Turning bottle stoppers question

[Gregory of Sherwood Forest]

I'm going to try turning a few bottle stoppers using the PSI threading chuck. I have loads of blanks and stoppers ready to go, but in looking at the woods I have available, it appears that I have some blanks that are punky, some porous and some that are softwoods.
Since these stoppers create the female threads inside the blank without a metal insert, I'm thinking that sealing and hardening those internal threads may be a good idea. I was considering just shooting a decent amount of thin CA in there once I initially cut the threads, letting it harden a bit and then threading again for a final fit. I've done similar for male wood threads and gained some small benefits.

Anyone here do this? Other methods of achieving the same end short of stabilizing the entire blank? I've done my own stabilizing before, but if it isn't needed...

Thanks in advance.

[Arlin Eastman]

Greg

That is how I do it. Most of the time I drill the hole 1/8 less and just turn the top and when done I manually thread the stopper into it making its own threads which I think is much better and easier too. What kinds of wood do you have?

On punky woods I soak it in CA glue or I should say put CA on it until it will not take anymore.

Arlin

[Gregory of Sherwood Forest]

Arlin, thanks for the help! I have a few dozen different kinds of woods to work with. I just started my Dream Retirement job (I retired in 2014 at the age of 48, thanks to military and a couple good investments). I am now working part time at a hardwood and WW store about 2 miles from my house, so I now have LOADS of choices!

I'm a lucky guy!

[Arlin Eastman]

You lucky dog. I had high hopes of getting a good job when I retired the second time but the bombing took care of that.

Arlin

[Sawdustd]

Don't mean to rain on your parade but I can't imagine using punky wood for a stopper or, anything else for that matter but that's just me. Must have some special "look" to it.

First thing I would do is drill the hole for the base then saturate it with hardener then tap the hole. Next, saturate the entire blank with hardener which "may" penetrate deep enough to allow you turn the blank round. Once the blank is round, resaturate with hardener while on the lathe. Shaping the neck, where the blank is at it thinest part may be tricky. You may want to stop and add more hardener. Same applies as you create the shape. Good luck and let us know how they turn out -- litterally.

[arthropod98]

definitely some good suggestions here, and i've also bored out maybe a 3/4" diameter hole, and plugged it with a hardwood dowel, then drilled into that for the stopper.

just a thought!

[Gregory of Sherwood Forest]

Thanks guys.
I've turned several pieces that had punky areas. Usually CA or wood hardener helps, and stabilizing does a great job, of course. I just hadn't tried it on internal threads before and I was inquiring due to concerns that perhaps the CA would fill the thread gullets and make them crumble apart when retapping or threading on the kit piece.

The blanks I have only have small areas of punkiness, and are otherwise very solid. They look great, so I'd like to use them if at all possible.

I'll be sure to use my usual faceshield and safety glasses.

Here's something you may find humorous; Once when turning a live edge, I had 3 chunks fly off and rap me in the knuckles within a couple minutes. After the 3rd time, my middle knuckle looked like I had slammed it with a ball peen repeatedly and it was starting to swell. This was one of my first forays into live edge and occlusion turning and I was determined to get through it, so I strapped one of my son's soccer shinguards to my forearm, overhanging it to protect my hand as well. As these things go, sure enough, no more pieces struck me once I was protected. Figures, eh? I'll bet that if I hadn't protected myself, several more pieces would have flown. Not sure if my technique improved or Murphy's Law went into effect there. By the way, have you ever smelled a soccer shinguard? They smell horrible. Only thing worse is a hockey glove. Football pads are flowerscented, by comparison.

[iclark]

We did the thin CA/fixative/re-tap when I took the local Turning 101 course. It worked well for doing the set screw threads in the turning handles that we made.

I would expect it to work well for the porous woods and the softwoods, but I would not trust it in punky woods.

The punky woods probably need to be drilled undersized for the tap hole, stabilizer saturated into the punk, and then the tap drill run into the hole. At that point you can evaluate whether you think the stabilizer penetrated far enough to run the tap or if you need to do the stabilizer again before running the tap. Either way, after you run the tap, I would hit it afterwards with either more stabilizer or some CA and then re-tap before putting it on the mandrel.

The alternative with punky wood is to use a threaded insert that matches the mandrel and the stopper.

Be sure to use your face shield and to stay out of the line of fire when you are doing the punky ones. If they are really punky they may just shear off if you get a light catch. The good news is that, since they are small and since punky wood tends to be low-density, getting hit by one is not much worse than getting hit with a balsa wood airplane.