This video shows how I was able to make a very nice bottle stopper from wood from a big box store. It started out as two pieces of 1/'4" stock that I glued together and then cut and reglued them together. I used a Forstner bit to give me a flat area for the stopper and then drilled and tapped the hole to thread onto my mandrel. After it was turned I sanded it to 400 grit and then used Yorkshire Grit abrasive paste to sand it up to 4000 grit and then applied a homemade friction polish. Not bad for big box store wood.