The Beginning

Hey, I am Dave and I decided to start this blog as a means to easily share updates of my creative projects with friends and family.  I generally have several projects on the go at one time, and their themes can vary significantly.  As such it can be tough to keep people up to date with my crazy hobbies.  So, to start things off I will show you one of my more traditional projects: a pepper mill.

During the Holidays I was trying to come up with a good little project to work on using a wood lathe.  My Dad has been doing a fair amount of wood turning in the past few years, and I enjoy tinkering on the machine with him.  I think I had the idea of a pepper mill, and he found a place to get the mechanical bits (Lee Valley).  This weekend we dug out a rough piece of wood (I think it is maple) and I fumbled out a design.  Most people would recognize pepper mills in restaurants, with all their curves and ridges.  I decided to go with a simpler design, with smoother lines.  And viola:

At first the wood looked fairly plain, but as we cut deeper some very nice grain started to come out.  The simple design was fairly quick and easy to carve out.  I then sanded it in several stages to get is nice and smooth.

Today I started oiling it with a Scandinavian oil.  Originally I wanted to stain it darker, but after seeing the grain, I didn't want to lose it.  So the oil was a good choice.  It adds a bit of gold flavor and helps some of the grain to jump out.  So it has gone from this:

To this:

The next steps are to buff it up to a real nice shine before moving to the mechanical stage.  I have a kit for the mechanical bits, so I just need to drill all the holes.  I need to hollow the piece out to make a reservoir for pepper grains, and holes for the drive shaft. Then I just need to put it all together. I will let you know how it turns out.

Maybe next time I will introduce you to some of my nerdier projects...