# working with cork?



## penfancy (Jun 23, 2010)

Has anyone here turned some corks from wine bottles? If so, do you stabilize them first with thin ca? I have a potential customer whose dad collects corks. He may want to order something for his dad's b day. I'm just doing some leg work in advance, no rush.


----------



## jimbob91577 (Jun 23, 2010)

I'm getting ready to do some slimline pens out of cork.  As soon as I'm done making baseball bats and stands for the little leagues.  

I'll keep you posted on my success/failure.


----------



## PaulDoug (Jun 23, 2010)

I have made several wine bottle cork pens. I just turned it down to near size with a sharp tool than sanded to final finish size. I started adding thin CA as I got close to size. The abrasive mesh that they use to sand dry wall plaster works great for sanding to size. 

Here are the last ones I did. Wine corks and wine cask wood. Made them for my neighbor. They own a winery.


The second one shone Is the first one I made. It corks and bloodwood.


----------



## ssajn (Jun 23, 2010)

I made a Sierra from a wine cork last summer for a friend that was a wine distributor. The cork was too short so I put a purpleheart ring on each end. I turned it using only a skew and then a CA finish. No sanding. Make sure your skew is scary sharp, take light cuts and you shouldn't have any problems. I did use thin CA when I was getting close to size.


----------



## penfancy (Jun 23, 2010)

Thanks for the tips!


----------



## robutacion (Jun 24, 2010)

This is certainly another material that can work very well with the "flap" disc on a 4" grinder.  Grits 60 & 120 would be the best combination for most sorts of cork.  

One of the major differences of the cork used in bottles in the purity/compression of the raw material itself, there is, some corks are made of very fine cork pieces, where only select corks are used, and then the most common bottle corks where the cork is a little courser and all varieties of corks and parts of the cork are use.  These are not normally as "compressed" as the previous ones I mention.

The final results can be quite different from the various bottle cork producers, all will have its own characteristics but "heavier" colours will be achieved on the less compressed and all corks used on its production.

The "Flap" disc system will successfully turn any cork into a pen barrel without any risks of a catch and blowout, right to the stage of the hand sanding steps.  Shaping with the 60 grit and finish with 120 grit will void excess heat on the cork and will leave a good finish for the hand sanding starting from 150-180 grits, up to whatever you like, normally 400 to 600 grits.

Most will already know what this "system" is and many have already tried it with great success, as I'm told so, for those not sure of what I'm talking about, bellow are the pics I always associate with the subject.

Good luck...!:biggrin:

Cheers
George


----------



## penfancy (Jun 24, 2010)

Wow, so you actually turn the cork and shape it using a flapper disc? That's cool and good to know. I wonder what made someone take a grinder any where close to a precision machine that costs $500 or more? 
Thanks again for all the posts. 
My wife will be excited to hear that drinking wine will help me in the shop:biggrin:


----------



## Jgrden (Jul 3, 2010)

penfancy said:


> Has anyone here turned some corks from wine bottles? If so, do you stabilize them first with thin ca? I have a potential customer whose dad collects corks. He may want to order something for his dad's b day. I'm just doing some leg work in advance, no rush.


Are you trying to preserve the Logo??  If so you will not be able to cut from the outside in.


----------



## penfancy (Jul 5, 2010)

Nice pens, John. That's a good point to ponder. I knew I'd have to use a thicker body pen. 
Do you drill a bigger hole to remove the center stock, cut, and reassemble on the tube with CA?


----------

