottle stoppers but only have dead and live centers. I do not have a chuck except the one I use in my tail stock to hold my drill bits for my dedicated pen blank chuck.

So is it possible to turn these without buying another mandrel or a chuck?
 
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I have done them using the drill chuck. Put the drill chuck in your headstock and use it to hold a bottle stopper mandrel. Bring the tailstock up for support and to make sure the drill chuck doesn't come out of the headstock. Move the tailstock to finish up the top.
 
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Absolutely - use the Jacobs chuck, intended to hold drill bits, as a stopper chuck. Pick up a 3/8x16 bolt at the hardware store, and cut the head off, and then mount that it your Jacobs chuck. Or buy a length of 3/8x16 allthread and cut off a short length.

Then, drill and tap the hole in the stopper blank, and screw it on the threaded rod in the Jacobs chuck, and then turn away. If your Jacobs chuck mounts using a morse taper, use a drawbar to keep it from backing out of the headstock. And prudent turners always use a livecenter in the tailstock to hold the blank in place for rounding - once its down to a cylinder, you can back away the livecenter to do the final shaping and sanding.

You can also make a dedicated stopper chuck from a scrap of wood. Mount it on the lathe (drill and tap it to screw onto your headstock spindle, or mount it on a faceplate), and using your Jacobs chuck to hold a bit, drill a 3/6" hole exactly on center. Unmount the block, and then run a 3/8x16 bolt through the hole with a little epoxy under the head. Remount the block, and now you have a dedicated stopper chuck.
 
Thanks Neededwill for asking the question and Louie for your detailed and practical suggested solutions.
I have a bought mandrel, but I wish I had thought it out like you did and saved the money.
gordon
 
As others explained, it's totally possible to turn stoppers without a dedicated chuck/mandrel. In my personal opinion, however, It's much simpler to have a dedicated mandrel for the job. I chose PSI's Bottle stopper chuck. It was only ten bucks so the profits from it's first stopper more than paid for it.
 
I just played around with my first bottle stoppers today. Bought the very inexpensive corks from woodcraft. Drill a 3/8" hole, put in a 3/8" dowel and put the dowel in the Jacobs Chuck in headstock.

Great way to practice.

I will be using a drawbar in the future!
 
So I just made 2 red cedar bottle stoppers with the woodcraft silicone friction stopper. It uses a 1/2" dowel and I put a drop of clear silicone to make sure it stays on. First glued in the dowel then used my Jacobs chuck and a center till I got almost done then moved the center back to finish. I will say it was actually fun!!! I don't have many cutting tools but they came out great!

 
They look very good!

I prefer to undercut the bottom of my stoppers very slightly - not more than 1/16". I use either a forstner bit to drill a rabbet before drilling the hole for mounting the blank on the mandrel, or I hold the blank in a scroll chuck while facing off the bottom with a gouge. Then I sand and apply finish.

The idea of the indentation is to create a rim to hid the seam between the stopper itself and the turning. It's a very small thing, but it makes the finished product a bit more professional.
 
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