Glass containers, unlike plastic bottles, are suitable for reuse. For example, a beautiful wine bottle in which you can store wine home production, will not only preserve the taste of your drink, but also festive table would be more appropriate. Very often, factory bottles are closed with a cork stopper, which cannot be used to close the neck again - it, as a rule, becomes several times larger than the neck of the bottle. Even if you cut the cork with a knife, the initial tight closure of the bottle will not be achieved, and besides, the cork cork is not very durable. And if we're talking about about a 10-liter bottle, then no old stopper will do at all. In the not-too-distant past, our grandmothers used to cap bottles with corn on the cob. Agree, during technological progress, closing the bottle in this way is out-of-date and inconvenient. In our article we will tell you how to make a stopper for a 20 liter bottle with your own hands so that it is beautiful, convenient and reliable.
DIY silicone bottle stopper
So unique and useful craft can be done in several ways. Next we will look at the most interesting of them.
Method No. 1
How is a cork made? To make a stopper for a ten-liter bottle, you need to prepare the following components in advance:
- 100 gram plastic cup for the mold;
- Starch;
- Silicone sealant.
Important! One package of silicone sealant comes out with 3 plugs.
- Place ¾ of a package of starch on the table and make a depression.
Important! To prevent the silicone from sticking to the table, you can place glass on the surface.
- Using a professional silicone gun, squeeze the silicone into the starch funnel.
Important! The amount of silicone matches the size of our workpiece, namely a plastic cup.
- Then mix silicone and starch until smooth. To prevent the silicone from sticking to your hands, dip them in starch and begin kneading the ingredients, similar to kneading dough.
Important! When kneading silicone, it is important to achieve such a consistency that the dough is not too hard and does not have loose formations. Otherwise, the finished cork will allow air to pass through. The ideal mixture for cork production should resemble plasticine and not stick to your hands.
- The dough for the preparation must be thoroughly mixed so that the silicone is completely saturated with starch, roll it well on the table and give it a cone shape.
Important! The more starch the mixture contains, the tougher the cork will be.
- Then sprinkle the prepared cork a little with starch so that it does not stick to the plastic cup and easily comes out of it when completed.
Important! To get rid of excess air, make small punctures on the bottom of the glass with a needle or awl.
- Next, we place the raw materials in a plastic cup, using screwing movements, distribute the mass tightly and evenly throughout the entire container.
Important! It is not at all necessary to use a blank in the form of a cup. If it is difficult to choose a blank for your bottle, roll the cork tightly by hand, measure its diameter with a caliper, and leave it to dry on a flat surface.
- In this form, leave the workpiece to dry for 3-4 hours. After the time has passed, we remove our cork from the workpiece.
Important! To speed up the drying process, after 30 minutes, place the container next to a hot surface or place it near a radiator.
- You can use a kitchen knife to smooth out any unevenness or reduce the diameter of the finished cork.
Important! Silicone sealant has a specific smell. To get rid of it, you must first place the finished cork in hot water, then - in cold water with the addition of soda for a while, or simply take the product out into the fresh air.
The cork is elastic and tightly closes the neck of the bottle. It is perfect for a 10-liter bottle with a thread and a bottle with a conical thread, they are also called “Cossack” bottles.
Important! For wine enthusiasts, you should drill a hole in the cork to allow air to escape from the bottle. To do this, the diameter of the hole should be slightly smaller than the drainage that you will use.
Method number 2
The next method is quite labor-intensive and requires much more time to manufacture than the previous one. But for those craftsmen who like to tinker with the tool, you can use this option.
To make a bottle stopper using the method that we will discuss below, you will need to prepare some auxiliary tools, namely:
- A pea or corn tin;
- Soldering iron;
- Gun for liquid silicone;
- Sandpaper;
- Construction hair dryer;
- Liquid silicone.
Sequencing:
- At the first stage of making a cork, you should make a mold into which liquid silicone is poured. To do this, cut off the top and bottom of a tin can, and as a result, we get a cylindrical blank.
- Then cut the blank vertically to make a rectangular tin.
- Using a caliper, measure the diameter of the bottle neck with a compass, twist the tin to the desired size from the bottom, gradually expanding it upward.
- When one edge meets the other, put notches on top and bottom, connect the notches with an oblique line and cut with scissors.
- Carefully shape the workpiece into a cone shape with your hands, maintaining the size along the entire length of the workpiece.
- Unfold your workpiece and sandpaper sand the beveled and smooth edge of the tin.
- Connect the two sections end to end and use a soldering iron to fix the workpiece in this position along its entire length. You end up with a cone-shaped glass without a bottom.
- Next you need to solder the bottom. First, sand the bottom cut of the workpiece with sandpaper.
- Take one of the cut parts and solder the bottom with a soldering iron, trim the edges with scissors.
- Next you need to solder the handle. To make it, you can use rigid wire or a metal tube.
- Sand the handle location and the edge of the wire for better adhesion of the material. The mold for casting a silicone cork is ready, now you can start making the cork itself.
- Take a hair dryer and set the temperature to 120 degrees.
Important! A construction hair dryer will serve to heat the mold so that the silicone does not harden during filling and even distribution inside the mold.
- After the mold has warmed up, use glue gun fill it with liquid silicone.
Important! The tin mold should be constantly held over a stream of hot air.
- Once the silicone is completely poured into the container, leave it to harden.
- Finally, use pliers to bend the soldered edge and pull out the plug.
DIY bottle caps
You can quickly and without tools make an alternative to bottle caps.
Method No. 1
For implementation this option For corks, you will need a plastic bottle with a cap that matches the diameter of the bottle neck.
Manufacturing sequence:
- Fill a plastic bottle with up to half of the water and close the lid tightly.
- Turn the bottle over and lower it into the neck of the bottle.
- The device tightly and securely closes the glass container.
Important! For winemakers, it is necessary to drill a through hole in the lid and bottom of the plastic “stopper”, pass the hose through and close the neck of the wine bottle.
Method No. 2
You can make new creative stoppers from old cork wine stoppers that don't fit the diameter of the neck. For this you will need:
- Kitchen knife;
- Cork plug;
- PVA glue;
- Wooden spools of thread of different colors.
Preparation method:
- First of all, use a caliper to measure the diameter of the bottle neck.
- Using a kitchen knife, carefully cut the cork into a tapered shape to the appropriate diameter.
- Lubricate the upper wide edge of the cork with PVA glue and glue a wooden spool of thread of different colors.
- Leave to dry completely.
Your creative corks are ready!
Video material
Making bottle caps with your own hands at home is not at all difficult. To do this, just follow the instructions described in this article. With their help you can make traffic jams different diameters to close large bottles and also to make small ones decorative plugs for bottles with your favorite drinks. As you can see, most of the items that you will need for this are in every home. Don't be afraid to experiment with decorating your products. Then you will get not just corks, the bottles will look beautiful and will additionally serve as decorative elements in the room.
Cork, in the form in which it is known today, appeared in the 17th century, at the same time as the glass bottle. Before this, it was also used, but in isolated cases. Most often, containers were sealed using rags or pieces of wood, which led to damage to the contents and deterioration in taste. Unlike wood, cork does not swell much, and with proper processing, the taste and smell of the drink do not deteriorate.
General information
Bottle stoppers differ in shape and design. During the manufacturing process, special components are added that improve the protective function and act as an exclusive sign of the quality of the drinks.
The stopper is tightly inserted into the neck of the container and retains its properties. long time and is a product natural origin, like a good quality drink. Making corks takes a long time and is difficult. The bark of a cork oak tree is initially removed when the tree is approximately 30 years old. This material is not used in production, since wine bottle stoppers are made only after the 3rd removal. The second layer grows for about another 10 years. The production technology consists of several successive stages: six-month drying, careful selection, washing and treatment with a disinfectant solution.
Classification by material of manufacture
Bottle caps come in different varieties. It all depends on many factors, including the purpose and material of manufacture. The most common types of traffic jams:
- cortical;
- plastic;
- metal;
- rubber;
- from foil;
- synthetic;
- glass.
Cork stoppers for wine bottles (also found among some types of champagne). Plastic bottles with soft drinks are sealed with plastic stoppers, and containers with mineral water and beer is closed with metal lids. Rubber products are used. Many medications are sealed with foil stoppers.
Synthetic corks based on polyethylene are distinguished by the fact that they do not allow moisture to pass through and are easily pulled out with a corkscrew. The quality of these products may vary, but silicone ones are considered the best in this category. The advantages of glass stoppers are ease of opening and closing, interesting appearance. Experts recommend using them for wine that is not designed for long-term storage.
Separation by design features
Bottle stoppers are also available in microgranular, screw and yoke types. Microgranulated has a uniform structure, high elasticity and resilience. The production technology is quite new: food glue and a waxy substance of organic origin (extracted from...) are added to cortical granules no larger than half a millimeter in size. The entire process takes place under high pressure.
The screw plug has a low cost, eliminates the risk of developing cork disease, but is not strong enough. Made from aluminum alloys and synthetic gaskets. Bottles with a yoke cap can often be found in cosmetic stores and on olive oil counters. Good tightness and the possibility of repeated use make the yoke stopper stand out from the rest.
Manufacturing Features
The cork compresses well, and thanks to this property it can be inserted into the neck of the bottle, where it will press tightly against the walls of the vessel due to its elasticity. This is achieved by thoroughly impregnating the material and heating it with steam (boiling). If the cork dries out, it will become hard. In production, it is pushed through a tube into the neck.
In order to protect the material from the effects of liquids in the bottle, it is treated with paraffin at high temperatures. The cork begins to harden when cooled, so it is kneaded in a special press to restore its elastic structure.
Production of wine stoppers
Bottle stoppers from natural materials - perfect way closures, characterized by aesthetics. The product is resistant to temperature, it is lightweight, allows the required amount of air to pass through well, and does not rot. Regular natural cork can last about 50 years.
Production begins from the moment the layer is cut from the tree. The bark is stored in special rooms for one year, after which it is processed under high temperatures. Then it is cut into plates and sent for sorting. Strips are made from the plates, followed by turning out cylindrical plugs. The standard length is from 2.5 to 7 cm. It is believed that the longer the length, the higher the price of the drink.
The next stage of processing is grinding the cylinders to ensure a perfectly smooth surface. After this, the product is bleached and impregnated using wax. The final step is to burn the brand name onto the cork or print it under pressure. Sulfur dioxide is often added to the bottle under the cork to preserve the drink.
Yoke plug
You can often find square bottles with a yoke cap, which are produced by many manufacturers for the purpose of long and proper storage various liquids. In most cases, containers are made of glass. As a rule, it is small in volume, which is ideal for home storage of salad dressings and olive oil. Liter glass bottles with a stopper of the type in question are used for bottling lemonades, liqueurs, liqueurs, etc. For beautiful containers in the “vintage” style, the neck of which is widened, a yoke stopper - great way keep milk fresh, for example.
Bugel plugs consist of a cap made of high-quality and safe plastic and a wire holder made of stainless steel coated with chrome. These reusable products help keep bottled drinks fresh for a long time.
Advantages of a yoke plug
Bugel products are widely used for sealing vessels, while ensuring high tightness and reliability of packaging. By using these bottle caps, you can be sure of ease of use and preservation of the properties of the drink. Repeated use allows for significant savings.
Bugel plugs are a worthy alternative to products of natural origin. This type is rarely used for wine, since, according to experts, a wine bottle loses its centuries-old aesthetic appearance. However, environmental and cost-saving considerations may in the future displace classical ideas about bottle capping options.
Glass containers, unlike plastic bottles, are suitable for reuse. For example, a beautiful wine bottle in which you can store home-made wine will not only preserve the taste of your drink, but will also be more appropriate on the holiday table. Very often, factory bottles are closed with a cork stopper, which cannot be used to close the neck again - it, as a rule, becomes several times larger than the neck of the bottle. Even if you cut the cork with a knife, the initial tight closure of the bottle will not be achieved, and besides, the cork cork is not very durable. And if we are talking about a 10-liter bottle, then no old stopper will do at all. In the not-too-distant past, our grandmothers used to cap bottles with corn on the cob. Agree, during technological progress, closing the bottle in this way is out-of-date and inconvenient. In our article we will tell you how to make a bottle stopper with your own hands so that it is beautiful, convenient and reliable.
DIY silicone bottle stopper
This unique and useful craft can be made in several ways. Next we will look at the most interesting of them.
Method No. 1
To make a stopper for a ten-liter bottle, you need to prepare the following components in advance:
- 100 gram plastic cup for the mold;
- Starch;
- Silicone sealant.
Important! One package of silicone sealant comes out with 3 plugs.
- Place ¾ of a package of starch on the table and make a depression.
Important! To prevent the silicone from sticking to the table, you can place glass on the surface.
- Using a professional silicone gun, squeeze the silicone into the starch funnel.
Important! The amount of silicone matches the size of our workpiece, namely a plastic cup.
- Then mix silicone and starch until smooth. To prevent the silicone from sticking to your hands, dip them in starch and begin kneading the ingredients, similar to kneading dough.
Important! When kneading silicone, it is important to achieve such a consistency that the dough is not too hard and does not have loose formations. Otherwise, the finished cork will allow air to pass through. The ideal mixture for cork production should resemble plasticine and not stick to your hands.
- The dough for the preparation must be thoroughly mixed so that the silicone is completely saturated with starch, roll it well on the table and give it a cone shape.
Important! The more starch the mixture contains, the tougher the cork will be.
- Then sprinkle the prepared cork a little with starch so that it does not stick to the plastic cup and easily comes out of it when completed.
Important! To get rid of excess air, make small punctures on the bottom of the glass with a needle or awl.
- Next, place the raw material in a plastic cup, using screwing movements, distribute the mass tightly and evenly throughout the container.
Important! It is not at all necessary to use a blank in the form of a cup. If it is difficult to choose a blank for your bottle, roll the cork tightly by hand, measure its diameter with a caliper, and leave it to dry on a flat surface.
- In this form, leave the workpiece to dry for 3-4 hours. After the time has passed, we remove our cork from the workpiece.
Important! To speed up the drying process, after 30 minutes, place the container next to a hot surface or place it near a radiator.
- You can use a kitchen knife to smooth out any unevenness or reduce the diameter of the finished cork.
Important! Silicone sealant has a specific smell. To get rid of it, you need to place the finished cork first in hot water, then in cold water with the addition of soda for a while, or simply take the product out into the fresh air.
The cork is elastic and tightly closes the neck of the bottle. It is perfect for a 10-liter bottle with a thread and a bottle with a conical thread, they are also called “Cossack” bottles.
Important! For wine enthusiasts, you should drill a hole in the cork to allow air to escape from the bottle. To do this, the diameter of the hole should be slightly smaller than the drainage that you will use.
Method number 2
The next method is quite labor-intensive and requires much more time to manufacture than the previous one. But for those craftsmen who like to tinker with the tool, you can use this option.
To make a bottle stopper using the method that we will discuss below, you will need to prepare some auxiliary tools, namely:
- A pea or corn tin;
- Soldering iron;
- Gun for liquid silicone;
- Sandpaper;
- Construction hair dryer;
- Liquid silicone.
Sequencing:
- At the first stage of making a cork, you should make a mold into which liquid silicone is poured. To do this, cut off the top and bottom of a tin can, and as a result, we get a cylindrical blank.
- Then cut the blank vertically to make a rectangular tin.
- Using a caliper, measure the diameter of the bottle neck with a compass, twist the tin to the desired size from the bottom, gradually expanding it upward.
- When one edge meets the other, put notches on top and bottom, connect the notches with an oblique line and cut with scissors.
- Carefully shape the workpiece into a cone shape with your hands, maintaining the size along the entire length of the workpiece.
- Unfold your workpiece and sand the beveled and smooth edge of the tin with sandpaper.
- Connect the two sections end to end and use a soldering iron to fix the workpiece in this position along its entire length. You end up with a cone-shaped glass without a bottom.
- Next you need to solder the bottom. First, sand the bottom cut of the workpiece with sandpaper.
- Take one of the cut parts and solder the bottom with a soldering iron, trim the edges with scissors.
- Next you need to solder the handle. To make it, you can use rigid wire or a metal tube.
- Sand the handle location and the edge of the wire for better adhesion of the material. The mold for casting a silicone cork is ready, now you can start making the cork itself.
- Take a hair dryer and set the temperature to 120 degrees.
Important! A construction hair dryer will serve to heat the mold so that the silicone does not harden during filling and even distribution inside the mold.
- After the mold has warmed up, use a glue gun to fill it with liquid silicone.
Important! The tin mold should be constantly held over a stream of hot air.
- Once the silicone is completely poured into the container, leave it to harden.
- Finally, use pliers to bend the soldered edge and pull out the plug.
DIY bottle caps
You can quickly and without tools make an alternative to bottle caps.
Method No. 1
To implement this stopper option, you will need a plastic bottle with a cap that matches the diameter of the bottle neck.
Manufacturing sequence:
- Fill a plastic bottle with up to half of the water and close the lid tightly.
- Turn the bottle over and lower it into the neck of the bottle.
- The device tightly and securely closes the glass container.
Important! For winemakers, it is necessary to drill a through hole in the lid and bottom of the plastic “stopper”, pass the hose through and close the neck of the wine bottle.
Method No. 2
You can make new creative stoppers from old cork wine stoppers that don't fit the diameter of the neck. For this you will need:
- Kitchen knife;
- Cork plug;
- PVA glue;
- Wooden spools of thread of different colors.
Preparation method:
- First of all, use a caliper to measure the diameter of the bottle neck.
- Using a kitchen knife, carefully cut the cork into a tapered shape to the appropriate diameter.
- Lubricate the upper wide edge of the cork with PVA glue and glue a wooden spool of thread of different colors.
- Leave to dry completely.
Your creative corks are ready!
Video material
Making bottle caps with your own hands at home is not at all difficult. To do this, just follow the instructions described in this article. With their help, you can make stoppers of different diameters to close large bottles, as well as make small decorative stoppers for bottles with your favorite drinks. As you can see, most of the items that you will need for this are in every home. Don't be afraid to experiment with decorating your products. Then you will get not just corks, the bottles will look beautiful and will additionally serve as decorative elements in the room.
Have you ever wondered how and from what such a common item as a wine stopper is made?
I invite you to look at an interesting photo report from a wine cork factory.
Cork appeared in the form in which we know it relatively recently, only in the 17th century, along with the appearance in mass use glass bottle. Before this, cork was also used, but not in such quantities. They preferred to seal the vessels with rags and pieces of wood, which over time gave the contents an unusual taste, or even spoiled it. Cork does not swell as much as wood, and when properly processed it does not spoil the taste of wine or cognac, which is important.
Cork is made from the bark of the cork oak tree, which grows only in a few countries in Europe and on the Mediterranean coast of Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. In other countries, cork oak practically does not grow. Most big harvest Cork bark can be obtained from Portuguese plantations.
The first time the bark is removed from an oak tree is after it is 20-25 years old. Over the next ten years it should be restored. In addition, the bark can be removed only in a certain season, when it practically peels off on its own. The rest of the time the tree can be damaged. The bark is not removed all at once, but in certain sections, so from the outside the trees appear half naked. From the bark taken from one oak tree you can get a thousand corks. The highest quality bark is considered to be taken from a 150-year-old tree. An oak tree that is more than 200 years old begins to get sick and no longer produces high-quality bark. It is uprooted and a new tree is planted in the vacant space.
This is the only tree in the world whose bark can completely regenerate. Cork oaks are marked so that they know when the next harvest can be harvested from them. For example, the number 7 means that the last time the bark was removed from this tree was in 2007.
The cut bark is sorted. The first grade is sent to a factory where they make corks for fine wines and cognacs, and the worst grade goes to the production plant. construction insulation materials and sound absorbers.
Cork oak bark is dumped into huge piles right on the factory grounds. Before putting the cork into use, it is kept in the open air for several months.
First of all, the raw materials are subjected to heat treatment. The cork is boiled in a huge cauldron, and at the same time, all sorts of spider bugs that managed to live in it are destroyed.
Then the bark is cut into strips, after which it is again sorted, washed, disinfected and again soaked in water.
Corks are cut out of these blanks, and the cork chips, to which a binder is added, go under the press.
Rejected corks are covered with cork dust and used for mid-priced wines. And the simplest and most popular corks, including those for champagnes, are made from cork chips, the pieces of which are glued together special glue. Such glued corks are also found in wine bottles of the middle and low price categories, designed for quick sale and short-term storage.
The rest of the waste is used to make various Decoration Materials. You cannot enter the workshop from which the cork comes out already packaged without headphones and a respirator - it is very noisy and dusty here. The cork sheets come out from under the press very hot. After they have cooled, they are sent for further processing - cut into standard plates.
If you cover a room with this material, you can even walk on your head - the neighbors still won’t hear anything. Builders also love cork because, unlike plastic panels in case of fire does not emit toxic gases.
As for bottle caps, their quality used to be checked manually. Since the cork oak bark plates have different sizes and thickness, not all operations were trusted by automatic machines. A worker directly involved in cutting out corks pressed his foot on the machine pedal about ten thousand times a day. Now, in modern factories, electronics completely control the entire process. Of course, in such a serious production, labor safety training programs are required for workers, which ensures their safety.
The finished corks are carefully sorted. This is done by a special machine. It “scans” the surface of the cork, and depending on how many cracks and defects it detects, it directs it to one or another basket. After which it is again checked for quality. The corks are then washed and bleached to remove harmful substances, and placed in a 12% alcohol solution for 24 hours.
Solid stoppers are ideal for long-term storage only if necessary conditions(humidity, contact of wine with cork). Coated corks (coated) are also suitable for storage, but not for too long. Glued and pressed corks allow wine to be stored for only a few years, after which there is a risk of spoiling the contents of the bottle.
The cork dries out, which can cause the wine to spoil due to air access. It is incorrect to store wine bottles vertically on supermarket shelves. Just a few months of vertical standing under powerful lamps in a store - and such a wine can deteriorate or greatly lose its taste.
Only natural cork allows the wine to “breathe” and, in contact with the wine, complements the bouquet in a certain way. Bottles sealed with natural cork can be stored for decades and even centuries (under special conditions). For such a long “collaboration” with cork oak, winemakers have studied all the properties of cork, and most eminent wine critics believe that natural corks not only preserve, but also improve the aroma of wine. However, there is a small percentage of defects - a natural price for “naturalness”.
Not only construction materials are made from production waste, but also bags, aprons, shoes and even umbrellas! Cork production is virtually waste-free. Besides everything else,
