Bottle Art

Champagne Bottle Candlestick Holder

Around 1965 I designed and made a candle stick holder made from the top of a champagne bottle and a base I turned from American walnut with a felt base. My best friend John (Andy) Anderson and I decided to try and start a business making and selling them. We used my father's diamond saw to cut the bottles, and I turned the bases on his 6" Craftsman bench lathe and a single turning gouge purchased for the project. We gave a number away as gifts and actually sold a few, finishing them (polishing the cut glass surfaces with wet or dry sandpaper and gluing them together with silicone rubber caulk) at our apartment parking space. The candle stick holder shown here is the only one I still have. We also finished a couple of the bases of the bottles as Hurricane lamps, one of which is shown below.

Candle stick holder with candle

Hurricane lamp from bottle bottom

Bottle parts stacked to show origins

Mugs

At the time of the projects above Andy and I were into beer steins and mugs, and I was inspired to make a mug using a bottle insert to hold the liquid held in a turned walnut sleeve. I ended up making a run of three different mugs, two using champagne bottle bottoms and one using a smaller wine bottle. the two I still have are shown below.

The first set of images are of my first attempt, a champagne bottle mug. The bottle was cut just below the inward curve of the bottle, then the cut end was polished with medium to fine wet or dry sandpaper. The sleeve was made from four blocks of solid walnut glued together attached with glue via a paper layer to a piece of pine for attachment to the face plate of the lathe. The outside was turned with metal turning bits to an outer diameter to give a thin shell. It was then finished with a course disk sander while turning on the lathe. The center was then bored out with with boring bars until the bottle was a tight fit. Next, the bottom was bored out to fit the diameter to the indentation in the bottle's bottom, the edge of the bottom was rounded, the sleeve was removed from the face-plate mount and the paper/glue sanded off.

The handle was cut from 1/8" brass flat-stock then shaped by grinding/filing to give the handle profile and cross-section, followed by bending to a graceful shape and create two flats to fit against the sleeve. I then attached it with epoxy glue. After the epoxy cured the sleeve was finished with Watco oil.

Champagne bottle mug, side view

Champagne bottle mug, edge view

Champagne bottle mug, bottom view

The second mug, below, is based on a smaller "cheap wine" bottle. The sleeve was turned as above, except that the hole in the bottom is relatively larger as there was no indentation to match. This mug was inspired in part by the handle, which is made from the cast-bronze flush lever from the inside of a toilet tank. After drilling a hole for the upper rivet, I bent it to shape, transferred the hole pattern to the sleeve, and attached it with copper flat-head "shoe leather" rivets.