Some new wine glasses

Chuck Ellis

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6,997
Location
Tellico Plains, Tennessee
One of my favorite projects is to make wood stemmed wine glasses... here are a few I've finished lately..

These are blue glass and had a couple of glass beads worked into the stem just below the bulb... I left those in and set them into the stems... made for slightly larger stems... the stems are Spectraply "Caribbean Wave" and finished in poly. This is actually a set of 4, but only showed the two because it shows the stems better.
40-1844_2.jpg

These are white wine glasses set on Yellow heart and finished with Walnut oil.... not sure how long the oil will hold up, but like the way it shows off the chatoyance (sp?) of the wood. Again a set of 4.
40-1845_2.jpg 40-1845_1.jpg

These are red wine balloons and are on Caribbean rosewood stems. Finish is poly.
40-1848_6.jpg 40-1848_3.jpg

And this last set of 4 were from some kinda funky glasses we found at the local Habitat for Humanity store... they have a very slight amber hue in the bottoms of the glass... that doesn't show up in the photos, but will if held up to light.. almost like an oil slick on water effect... These are on ambrosia maple stems and because the bases of the bulbs flared a bit, made for larger stems as well.
40-1846_3.jpg 40-1846_1.jpg

I turn these in two pieces... I do the stems as a cylinder and add a tenon at one end to fit into a hole in the base. After I glue them together, I make sure the stems turn true before I drill them... I drill just a hair larger than the stem, then if need be enlarge the hole that fits the base... for the bases I use blanks cut from a 1 inch thick board, glue it to a wast block that I can chuck and true up the side, then drill the hole for the stem... I usually drill a 5/8" or sometimes a 3/4" hold for the tenon...

Comments welcome.
 
I like the shape of the yellow heart ones, and the base of the front right in the set of for rosewood has a nice shape as well, nice clean curve on it and really just a great shape.

I think the stems of the spectra ply is just about right IMHO, although maybe a slightly wider base would balance the glass? Either way it goes really well with the color of the glass, nice choice there!

The ambrosia maple ones feel perhaps a bit top heavy, I wonder if you could have carried the angle of the glass down and still left enough wood that they wouldn't be to delicate, tough call without knowing how much wood was left, maybe insetting the bead at the base of the top wide part would do it?

If the walnut oil seems like not enough protection I've used WTF over walnut oil on a few bowls and so far (knock wood, it's only been about two months) it's holding up well and looks really good (on different woods granted, walnut and elm). The nice thing about WTF for that is it dries literally water clear so you get a bit of gloss but basically no color change so for light wood like that where you want to avoid color from the finish it seems to be real nice. Seems to apply well if the walnut is nice and dry, I just brought the bowls inside for a week before applying it as it was getting a bit chilly in the garage.
 
I'd sure lit to see a little holiday "how to" Chuck...I have a ton of small aperitif glasses this work great with. And these really are beautiful by the way!
 
I like the shape of the yellow heart ones, and the base of the front right in the set of for rosewood has a nice shape as well, nice clean curve on it and really just a great shape.

I think the stems of the spectra ply is just about right IMHO, although maybe a slightly wider base would balance the glass? Either way it goes really well with the color of the glass, nice choice there!

Thanks... the base was limited to the size of my blank... I bought 3x3x11 inch Spectraply and that was large as I could go.

The ambrosia maple ones feel perhaps a bit top heavy, I wonder if you could have carried the angle of the glass down and still left enough wood that they wouldn't be to delicate, tough call without knowing how much wood was left, maybe insetting the bead at the base of the top wide part would do it?

These were a little challenge... the base of the bulb was not round, but rather a molded shape and when I cut them off, I was a little shorter than I like the nub to be... I might could have curved the stem a little but the top had to be the size so the glass would sit squarely... and one has slipped a tiny bit... I missed it, but my eagle eyed LOML spotted it instantly...:rolleyes::D.

If the walnut oil seems like not enough protection I've used WTF over walnut oil on a few bowls and so far (knock wood, it's only been about two months) it's holding up well and looks really good (on different woods granted, walnut and elm). The nice thing about WTF for that is it dries literally water clear so you get a bit of gloss but basically no color change so for light wood like that where you want to avoid color from the finish it seems to be real nice. Seems to apply well if the walnut is nice and dry, I just brought the bowls inside for a week before applying it as it was getting a bit chilly in the garage.

I'll show my ignorance or memory retention here... not sure what WTF is... I've seen the reference before, but the ol' brain won't retrieve the information. :huh:
 
WOW! I'm overwhelmed with the first set. Beautiful indeed. How do you secure the glass to the stem..... CA?


Al, I use a 5 minute expoxy... I tried the special glass epoxy that CSUSA sells, but it never sets totally and with a firm twist the glasses could be twisted off the stems... the 5 minute works much better and once it sets, they're permanently affixed.
 
the base of the bulb was not round
Figured it was something like that :thumb: interesting pieces nevertheless.

I'll show my ignorance or memory retention here... not sure what WTF is... I've seen the reference before, but the ol' brain won't retrieve the information. :huh:

This is what I used, oddly looking at the general finishes site I don't see the small bottle and the stuff they're selling in quarts claims it has an amber hue, which this doesn't :huh:. Maybe they have multiple "woodturners finish" products?

http://www.woodcraft.com/Product/2083644/35704/General-Finishes-Wood-Turners-Finish-8oz.aspx

It seems to go a fair ways as it goes on real thin (which also send nice for some things as you just get some gloss without a lot of build, seems like about 3-4 coats really starts looking good), I've done several (6? maybe) decent sized bowls with the one 8oz bottle which isn't too bad.


Hope you do well at all the shows.
 
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