working with veneers

[mike86]

I want to make a bottle stopper from red, white , and blue veneers. How do I make a blank? What kind of glue? This is for friend who just became a U.S. citizen. Thanks for any help and or suggestions.

[charlese]

I'd try using poplar, spruce or pine -planing the wood to the thickness I wanted, dying the wood (water based aniline dyes) the color I wanted - letting the dyed pieces dry thoroughly - gluing with white glue (dries clear) - and then turning.

You can arrange pieces on two blanks - one perpendicular to the stopper axis and the other parallel to the axis. Then you can pick the one that looks the best.

Here's a web page showing colors of water soluble aniline dye powders from one source. Near the bottom of that chart, there is a "Brilliant Crimson" (1780) and a "Bright Blue" (1730). Couldn't fine a White colored dye, but there might be one around somewhere. If you use spruce or poplar (spruce may be a little whiter) - select a white piece and use a water base finish (with no yellowing) maybe it will be white enough. ftp://www.woodworker.com/clrcharth2o.pdf

EDIT: Whoops! I just tried the above link and found it needed a password etc. So try this link and scroll down the page until you see anither link to a color chart. http://woodworker.com/cgi-bin/FULLPRES. ... UM=844-554

[james.miller]

For a white wood try Holly, I was told it is the whitest.

[mike86]

I looked for dyed wood, but ended up using two white, one red, one blue, acrylic pen blanks glued together. Thanks for your suggestions.