Tales of pepper mills and such

I realize that it has been a while since I have posted (Amazingly, there is someone out there reading this who cared enough to email me and tell me to post more! :-)), but the truth is that I have not done much turning in the last couple of months. I have made a couple of pens that came out okay but not great, and learned how NOT to remove glue from the black parts of a pen kit, and I have also attempted a pepper mill for the first time.

First, the pen related issue: When assembling a pen that I made recently, I got some glue on the outside of the black cap that was part of the pen kit. The cap seemed to be made of some sort of plastic, and I was not sure how to remove the glue from it. I thought of using a glue solvent, but I was not sure what that would do to the wood, or to the glue that I MEANT to use on the cap of the pen.

So, I hit on the idea of sanding the glue off. Using a bit of 150 grit sandpaper, I rubbed lightly on the spot...thereby rubbing off the black and revealing the copper-coloured piece underneath! The black on the cap was only on the surface, and now the pen looked horrible. (black cap with a streak of copper scratched into it) I decided to sand the entire cap, to see if maybe the look could be improved by having a pen with a copper cap, but the result was not anything I could sell. I will have to use the solvent after all in order to remove the cap and put on another one if I want to try and sell it. A true bummer, as the wood came out amazingly well.

So, on to the pepper mills. I bought a Nova chuck to hold larger items (winestoppers, pepper mills, bowls when/if I get to them). At first, I was a bit perplexed, because the chuck can only hold items with a diameter of 2 inches or so, and the piece of wood that I was starting with (a standard piece available at Woodcraft) was 3" by 3". The chuck could not even hold it. I knew I was missing a piece of the puzzle, but I was not sure what it was.

it turns out that, in order to use the chuck on large pieces, you need to turn a tenon at one end of the piece that is smaller than the chuck jaws. Then the jaws grab on to the tenon, and you can work the rest of the piece. So, I needed to turn the whole piece between centers to get it rounded, and then turn a tenon at one end. I did this, and it seemed to go okay, at least to start. I got a rounded piece that fit in the tenon and was being held by the chuck.

Next up....drilling into endgrain, using Forstner bits.