bottle stoppers

Hello Turners :) I have been making a few bottle stoppers & openers. I chose to use threaded inserts. I have not been successful seating the insert perpendicular to the face no matter how I insert it into the wood. Please see the picture of my inserts. How do you experts achieve that. once the...

The first two bottle stoppers I've turned. They are made using hard maple offcuts from my workbench build. The finish is high friction polish and wax. The stoppers themselves are stainless steel from Craft Supplies USA. They have been shipped off to Hawaii.