Stoppers

This year I started turning bottle stoppers. This picture is of the ones that I took to Christmas with the family to give away. I have had some fun with these...quick, unique, satisfying. I had the larger stoppers for several years and tried to build my own mandrel, but it never worked well and I gave up. I recently purchased a mandrel from Ruth Niles with some of the shorter stoppers. It works like a champ! I knew I was going to make some presents and I needed to order some more stoppers so I ordered from Ruth again. When the check got there she emailed me to say that she sent them out. I thought this is cool, response from a real people. Then a couple of days later, she called me, said that she had a couple of orders "get lost" in NJ and wondered if I got my order. I said no, she called back next day...I said I was not in a hurry, lets see if it comes and it came on Thursday. I really love buying from small companies that care about the customer.