Overview: A carved Bottle Stopper exchange

Official Name: World Wide Woodc@rvers Exchange - Bottle Stopper Division (W3E-BSD)

To Join: You must be currently subscribed to the Woodc@rver Listserve, Knotty Wood Porch, Woodcarving Fun, ASA List, Knotholes List , Fish Carver2 List, the MiWCA List, WoodCarvingFun List or the W3E-WOM List to participate. (Previous participants and members of other carving lists may seek a waiver from the W3E Director.)

Object: To produce and exchange 6 Bottle Stoppers

A bottle stopper carving is typically (but not always) a caricature head, mounted on a cork and displayed on (you guessed it) a bottle of some kind. Here is a fine example by "Ol' Don " Burgdorf.

You can see more samples here, and see some of Ol' Don's patterns here. You are not limited to caricatures, however; animal/bird heads, chip carvings, and pyrography will also do quite nicely.

To participate in this exchange requires a six month commitment - that's one bottle stopper a month for six months. Please be absolutely sure you have the time before becoming involved in this exchange.

Any Woodc@rver Listserve, Woodcarver Porch, or ASA List member who can carve or burn six appropriately sized hunks of wood. Caricature carvers, realistic carvers, bird carvers, animal carvers, chip carvers, pyrographers, relief carvers, etc. etc. Like all W3E exchanges, enthusiasm for carving is more important than skill level.

To register for W3E-Bottle Stopper Division, go to the Enrollment form page. Read the form, enter the requested information, and submit the form. Sit back and think about what you will carve. Find some corks; try carving a few pieces.

As the groups of 6 fill, members will be send a roster and a schedule of who-to-mail-stopper-to-when. Then the work and the fun may begin!!

Within the bounds of reasonably good taste, whatever style and topic you wish to carve, as long as it's a reasonably sized bottle stopper with a cork. These pieces are typically 3-4 inches in height, width as required for the piece. The cork should be approximately 1-1/4" tall, 7/8" wide tapering down to 5/8". Drilled and undrilled corks are available from a variety of woodcarving and turning vendors. Please avoid using untapered wine bottle corks.

For ideas, visit the list of 50 or So Cane Segment Ideas (That's right - the things that work for cane segments will also work pretty well for bottle stoppers.)

Email the W3E Director, Matt Kelley, at womeditorATcarverscompanionDOTcom. Please be sure to include "W3E-BSD Question" in the Subject field.

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Last updated 9-11