Salt N Peppa Mills

Alex Reid

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Location
Zushi, Japan
Here is a set of Salt and Pepper mills I just finished. Materials are bubinga and hard maple. This project is a rather easy one for those of you who haven't done it. I did one practice one to get the process and proportions right and then did this set. A couple of points to keep in mind when doing it are to use a good Forstner bit for the hollowing (Woodcraft sells a nice one by Bormax) and if you are going to do segmented use thick sides. You can see on these that the sides were almost turned away during the shaping leaving only a couple of teardrops rather then a nice flowing curve. This is because the bubinga sides were only 3/8 thick and the maple is about 5/8 thick. Reverse those thicknesses and I think you have a winning proportion for segemented peper mills.

I followed a tutorial by Adam Howard (oxhoward) posted on WWA. I think he won't mind if I post a link to it. He does great work.

http://www.woodworking.org/InfoExchange/viewtopic.php?p=46769#46769
 

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Alex,

First of all, those are really nice mills !!!

As a point of discussion ... you mentioned the proportions of the two woods and the thicknesses of them. I'm not a turner and certainly not an artist, but I do look at the items carefully when I cruise the Arts and Crafts and/or Wood Working shows and I seem to see lot of either loud/darkly finished pieces, OR pieces which are single colour with natural finishes. These two of yours drew my attention partly because of the lighter colouring and more-so because of the delicate accents given to the light colouring by the reddish brown (according to my monitor:) ) trim portions. If I was to choose a pair to purchase, I would choose the set you have pictured, and likely not a pair if the wood colours were reversed. This is strictly a personal preference, not a criticism of others projects at all, and I'd be interested in others opinions of strong colours of woods and where they are best used.

cheers eh?
 
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John,

Thanks for the comments. I think I also prefer the lighter over the darker if the woods were reversed. However with segmented spindle work there are often long flowing curves that come out due to varying the thickness of the piece while turning. This is a nice effect that I didn't quite take the fullest advantage of. Segmented turning is full of possibilities in this regard. In a workshop I attended hosted by Eli Avisera he showed us a square spindle with a star design inside that he often used in his design work. A pair of mills using that would look great. In another book I was reading the other day David Springett in Woodturning Wizardry shows how to turn a yo-yo using Tunbridge stickware. Very interesting.
 
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