April Monthly Demonstration
Turning Peppermills
This month's demonstration started with James Cox showing
how to turn a Peppermill. Peppermills can be alot of fun with a number of designs and sizes. We started the demonstration
by passing out an information sheet showing a basic design and the size holes we would be boring into the wood with
forstner bits. It also included a complete list of the materials needed to complete the project.
The picture below shows James turning the peppermill blank
into a round cylinder. The blank should always be one inch longer than the peppermill kit you will be using.
Once the peppermill blank has been rounded off you must
now layout the mill. We are turning a 10 inch peppermill and it requires an 11 inch blank. The body of the blank
will be 8 inches and the cap will be 3 inches. After the mill has been layed out we will now use a parting tool
to seperate the cap from the body of the mill. The picture below shows James boring a 1 5/8 inch hole in the bottom
of the mill.
After we bore the 1 5/8 inch hole in the bottom we will
now use a 1 1/16 inch forstner bit to bore a hole through the entire body of the mill. This will be the area that will
hold the peppercorns. As seen below this will require the use of an extension to the forstner bit. Boring these
holes requires the use of an arbor chuck to hold the forstner bit in the tailstock of the lathe.
Below shows the body of the peppermill after the holes
have been bored. We will now drill a 9/32 hole through the center of the cap and turn a 3/4 inch tenon that will
fit into the 1 1/16 hole that was bore through the body of the mill.
Now the body and cap are assembled carefully matching the
wood's grain. We will now place the peppermill back on the lathe and turn the final design. You can use numerous
styles and designs on the cap and body of the mill. The design we have selected today is a more contemporary design
with a beaded base.
Now it is time to assemble the peppermill. Below
several members of the club watch as James shows how to assemble the mill.
Next Rodney Lehrbass demonstrated how to jam chuck a rough
turned bowl and turn it. He started by cutting a tenon on the bottom of the bowl and shaping the outside of the bowl.
He then reversed chucked the bowl and shaped the inside. Completing a rough turned bowl is a great project and can be
done quickly with a rough turned bowl blank that is dry and ready to turn.
Don't forget our club still has many dried, rough turned
bowl blanks for sale. If you are interested please contact us to purchase. The photos below show Rodney working
each side of the bowl.
