3 Bottle Balancers or Fun With Dowels

The redwood is real pretty , but when do we get to see some rustic alder ???

Just rotated the adler this evening, again, and the bark is starting to pop off and the sound of the wood when rapping it is having a very pleasing tone! Soon there will be other projects and in the center of them will be alder. Building bottle balancers is a way of working the wood using what I have, (sparingly). Being a factory worker in this economy and watching so many beautiful projects being made out of wood I would trade my truck and best dog for is not the easiest but I can work the wood I have and it pleases me. Looking forward to alder projects, maybe a Queen Ann 24 drawer dresser, (just kidding).

-- Never board, always knotty, lots of growth rings

Hey when you get tired of rotating your alder , come down and flip mine !! We have most of it cut and it turned out to be quite a bit ! Have fun – -

these are beautiful pieces of art .. and then you put them to work as well :)
fascinating.

-- ~ Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

they look great

-- Joe, Ga

Super collection of balancers well done

-- Jim from Heirloom Woodshop Southern Oregon

Very nice! Is there a formula for the size and angle to achieve the balance?

Yes there is a formula! I will try and do a blog on this in a few days with photos. ...but in the mean time, If you take a bottle and find the center of balance, then know how high and what angle you want the bottle to be, you measure from the center of your bottle neck to the table (with the bottle suspended) to were the bottle center of balance was on the table and you have your angle for the base. The angled hole for the bottle neck is the difference between the angle of your base and the angle you want your bottle to rest at.
With all that said I cut my bottom base angle to 40 degrees and the bottle angle at 30 degrees (1 1/4” dia)with 7” from the point of the base to the center of the bottle hole and with these my bottle rests almost horizontal. The basic length of my balancers is 10”.

-- Never board, always knotty, lots of growth rings