First turning

Great first piece.

Nice job. Thats another item I want to turn.

I've been making these wine stoppers (maybe 12 of them now), but I have a problem. Drilling and tapping a hole to except the 3/8-16 stopper. The instructions say to use a 11/32 drill bit for hardwood, which is what I make all of mine out of. Probem is, when I tap the hole the tap strips all the threads out so my wine stopper just slides in instead of screwing in. I always in up using epoxy to finish the job. Any suggestions on how to drill and tap these to retain the thread? I have also tried using wax and parifin oil as a lub to help prevent the stripping of threads.

isu1977,

I use the Ruth Niles self tapping mandrel and the drill bit that comes with it and haven't had any issues at all with the threads getting stripped out.

http://nilesbottlestoppers.com/stoppers.html#Special

On softer woods I'll put in some thin CA down the freshly cut threads and this strengthens them. I may do this a couple of times and with each pass of CA once it hardens, run the tap through it again. You wind up with a strong set of threads this way. On hard woods, I haven't had to do anything more than tap it once and it holds the stopper real tight. I'm new at turning as well, and this method has worked great and I'm gearing up for more stoppers for the holidays.

Good luck

Thanks for the info, I also use Craft Supplies for my hardware. They have a pretty good selection.
http://www.woodturnerscatalog.com/t/4/-/12/52/Bottle-Stoppers

Very Nice!!
You can't go wrong with the Ruth Niles stoppers and products!