I decided to make an assortment of “gravity defying” wine bottle holders as Christmas gifts last year. The basic idea is an angled piece of wood with a hole in it to hold a bottle of wine in a position that seemingly defies the known laws of physics. One would think the contraption would topple forward but the weight of the bottle counter-balances the forward slant of the wooden holder, creating a harmonious floating co-existence of wine and wood. Or something like that…
I can’t claim to have invented the angled wine bottle holder but I’d like to think I added my own spin. For example, I added a small unobtrusive base to some of the holders to stabilize the holder while mostly preserving the gravity defying appearance. More on that below. The nice thing about this project is that it’s a great way to use the small off-sized pieces of wood that always collect in a woodshop. And you can crank them out fairly quickly. We’re not building an heirloom chest here…
After experimenting with a few prototype designs, I focused on three basic shapes: a fish, a wine glass, and an abstract shape that somewhat resembles a crooked bottle opener. I found free patterns for the fish and crooked bottle opener online so that saved some valuable design time. My thanks to those authors for sharing those patterns.
These bottle holders are approximately 3″ to 4″ wide and 8.5″ to 10″ long. A 1-1/4″ diameter hole to accommodate the neck of the wine bottle is drilled in each piece with the center of the hole about 6″ from the base. The base is cut at an angle between 37 to 45 degrees. The actual angle depends on how far the hole is located from the base: the shorter the distance, the greater the angle. The approach I followed was to make an initial cut at say 40 degrees and then incrementally refine it with a wine bottle in place to test the balance each time.
I added bases to a few of the bottle holders to provide better stability. I favored the oval-shaped ones. They are secured in place with glue, and brads/screws/dowels (I did a little experimenting and decided brads were the easiest option overall). The base takes away some of the gravity defying effect but makes for a much more stable and useful wine holder.