Woodturning - Peppermill Extravaganza

hi everybody welcome to sprague woodturning my name's jim so this week we're actually going to do some peppermills and we're going to be doing some casting with this narrowly looking cherry so this is actually cherry burl and i've got four of these i'm going to do them don't worry i'm not going to show you all them um but you know i'll just maybe touch on some colors throughout it but anyway that's this week's video um should be interesting to see how these go i think that i might use the deep cast from designer epoxy there's a lot of bug holes in this stuff you see some right in the end there so i want um i want a long time for the resin to penetrate this blank and the three other ones that i've got done so anyway that's this week's video uh anytime you give my videos a thumbs up it certainly helps with the analytics and of course if you haven't subscribed please consider doing so all right let's get over the workbench i want to show you the colors that i want to put into these and then we'll get this mounted on the lathe and get these uh we'll get them round all right so these are the colors we're going to use emerald green blue laguna uh glitter gold i don't know if i'll put the mother of pearl with that or not it's going to be quite shimmery already uh but i might put the mother of pearl with the lilac purple good morning hopefully everybody's having a fantastic week so yeah i'm using an inch and a half roughing gouge spindle roughing gouge here and then i don't know if i've ever showed this on the channel or not i don't do a lot of center work it's not my thing sometimes it's best to switch to a bowl gouge if you have any issues this burl was quite hard hard and soft in areas so sometimes the 5 8 bowl gouge is going to be a better choice just using a parting tool to clean up the ends so that it fits well in the chuck of course trying to clean everything out here i'm using the typhoon bit and my dremel tool and i did a good job cleaning on all these areas which there was plenty of batteries in this all right so in a perfect world i would have a plastic cylinder for this to fit down inside of and it would be great but i don't so what i'm going to do is i'm going to duct tape what will be the bottom if it's bad like this at the top i want or if it's bad i want this to be the top so the resin will flow in here anyway i'm just going to duct tape the bottom of this cut it off even around here this is six mil poly i'll just run a bead of glue around here roll that up and then do the last little bit on the surface of this so that's what i'm doing all right so there's step one and then for insurance i'm just going to tape over this again and then seal this edge up here and hopefully we won't have any leaks now i don't know if this will leak or not shouldn't hold a roll of duct tape on there well that's one i got uh three more to go okay so believe it or not this is actually all these mills are a special order for a good client of mine and um you wanted two more of these added to the to the order and i just clean that up look at it it's gonna be really interesting to see what that looks like after it's comes out of the casting pretty gnarly looking stuff this one's got a crack completely all the way through it it was safe to turn because it didn't go all the way through it was just on one end anyway it's got some pretty neat rot bugs you name it so anyway i just want to show you these before i roll them up just so you get an idea when they come out all right so we're going to use the deep cast from designer epoxy i want a long open time so that's why i'm going with this i could probably get away with using the pro series but i want to make sure that this has a lot of time to migrate and get into areas if it's your first time here this is the epoxy that i'd like to use and it's two parts a to one part b and all i'm doing is actually just using the reference marks on the solo cups here to uh get my levels that are right all right so this is pretty much an impossible thing to know as to how much resonant mix up so you know i'm just gonna divide it up i'll probably leave more for the taller mills in those those cups but i'll have to see if i run out i'll just have to mix up some more i guess all right well anyway it looks like it's pretty full i've left i'll do it on here i've left a little area for a reservoir on the top of this the resin to sit so we can pull from it as it needs it and what i'll do is i'll hold on to each one of these cups i won't pour any more resin than them and then i'll reuse them if i need them okay so there they all are um let's go into the pressure pot i'll leave in there for 15 minutes or so and then check on the level all right that's been 15 minutes let's see what we got look at it look at all the air being released anyway i'm just going to give that a couple of minutes to settle down and then if i need to add more i will all right so far so good no leaks i'm just going to fill this up again and i actually took those tongue depressors and pushed them down along the sides because the plastic is just too tight in some areas so hopefully that will ensure that the resin will get all the way down so i had some leftover resin what i did was i took some pink and mixed up a little bit more that way we've got a full cup of it almost and i think we might have some easter egg action happening pretty soon all right so we're out of the pressure pot as you can see the levels have dropped and i see resin and at the base of the bucket so the only one that didn't seem to leak is the green one and let's get this out and have a look at it [Applause] well looks like it's just our purple so anyway the resin in this gold one has dropped a lot almost to the point where i'm gonna have to probably recast it with maybe another color the leaked rate here there's resin here and there's none above it i think i'm just going to try and match this up with this color here and actually the same thing with this i think i'm just going to try and match these up and then put them back in the pressure plot and see what happens i've resealed the area that was leaking so hopefully that's not going to happen again anyway if i had to put in a contrasting color it's only going to be probably from there up you'd have two different colors if they were blended within the piece that would be okay but i wouldn't groove out on having two different colors like that anyway let's see what we got here there hopefully that's got it i don't see any any other leaks so hopefully that is it all right we're out of the pressure pot and it looks pretty good don't know until we get the mounted on the lathe and cleaned up anyway i'm just going to try and cut this plastic sleeves off and then we'll get one of these on the lathe that dipped in there i don't like that i'll have to do something about our design with that yeah i was initially trying to get this off but with all that hot glue on there forget it unfortunately since the resin level had dropped even after i redid it it dropped you know i probably lost about oh a half inch to an inch off of each of the taller mills and some of the smaller ones too i guess it's to be expected when you're doing these kinds of castings but um you know it still turned out to be some pretty darn nice mills i shouldn't be surprised by this by now but every time i do one of these castings where you know i'm casting basically rotten pieces of wood i'm always amazed at how well the epoxy penetrates and hardens up those areas i mean really these mills probably should have been stabilized with a stabilizing resin before i even went ahead and did these these castings in the epoxy but you know what they are absolutely beautiful and i'm glad i did it this way all right so ordinarily when these are mounted between centers i would have cut in where i'm going to have the top but i thought i'd take these off and we'd have a chat about them and figure out where the top is going to be so on this one i want to make sure that we keep the resin on the bottom so it's still there if this has a pointy top on it i might lose all of this so we'll do the top on this one you know whatever just about there ish now this one's got quite a big crevice in it so what i'm probably going to do with that is this is going to be our base and i'll try and work the design in here so that we don't have to do another filling on this and this will be our top up here i mean regardless we're going to lose some resin and actually there's some pretty decent holes there and again i i don't know it's got to be the fact that the uh was just too tight you should feel the weight of these now um this is our gold anyway i'm not going to show all of these i'm just i just thought i'd kind of show why i'm i'm cutting them where i am cutting them this is the burning tool that i like to use when i'm cutting in to the mills i want the grain to match up after the mill is done and the wider the parting tool you use in this case to cut the two pieces apart then of course uh the less likelihood the grain is going to match up so uh that's why i like to use a sixteenth of an inch thin part tool don't know if i should be showing this but i am anyway uh this is the method that i use to true up the the blank when it goes back into the chuck uh just be aware that if you push too hard on it it may come out of the chuck this is what i was referring to earlier when i put this blank back in the chuck i didn't have enough pressure on it and you can see how it got really wobbly on the end so as long as you've got good clamping pressure on the other end then you can manipulate that blank and make it run true and then lock it down this is a great little extension the um the drill bit actually goes in the end of it and it's like a cam lock so there's no set screws so you don't have to worry about fooling around with that and then you just simply use a wrench to break them free and they actually work very good i bought this set at lee valley highly recommend it if i had one complaint i would say that maybe uh i like to see the the shaft or the extension a little beefier that way not so much flex in it here i'm parting in for the lid and you want these lids to fit as tight tightly as they can on the bodies when you put them back together and mount them back on the lathe camera died here actually it was going along good and then all of a sudden i looked i was like oh the camera died anyway it was a little bit slack so then i just take some tissue and put it between there and it works just fine now that the bodies have been all drilled out this is the method that i used to mount them and again i just use a live center from one way and i've got a profile turned on that little wooden block that goes inside the chuck and i find this to be the most effective way to remount these mills and do the profiles on them as i step to the lathe i don't really um i'm not married to any single type style um you know sometimes i just step the lathe and i'm winging it and you know maybe chosen my work but um i i don't want to have a set plan sitting in front of me trying to match that profile i find that to be kind of frustrating at times when you don't do it it can be very rewarding when you do but um this client in particular kind of likes pointy mills so that's why a lot of the mills uh have points on them but i've done plenty in the past that have flat tops it's really what what the client likes when they're using them how well they feel on the hand of course the function of it for them and if you haven't noticed i really like that combination skew gouge scoochie gouge it's certainly a lot more forgiving than a skew is and i really like it actually well we got some bark inclusions and that kind of business going on here little areas that need firming up i'm just going to use the stereo bond thin link in the description for 15 off of course the accelerator to set it and this is just areas where the epoxy couldn't get to it certainly got to be careful here at this joint i don't want to get any glue in there because i won't be able to get this apart there i'll let that set up for a little bit and then we'll just clean off the glue and get the sanding so i typically start sanding at 180 when i'm doing these mills um here you know i'm doing this by hand and you know if you've got a lot of fine detail then that's certainly the way you have to go with it but you know power sanding will actually give you a really good surface too uh you just got to stay away from those sharp areas because it will rob the detail when used at lower grits uh at higher grits especially above 400 those are probably polishing grits is not such a big deal then one final thing i do is after um i get done power sanding the highest grit i'll just use it by hand and make sure there's no swirls left all right so our profile has been shaped so i put the base back in relieve where the top and it meet and give it some slack not too much though all right so i've got some uh this is the blue laguna one i've got some ca glue and some pigment mixed up in this so i've got some holes here that either that epoxy couldn't get to or just missed it anyway i'm going to fill it with this if you've been here before you've seen me do this there you go i think that's all of them anyway that's the way that you can fill voids in epoxy and nobody being either wiser well there you go there's six uh mills done um it's a pile of work though working with all that resin in there a lot of uh voids to fill just because so many bubbles but once the finish goes on these they should look pretty friggin neat so anyway i'm just gonna sign under the lid here up under here and number them and we'll start getting finishes on all right i just wanted to show this to you anyway this is a board that i've got a bunch of holes drilled in and then of course dowels i think these are 3 8. and um anyway i separate the tops from the bottoms and the way it goes is the furthest one on the right is this one and so on and so on so they so they match in this case it's not really that big of a deal because they're actually color coded but in a normal production setting it probably wouldn't be so that way you know the mill is going to match the top and the bottoms are going to match um anyway by doing this method you can move these around you don't have to worry about them falling over so you can actually bring out your work put all the finishes on at once and then put them back on the rack and then bring it in and clean room to dry um as far as signing is concerned i know that you print lighting probably he's going to be terrible in communal c come on focus anyway i'll try to show this up the lathe because can't see right here anyway once the first coat of finish goes on these they should really come alive right now they're just the colors there but it's kind of like meh but when the finish goes on they should look pretty neat so let's do that at the lathe all right so this is the way i do it i just this is the same uh piece that i had the mills mounted on before but it's a friction fit on the inside of the mill we're actually going to be using general finishes salad bowl finish which is a good choice for this so the wood bowl finish would also be a good choice for this um because you know you're not really putting food in it i plan on putting little sleeves inside of this i'll have a look at it but i might have to put some sleeves inside of the mill bodies if you do that then the food is technically not touching anything other than the plastic so it would be fine then i just take this stick it in the end wiggle it off and there you go there maybe you can see inside there now how i sign that anyway i'm going to put a little bit inside of here too because i want this to be all sealed up there i'll leave that sit there's the gold and we'll put the other coat on tomorrow uh most times you can get away with doing just two coats the first coat isn't really all that crucial as far as um you know if you get your fingerprints on it's not a real big deal because i'm going to take a 4-0 steel wool and buff this off tomorrow and then put the second coat on that of course is when we'll have to be uh certainly a lot more cautious with it so the bodies are a little different you know again if you wanted to you could do all this off the lathe i find when i when i do it this way i get a more even coat so that's why i like to do it on the lathe and yeah you know there's some leftover holes uh you know the resin has done a fantastic job but you know he just can't get to everything and like literally these mills there's gotta be there's gotta be a thousand bug holes and passages in those these six mills it's gotta be there's really the first time we're able to see the gold it's pretty neat right there anyway i just take them off put some finish down in the base to seal everything up and then put it over on the rack i actually usually do this before i put it on the lathe but of course i forgot nice and pearly just like with any wood it's always important to seal up the end grain if you're going to get a split of course that's usually where it happens and that's why it's important to use a finish that's similar to this that seals up well and you don't have to worry about it cracking in the future and i would use wood bowl finish from general finishes on these mills all day long it wouldn't bother me at all uh it's just i don't know if i would put it in a salad bowl anymore i'm sure that it's fine but since they've taken the food safe tags off it then that's why i've only used it on work like this all these bug passages worm passages whatever you want to call them i guess they got a thing for cherry burl it's too bad we didn't have more of this green in there still pretty neat see you tomorrow all right so we're getting ready to put the second coat finish on um so what i have here is my smooth spigot jaws that fit in my stronghold chuck and it's great for this purpose i'll just put this on here expand it don't need a whole lot of clamping pressure for it to work you can try and even it up if you wish there it's a little wobbly but that's all right we're just going to take some 4-0 steel wool and of course we're just going to go over this clean off the end and then once the finish goes on you can just hold it by the back in here and work it off and then that way you don't ever touch the finished work so what we're going to do is i'm going to take the foil steel wool and go through all of these clean them all off and then remount them and put the finish on them um and get this done it's only going to take two coats by looks of it so that's good all right let's get some finish on these that blue pearl has probably got to be my favorite all right so it's assembly time are the kits that i'm going with i get these from artistic wooden supply in toronto and they are the chef's specialties stainless steel grinders and they come in increments of two inches so this mill is actually larger than a 12 inch so um this is actually a 14 inch shaft so i'll be able to cut that down and i'll show you how to do that i'll do one of these and then uh i'll show you how i do this and then we will just come into the end all right so when you buy these kits they come in like i said two inch increments and if you want to you can try and make these the perfect size for them to fit so you don't have to cut these bars but it's really not that big of a deal so anyway you just put the spring bar in the bottom of this that's the female grinder portion the male i don't put the spring in at this point put the drive shaft down through it put the top on the mill pull everything up nice and tight and i usually leave about a quarter inch to 3 8 of rod left so now take this off measuring tape so we'll call that five and an eighth is what that is come up from the bottom so there i'll go over and cut this off pin this end and then uh that's it put it together all right so we're over here at the vise this is actually some type of rubber flooring it's got grooves in it they seem to work well for this because you can place the shaft in there and it's not a real huge deal if this gets marked up but i prefer to do it this way [Laughter] laughs now i just take a hammer this is just a normal construction hammer peeing over the ends you may have to adjust it if it moves i don't like to have a lot of it sticking out because you might end up bending this over so just lightly like so there you go cut to fit all right so before i do any uh drilling and putting screws in i put it all back together again minus the spring for now put the top on [Applause] and tighten down the nut on the top to make sure that it is all good to go and there you go now we'll just put the the drive piece in and um put in some screws this is a 1 8 drill bit you can see it this is a phillips number one that's what these tiny little screws take so take this apart this time we want to make sure our spring goes in and it goes in large side down there's a little bar that goes on the very bottom that holds everything in place so that when you take the mill apart it doesn't fly apart there you go now as you can see it's it's spring loaded and that's how you get your different grinds the more you loosen this off the top the course of the grind will be under the top place where this is called turn plate is what they call it anyway it goes in there this is just a brass rod you can use whatever sometimes it's a really tight fit in here again pre-drill [Music] if you don't pre-drill you run the risk of snapping these screws off there you go um some people have tried to use salt in the stainless steel grinders do not do that it will corrode and it will be a mess uh literally a year maybe now we've used the we have a mill like this uh gee i put the i put the stainless steel mechanism in it probably six seven years ago and it's still going strong so these are good these are good uh mechanisms anyway there's a link in this description down below where you can get them from artistic wooden supply in toronto or it used to be called woodchuckers anyway i'm going to put the rest of these together and we'll finish this video off all right let's have a little chat about our mill mills so this is the glitter gold any of these areas you see on these mills it's dark like this that means it was rotten and even though designer epoxy is not supposed to be a stabilizing resin by any stretch of the imagination it did a really good job of weeping in there and hardening up all these areas and the thousand bug passages that are in these mills crazy so that's the glitter gold a little hard to see in the cherry this is one of my favorites it's the blue laguna of course up in there again rotten areas absolutely fantastic job of that it's the lilac purple a little hard to see here i'll put some stills up in the end hopefully it'll really show that the true beauty of these and all these dark spots these little holes i mean those are all just bug passages crazy but i really like this style of mill it's kind of nice easy to use anyway that is the lilac purple this is my favorite and that's the rainbow blue pearl in there makes it awesome all the way up to the top and again for the size of it this mill is quite heavy it's full of epoxy and again there's just there was no way to do these without the epoxy there's no way there's the elmo emerald green it's nice too it's too bad we didn't get more of it in these mills this was actually uh one of the more solid pieces so that's why there's not much of it uh the taller mills are between 12 and 13 and these ones i believe are between seven and eight inches fuchsia and if you remember we put that mother of pearl in there too and again it's another heavy mill for the size of it again all these spots those are all worm passages absolutely fantastic job and i think it's probably got a lot to do with long open time on designer epoxy so it's a long time to to to weep in and harden those areas so you know what hats off to designer epoxy made a great product the other thing with uh designer epoxy make sure you use code inlayjim21 i think a lot of people are actually forgetting to put the code in when they order their epoxy so inlay gem 21 there's a link in the description down below for that same sandpaper.ca the three and a half inch nipple discs uh you've seen me use them i typically will sand these beads power sand 400 and above those are polishing grades so you won't lose a lot of fine detail i wouldn't do it um below that because you may lose a lot of the detail but you know results speak for themselves if i can power send everything on power sending it you're going to get a better finish and it's faster so make sure you do that um i got a sticker in it's from sean weir terum's turnings he's in fredericton new brunswick and that's of course on the east coast of canada if you're not familiar so he has facebook and instagram i'll put his details down below and i'll get his sticker up on the fridge kill and then i'll get you one back sean thanks a lot for sending that along um what else can i say uh designer epoxy really knocked it out of the park again just a fantastic product make sure you check it out same thing with those three and a half inch dibble discs if you're not using those you're missing out i really recommend getting those and of course stir bond adhesives mixing that with the pigment and filling in any of those little areas that the epoxy didn't get to i mean it would it would we'd have to recast that in epoxy again in days and days um speaking of that i mean i don't do a lot of prepper mills and the reason why i don't do a lot of proper meals it's hard to get your money on them um to make those six pepper mills you know easily a couple of days into it and you know if you look at the time frame how many bowls i can turn in that same time frame compared to pepper mills um bowls will win hands down i'm a bold guy through and through that i mean that's what i like to do i like to make big salad bowls that's what i like to do um anyway it's always good to have a little bit of variety especially if you're going uh to shows and that kind of business where you've you know if you just show up with bowls and then you know you're only appealing to a certain customer if you show up with some center work like the pepper mills and bottle stoppers and cutting boards and you know maybe appeal to everybody so keep that in mind if you're thinking about doing the craft show type thing uh what else i guess that's it um anyway don't forget about discount codes in the description down below and i'm not even sure we're gonna do next video um that's why it's important to have the bell notification you know when i put up the new video and i may put up another one through the week next week i i don't know we'll have to see how it goes that's it anytime you give my videos a thumbs up certainly helps the channel and of course anytime you share my videos on your social media platforms that certainly is a big bonus as well take care stay safe and we'll see you next time you

Channel: Sprague Woodturning

Views: 73,943

Rating: 4.9293704 out of 5

Keywords: peppermill, pepper mill, resin, designer epoxy, made in canada, woodturning, wood, wood turning, petawawa, renfrew county, starbond

Id: VQTw5zaHWH8

Length: 49min 53sec (2993 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 26 2021