6" Scotch Pine pepper mill

[Bob Vavricka]

A 6" peppermill made from a Scotch Pine trees that grew at the end of Old Science Hall on the East Central University campus in Ada, OK. Stabilized with Cactus Juice and finished with CA. Given to the East Central University Provost on his retirement from East Central University.
mill.jpg

[Bob Bergstrom]

Never saw pine looking that beautiful. Is it dyed? Great job making a beautiful useful keepsake!

[Bob Vavricka]

Never saw pine looking that beautiful. Is it dyed? Great job making a beautiful useful keepsake!

No stain or dye other than nature. It is spalted and I stabilized it after drying it. I made a small bowl from some of the wood that was not stabilize and it was difficult to turn (like most pine). Stabilizing it made the pepper mill easy to turn. I used CA as a finish, but plan to do some just stabilized and buffed. Thanks for the comment.

[Brian Tymchak]

Wow, that's beautiful! Nicely done. Looks like a burl of some sort. Would never guessed that was a pine wood.

[Allan Wright]

Beautiful work, I like the coloring. CA finish is outstanding. I need to learn how to do that.

[Don Emmerling]

[QUOTE=Bob Vavricka;2436596]A 6" peppermill made from a Scotch Pine trees that grew at the end of Old Science Hall on the East Central University campus in Ada, OK. Stabilized with Cactus Juice and finished with CA. Given to the East Central University Provost on his retirement from East Central University.
mill.jpgAll I can say is WOW.

[Steve Huffman]

Very nice indeed. Color and finish is just outstanding, nice work Bob!

[Al Launier]

Incredibly beautiful!!! An heirloom for sure! Can't stop looking at it!

[Rick Gibson]

Definitely a keeper. Nice job on the finish.

[Scott Brandstetter]

Bob, absolutely beautiful piece. I too can't believe it's pine.

Would you mind speaking a bit about your method for finish. How long after the cactus juice does the CA go on. How many coats of CA, any other finish after the CA, buffing material? I've used CA a fair amount and don't come close to this level of finish.

[Bob Vavricka]

Scott, sure, thanks for asking.
The cactus juice is a stabilizing resin that I used on the blank before turning it. The piece is put in a vacuum chamber immersed in the stabilizing resin and a vacuum pulled on it to remove the air in the wood. Once the air is removed the vacuum is released and the resin is pulled into the wood. The piece is then placed in an oven to set the resin. You can read more about that process if interested at the turntex.com website. There are other stabilizing systems available. This is just the one I use.

After the resin was cured, I turned the peppermill as I would any other mill and sanded it to 320 grit. I think, but have not tried yet that I could just continue to use finer grits and polish it using micromesh or buffing compounds since the stabilizing resin is a plastic resin and get a nice finish. However, I use CA quite a bit and know I can get a good finish with it so that is what I used this time.

There is an article in the August 2014 American Woodturner magazine on using CA for a finish that is very similar to what I do and goes into more detail that I will be able to. I use a nitrile glove on the fore-finger of one hand to smooth the CA out from the bottom of the turning as I apply a little medium CA from the top. I run the lathe around 400 rpm or slower if the turning is very big in diameter to keep it from being slung off the turning. I apply enough CA that it stays liquid enough to let me run back and forth a couple of times with my gloved finger to smooth it out. When applying the CA I like to see a very small ridge of it being moved by my gloved finger. I try to remove the gloved finger before the CA starts to set and start dragging on the glove. This will take a little practice to get right, too much CA and it will tend to form ridges at the larger diameters as it is pulled there from the rotation of the part. It is better it err on the side of a lighter coat.
I let the piece continue to rotate on the lathe for a few minutes before spraying a light coat of CA accelerator on to harden the coat. If I'm not in a hurry, I just let it cure on its own, but usually use some accelerator. I like the aerosol accelerator and hold the can back so I am spraying a fine mist. I usually apply 3 coats of medium CA and then sand after the last coat. I try not to sand between coats unless I really mess up and have to.

One of the essentials to get a nice final finish is in the sanding. I turn the lathe off and sand with the length of the piece to remove any ridges and level the finish. I sand with 400 grit sandpaper torn and folded into a narrow strip. Try to remove all shiny spots. If I try sanding with the lathe running I almost always go through the finish and have to put on more coats.

I finish up by buffing with Tripoli and white diamond buffing compounds. I don't use the carnauba wax buff and rarely put any wax on at all. I tried a lot of methods before settling on this one for me. I will say it took a little trial and error and sanding off messed up CA finish to get there. But now I rarely have any problems achieving a nice finish in a short time. I probably have 60-90 minutes total in the pepper mill finish from starting to put on the CA to final buffing. Let me know if you want any more info.

[daryl moses]

Very nice!
Thanks for the tutorial!

[Scott Brandstetter]

Bob, thanks so much for explaining the finish work. I now understand why your piece looks so nice. I am going to work hard to perfect my (your) method. Thanks for taking the time to reply.