The Internet has opened a whole new world of availability for products and tools that we never had access to before. However, one of the things I dislike about online purchasing is the problem of buying site unseen. This is never more true than when buying books, especially woodworking related books. So in this article I’d like to bring a website to your attention, just in case you are not aware of it. The website is called Google Books and it is another great service from search engine giant, Google.

Google has scanned over 10 million books and converted them into searchable text. Clicking a result from the Google Book Search opens an interface in which you can view the book and its pages. Depending on the individual book you may be able to read the whole book or get a limited preview, the majority being in limited preview. However, I have found that the limited preview is usually more than adequate to get a good sense of what the book’s content is like, allowing you to make your decision to purchase or not.

Here are a few examples of some great woodworking books that are available for preview:

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Yes, indeed! Once again, more wine stoppers! But fear not, this is the final installment for last season’s Christmas run of wine stoppers.

Here’s twelve more in the flame shape that I find, as you can imagine, quite enjoyable to make.

Since they only take 15 minutes or so to turn I do them in between other projects, when I’m thinking about what to do next or just as a quick break. This way they seem to accumulate quickly and without the need for dedicated time.

Here’s some closeups of these ones:

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Oh no, I’m not done yet, here’s even more wine stoppers! Again, these were made for the past Christmas season.

This time there are 16 stoppers and in quite a colorful array of woods.

There’s stoppers made of Pau Rosa, Yellowheart, Zebrawood, Thuya burl, Purpleheart, Red Palm, Pauduk, Jatoba and even one made of Walnut Birch.

Here’s some closeup photos of these wine stoppers:

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Here’s some more wine stoppers that I turned for the Christmas season. There’s 23 of them in total with all of them in the flame style. There are two that are not exactly flames, but very close variations.

Once you get into the swing of making these they go quite quickly. You also get a great sense of shape, knowing what makes a good flame shape and what doesn’t.

As a bit of a challenge most of these stoppers were made with only the skew.

Here’s some closeups of the stoppers:

Continue reading 'Even More Wine Stoppers'