A pepper mill

[fred hargis]

This is certainly not a big deal for any of you experienced turners......but I'm not a turner. Anyway, someone in the house thought we needed a pepper mill to "experience the great taste of fresh ground pepper". I thought, well I have a lathe and some tools....why not? Oh, yeh...forgot the part about not being a turner. Anway, after futzing around making a prototype (or practice piece, whatever) and some other missteps, I came up with this. You can see the practice (ash) and what I wound up for a working model. A turner can see my sweep isn't completely perfect and things like that, but we're happy with it. They are amazingly easy to make if you're a turner. If you're not it's takes a little a little more thought. The final version was cherry, and I wiped on a coat of varnish.

 

[Vaughn McMillan]

That looks great, Fred! It's as nice as (or better than) a lot of the ones I've seen over the years, even from experienced turners.

 

[Dan Noren]

looks good fred, and if the boss is happy with it, all is good!

 

[Dave Hoskins]

I don't see a thing wrong!!! Fine looking to me.

 

[Ryan Mooney]

Looks pretty dandy to me as well..

There is a little flat in the sweep but that's a tradeoff for not going through the side I'm sure you could somehow get a fairer curve but it's still pretty close to what you could hope for and well more than good enough imho!

 

[Robert Horky]

Looks top notch to me. Nice job.

 

[Chuck Ellis]

I make a lot of pepper mills ... usually have 10-20 in stock at any one time.... while I don't like that style of mill (I'm a little measurementally challenged and you should be more precise in measurement on the standard mills)... I mostly do crush grinds where I can cut the shaft to size... but yours looks as good as any I've ever made... Cherry is always a good choice for the wood. Good Job......