Double-sided Wine Balancer

I was making a couple wine balancers to finally get going with this selling thing and stumbled on something kinda cool. For fun, I cut an angle on the flat end to make a double-sided balancer. I measured the middle point from each angle and drilled a center hole for the wine bottle.

It worked great! The balance point is a little harder to find but, if you get the angle just right, it will balance either way. I came up with a reversible day/night picture theme idea and my wife thought of a reversible red/white grape theme.

Long awaited Wine Bottle Balancer

I finally have a grapevine design! I started with a drawing of a leaf and grape cluster my daughter drew for me. Then I took the drawings and traced sections onto a paper template and added the vines. Then my dad suggested using carbon paper to copy the drawing onto wood using a chopstick. Awesome idea and everything worked great!

I never could have drawn something this good on my own so thanx Sam! :> Here's what I ended up with:

Carbon copied drawing

Wood burned


I wanted these to be a dark stain to show the grain patterns so I stained a plain piece with Rosewood and it looks really nice!!


I tried the Rosewood stain on the wood burned piece and think it's too dark and you really can't see the design. Will pick up some tung oil and see what that looks like.

Here's an early prototype where I was playing with the angle and length:


I'd like to have a variety of at least 3 products before I start posting for sale. Thinking of the Wine Bottle/Glasses Caddy next...

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Feel free to leave a comment with likes/dislikes about the products or other woodworking ideas.

Etsy Product Sneak Peek!

I have been trying to find the best things to make from recycled pallets based on the board sizes and came up with 2 ideas to start.

First is a door hanger plaque. Played with dimensions for a while and finally came up with a really good size.

My daughter has already painted one of my prototypes and my brother's wife will be getting her creative on by painting some and my wife and mom have expressed an interest in painting them too!! Also, these may be good for custom requests.


I also plan to offer these in the Woodworking -> Supply category as unfinished blanks to allow others to order in bulk and get creative with them.

Second idea was a balancing wine bottle holder. The thinner, wider pallet board I've found would be good for this. The daughter and I got a hole saw "kit" to make the door hangers so hopefully I should have the right size bit for a wine bottle neck already. No samples yet but that'll be the next to prototype.

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Feel free to leave a comment with likes/dislikes about these products or other woodworking ideas you might have.

Etsy.com and Environmental blog

I have been configuring a store front on etsy.com that will focus on using recycled or up-cycled materials in a effort to keep anything I can re-use out of landfills.

I am initially using old computer parts to make clocks which I have already been doing for friends and family for years. I am also researching and building a product line of items to make from discarded, untreated pine pallets. You would not believe how many of these just get thrown away rather than re-used or recycled!!! I'll seal some wood projects with a non-toxic stain and my sister-in-law has agreed to make some perty with paint.

http://recycletime.etsy.com

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I will also use this blog to post my personal ventures into "going green". Our family has switched to CFLs and we try and do little things to be more environmentally conscious.

Some bigger projects I'd like to do include rain barrels and a solar powered attic fan for those crazy hot summer days around here ugh!