Taper drill?

Take a spade bit and grind it to a taper. You may have to drill a cylindrical hole first with a good Forstner or spur bit to get a smooth hole started and then ream with the ground spade.

Or, use an abrasive reamer. Stick a piece of hardwood into your lathe's chuck. Turn the same taper as the corks. Glue on a spiral of 60 grit. Drill your cork holes in the stand. Turn on the lathe and sand the holes to the proper taper and diameter.

Make one from a spade drill. Just taper both sides to match the cork using a grinder or Dremel type tool.

Joe, Three replies have suggested modifying a spade bit. I can't imagine a worse looking hole than one cut with a spade bit. Considering you are making a display rack for high quality turned items and that your display sells your quality, too, I'd not take their advice.

Another idea I have is to turn the tapered holes. If your lathe has enough swing, or perhaps you can turn outboard? Mount the little shelves to a face plate.

Or, just buy a tapered reamer.

Thanks all for the advice. It appears that grinding a 3/4 spade bit is the way to go. I will try that today.

I tried Dan's suggestion of turning a taper, wrapping with 60 grit and sanding down the holes. That could have worked but it took too long to sand down the hard maple without burning the holes. Might work better with a softer wood. Or, it could be used to "true up" the holes made by the ground down spade bit if it doesn't cut cleanly.

Joe D>grind a 3/4 inch spade bit to the taper you want

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Dan, I tried the taper sanding and it just took too long to enlarge the

5/8 hole without burning the hard maple. It might work in softer woods but I like the look of the maple.

Turning the tapers after a 5/8 guide hole could work, but I think I would have more time invested in the stand than the bottle stoppers. Each stand would have to be mounted and aligned 4 times. I suppose I could build a permanent faceplate jig to do the alignment. I'll have to think on that.

I might try grinding a spade bit a bit on the small side and then use the taper sanding idea to freshen up the holes. That could work.

A taper reamer would be perfect for this if I could find one. I tried MSC and also searching the web but all the reamers I could find had a much more gradual taper than the corks. The cork goes from 5/8 to 3/4 in

1 inch. A typical reamer takes 3 inches to do the same.

Joe D>Joe, Three replies have suggested modifying a spade bit. I can't imagine a

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Dan Bollinger wrote: (clip) Another idea I have is to turn the tapered holes. If your lathe has enough swing, or perhaps you can turn outboard(clip) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Joe, how about turning the tapered holes in inserts, in a contrasting attractive wood, and then gluing them into your display board?

Leo, as usual, you come up with a creative approach.

I would still have to hand turn the tapers in the inserts, but the setup might be simpler than having to turn the 4 tapers in the stand. If I were only making one or two, I would do it this way.

I would really love to find a tapered drill or reamer to do the job.

Say hello to the club for me.

Joe D>Dan Bollinger wrote: (clip) Another idea I have is to turn the tapered

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Joe, How about cutting off some attractive real bottlenecks and inserting them into a decorative turned wooden disc, or turn a solid bottle shape and insert the necks at angles on the bottle. In theory that's where the stoppers will end up, tho I think they are usually more for show than for blow, and will seldom see a bottle. Arch

Fortiter,

I simply made the hole marginally oversize of diameter of the top of the cord. No taper required, no marking.

Bob

Tapers! We don't need no stinkin tapers! :-)

Hi Joe,

Instead of tapering the holes I just use a forstner bit set the depth of the hole so that the cork bottoms out just before it snugs up in the hole. It works great for the natural corks, but if you are using the metal cones you are out of luck.

Brad Adams

This is good. Everyone else has suggested how to make a stand that simulates how the corks will fit into the stand. Arch's method using actual wine bottle tops actually shows them in use. Nice out of the box thinking. BTW, I remember an old commercial (infomercial, but about 60 seconds long) that showed an apparatus that cut the tops off bottles. The intent was to save the bottom as a cup or open jar, but it could be used to save the top.

Art

Arch wrote:

There was a thread here about 3-4 years ago about cutting bottles. If memory serves it wasn't all that difficult. A google search might find that thread if interested.

Bob, Naugatuck Ct.

I think Arch's idea of turning wooden "bottlenecks" is beautiful. If you do this, I still think you will need to taper the inside of each one to avoid marking the stopper, which was the reason for your original question. Thus, if you do this by cutting bottlenecks, I don't think you will have solved the problem. That is, I don't think the inside of a bottleneck is tapered.

Joe a cone burr will maybe do your taper hole the cone burrs have a 14 degree included taper that is close to a normal cork I think

don't know if the finish will be very smooth but I'm sure it will be better than a shattering spade bit surface

Have fun and take care Leo Van Der Loo

joe1940 wrote:

You might try a tapered end mill. They come in a large array of tapers, lengths, bottom diameters, shank diameters. Larger ones are quite spendy and may require a chuck larger than 1/2". Big machinist suppliers like MSC and J&L stock them.

Leo, I liked his idea too and as a display item, it would be clever. But I am selling these things in sets of 4 so turning wooden bottlenecks or cutting glass bottlenecks would be as much of a time consumer as turning the tapered hole in the stands.

Bill Ranseen is suggesting a tapered end mill. I'll try MSC for that.

Joe

Leo Lichtman wrote:

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That's an idea, Bill. MSC does have several that might work.

My corks measure about .625" at the small end and .80" at the large end. Overall length is 1.25". My calculations say that is an included angle of 8 degrees. Would someone check my trig? It has been 50 years for me.

MSC has one that has a flat bottom, 1/2" small end. 7 degree taper and

5/8" shaft. $57 is a lot of money but might be worth it. My drill press will hold a 5/8" shaft. But I shure would like confirmation on my included angle calculations. Yhen I might be able to shop around.

Thanks, Joe D>You might try a tapered end mill. They come in a large array of tapers,

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