Bottle Openers

I recently posted frames made for my daughters, commemorating our father/daughter moments at their respective weddings. Since I presented them along an anniversary theme, I did not want to exclude my two sons-in-law, Steven and Tim. Therefore, I crafted for them these bottle openers. I would not refer to Steven as a big sports fan. However, he has demonstrated to me an appreciation for wood. Accordingly, I made his bottle opener from zebrawood. Tim is a big Patriots fan so I went with that theme for his and used poplar.

The start of these openers is a Rockler Inset Bottle Opener. One is free to design something around the metal inset. I came up with a circular shape, adding ½” material around the inset. For the handle, I first tapered down from the circle and then used an Irwin chisel as a template. I cut it out on the band saw, rounded the edges and sanded smooth. The inset calls for a two inch hole, drilled to the thickness of the inset (roughly 1/16”) followed by a 1-1/8” hole drilled ½” deep. I added a hole at the bottom of the handle through which I threaded a length of suede shoelace.

The Patriots opener is finished with several coats of spray paint. After applying the stickers (I couldn’t find decals small enough for the project.), I added several coats of wipe-on polyurethane. The zebrawood opener is finished with Watco natural Danish oil and several coats of the wipe-on poly.

I made a hardboard template of half the shape since I think I will be receiving requests for more of these.

-- On the eighth day God was back in His woodworking shop! Lenny, East Providence, RI