Boring pepper mills without forstners

[Jake Helmboldt]

I have a crush grind mechanism and need to make a pepper mill, however I'm not keen on spending a bunch on forstners that I may not use again (should I not make more mills). So, have any of you bored the mills with turning tools? I'm thinking about using my square edge scraper to get a stright bore. It seems if you bore from both ends you don't have to worry about too much overhang off the tool rest. Have any of you done this?

[Terry Beadle]

Your approach to the problem sounds right to me...however, I would use what ever bits I had on hand before using the square scraper to finish. A hole is a hole in this case. You will have to be very careful to keep the diameter of the hole correct for the grinding mechanism. The area of the mill that stores the pepper corns will not need critical attention but the mating surfaces of the top and bottom need to be good.

[Justin Stephen]

Has anyone ever tried boring for one of these using a spade bit? They are much cheaper than forstners. Although, I am not sure how easy it would be to find spade bits in the sizes you would need. 1 1/16 and 1 5/8 are not sizes you normally see in spade bits, at least at the BORG.

[Michelle Rich]

bore out with wood bits as far as you can..then use a square scraper , a skew,or a bedan to bore out the rest..be careful to keep true & square as you finish up

[Greg Just]

Jake:

This should work, but I would recommend that you not finish the outside until you have completed the boring and aligned the holes in the top and bottom. Chances are they will not be lined up after the boring is done.

[Rob Price]

I had the same question, and looked into some auger bits as well, but the cost was the same. I bought a 22pc forstner set from Rockler on sale last year and was disappointed to see I was missing two sizes for the crush grinder mechanism. I ended up buying the 1 1/16th bit that every other mechanism seems to use, I anticipate I'll be making more of them. For the 1 9/16 hole I plan on using my 1 1/2 bit and then trimming up the remaining 1/16th with a scraper or parting tool.

[Bill Bulloch]

You can actually bore the hole with a one inch bit, or even less. The only critical part is the bottom where the fitting goes, this must by 1 1/16 and you can slip up on this with the skew; it only needs to be as deep as the mechanism itself. The 1 5/8 is not critical either, as long as it is big enough for the fitting you are good to go. Penn State sells the 1 1/6" Forstner Bit for $7.95. I got theirs three years ago and have used it many, many times and it still works fine.

[ken gibbs]

I found a nice set of Forstner bits at Northern Tool for around $32.00. So far these bits are performing very well in my lathe chuck. They start around 3/4" and go up to about 2 1/4" in 1/16 increments. They are HSS and I would love to be able to afford this bit set in carbide. Just take it very easy when you are cutting/boring hollow forms so you do not over heat and burn up the temper.

[Jamie Donaldson]

Ken- if your Forstners are HSS you don't need to worry about ever getting them hot enough in actual use to damage the hardness.