Just finished another Peppermill

Keith Palmer

Member
Messages
84
Location
Tacoma, WA
Jen, a coworker of mine, shares my love of beautifully turned wood pieces. She even found out when there were some pieces in a gallery nearby and took me to see them. She has been very supportive of the pieces I have been turning over the past year. She really loved the peppermills I made for my mom and mother-in-law.

She loved them so much she commissioned me to turn a set for her dad’s birthday, but while I was gluing the blanks up for those, I glued an additional blank just for her birthday. I found some purpleheart for hers and glued it up with the same maple and dyed black veneer. This time, I saved some of the waste from the blank and turned a base for the mill to sit on while not in use. It will work great to collect pepper remnants that fall out.

I also experimented with using a precatalyzed lacquer that I had to mix and spray with spray equipment. The lacquer worked much better than the polyurethane I used in the past. The lacquer was hard within just 24 hrs to wet sand and buff to a beautifull high gloss. I also prefer the curves of this mill over the previous 2.

BTW, I just finished creating a blog to show the woodturnings and some other stuff I do in the shop: www.kapsworkshop.wordpress.com

I am still playing with the camera settings and lighting for the pics.
Please critique the piece as well as the photos.

Thanks!!

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Nice use of the different directions of the wood grain and color as well.. looked at your site and your photography is very nice as well,, some really nice turnings!!!!:D:thumb::thumb:
 
Wow, somehow I missed seeing this until now. I really like it Keith. :thumb: I like the curvy form and the way it plays with the straight lines of the laminations. You photos also look real good. The only suggestion I can offer is to try to get the wrinkles out of the backdrop. I've used a clothes steamer on the velour backdrops that came with my photo tent, and it seemed to work pretty well. The lighting looks good, although If you want fewer of the visible lighting highlights, you might try moving one or two of your lights farther away, or bouncing them to your tent off a wall or other white surface.

Any way you slice it though, it's nice work. :clap:
 
Does anyone know if there any danger of toxins leaching out of exotic woods into pepper corns or salt crystals?

Personally I always play safe and never use woods such as laburnum, iroko, yew etc for anything that will be used for food. I am sure that there are others as well. No matter what finish you use there is always the danger that it will wear off and leech into the food so I also tend to either use a beeswax polish or just sand to a high level and oil.

Better safe than sorry

Pete
 
Does anyone know if there any danger of toxins leaching out of exotic woods into pepper corns or salt crystals?

I don't know that it's been proven, or if so, if there's any significant dose or risk, but like Pete, a lot of people play it safe. That said, I don't believe any of the woods in this mill are considered particularly toxic. Purpleheart can be a skin and eye sensitizer, but then again, so can walnut, and it's used in food-handling pieces all the time.
 
Does anyone know if there any danger of toxins leaching out of exotic woods into pepper corns or salt crystals?

I don't have any first hand knowledge, but somewhere I read that there's not a lot of danger, but also like Pete, I would rather take a little caution... I keep a plexiglas solution that I will coat the inside of any peppermill that I'm wary of.... I'll put two or three coats inside the mill to make sure I get a pretty good coverage. I don't worry too much about the outside... I finish that with multiple coats of a polyurethane so I'm pretty sure it's well sealed.
 
Wow, somehow I missed seeing this until now. I really like it Keith. :thumb: I like the curvy form and the way it plays with the straight lines of the laminations. You photos also look real good. The only suggestion I can offer is to try to get the wrinkles out of the backdrop. I've used a clothes steamer on the velour backdrops that came with my photo tent, and it seemed to work pretty well. The lighting looks good, although If you want fewer of the visible lighting highlights, you might try moving one or two of your lights farther away, or bouncing them to your tent off a wall or other white surface.

Any way you slice it though, it's nice work. :clap:

Thanks Vaughn and others for great the compliments! I will try the steamer, I tried ironing the backdrop and I couldn't get rid of the wrinkles. I will continue to play with the lighting, just getting started with that.

A question about the photography: I was curious as to an explanation of why the high gloss of the finish does not show up in the photos? The finish on the mill is a high gloss lacquer, wet sanded and buffed out, but you can't really tell that from the pics.

I keep a plexiglas solution that I will coat the inside of any peppermill that I'm wary of.... I'll put two or three coats inside the mill to make sure I get a pretty good coverage.

Chuck I am interested in your "plexiglas solution", I have never heard of it before. What is it and where can you get it?

Thanks,
Keith
 
Chuck I am interested in your "plexiglas solution", I have never heard of it before. What is it and where can you get it?

Thanks,
Keith

Keith, it just a solution of plexiglas chips that I cover in acetone until the chips dissolve. You can get scrap plexi and most big box stores or I went to a Goodwill store and found a couple of old plexiglas peppermills that were beyond use and cracked the plexi up into little pieces and dropped into my pickle jar with the acetone.... just add acetone until you reach the consistency you want and I paint it on the inside with a foam brush... be careful with the brush... it will begin to disintegrate in the acetone a little.

I got the formula for the solution from a pen forum where it was used as a finish on pens... I made it up to try, but never got to where I liked it... the CA finish was much better.

You do have to be certain that the scrap you get is Plexiglas, not Lexan or polycarbonate... they won't dissolve in the acetone... the acetone will flash off in about 1 - 2 minutes, so not a problem with that.
 
Keith,

I apologize for hijacking your thread. Your peppermills are very attractive and I would like to try it some day, but don’t want to get in over my head with the exotics.
 
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...A question about the photography: I was curious as to an explanation of why the high gloss of the finish does not show up in the photos? The finish on the mill is a high gloss lacquer, wet sanded and buffed out, but you can't really tell that from the pics...

I think in this case it's mostly because of the porosity in the wood. Even though it's glossy, the surface still has lots of ups and downs due to the pores. (The pores show up well in the close-up of the base.) I can tell it's glossy because I can see the dark circle reflection that's the opening of your tent, but it's just not putting off the mirror shine due to the surface of the wood. The only way I know to get that "glass" look is to build up (and sand down) enough coats of finish to fill the pores and get a level surface.
 
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