Wednesday, April 02, 2008

wine cork stoppers for Newt and the world


(elephant by Gary Rith)
Somehow the topic of wine bottle stoppers came up last week, and Newt said she needed several dozen at least. It is not something I have made before, but something I have wanted to do. What could be easier, make a little animal and glue it to a cork?
So, a quick visit last week to the online ceramic supplier yields an order for 100 corks with a dowel in the middle. I throw a small knob on the wheel, top it with elephant or pig or golden retriever, put a hole in it, fire it up, get the gorilla glue and VOILA!
These corks are made to fit wine bottles. The way I fit the dowel (or when I make pencil toppers) is to make the hole in the clay with the pencil, or in this case, the dowel. Since clay shrinks up to 10 percent, you get a tight fit even without the gorilla glue, so it would be hard to seperate them, which is the whole idea.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very cool gary! I think I'll have to place an order for those corkers from that site you sent as well.

Anonymous said...

These will be nice, Gary. 'cept I keep thinking about Gordo's comments about the placement of the dowel! haha!

gary rith said...

mm hmm, they are shoved right up the....

Anonymous said...

hee hee hee, I don't even have to say it. ;-)

I'll have to figure out what animals we need on stoppers. Man, my order's getting bigger all the time.

Lou said...

bum, I should have put in an order for one of those to come with my mugs. Next time!

Anonymous said...

oh, Lou, there's always next time!

Fortune Cookies said...

Hmmmm... I could definately use some of them! Can you make a mermaid?

Anonymous said...

I have made mermaids before

Susan as Herself said...

Ingenious. And highly marketable, I think!

Ellen said...

Oh, what a great idea! I promise not to market it in competition, but I AM going to copy you on this. I have friends who make their own wine and they would LOVE custom wine corks. Of course yours are MUCH cuter.... ;)

Knight said...

Oooh! Brilliant! This is something everyone needs and nobody ever has enough.