Shopsmith Forums

charlese wrote:Hi Tango! I have made several pepper/salt mills. The longest was an 18" mill.
This one was made from red oak. I found I had to drill from each end to keep the holes, at the ends, to be perfectly centered.

Charlese;

Did the holes line up properly when you drilled from both ends? Mine never do...

You can also use Dri-Coat spray. It is a little pricy but it reduces the friction, aids in the cut and slows the wear and tear on your bit. Available from Woodcraft ofr $17.99 a can.

IMHO the auger bits are way too often overlooked in favor of newer alternatives. They are harder to find and ARE pricey! Do not know about availability of your needed sizes. If you run across any older threaded spur (manual brace type) consider grinding off the threads. They DO tend to be wobbley(not a concern with the brace driving them).

If I was to need to drill DEEP holes I would prefer the auger type.

BTW are you drilling with the workpiece still mounted using a chuck? From your comments I think you do NOT (YET) have one. Some sort of v-block holding fixture would help alignment.

Mine came from Penn State. Jim

[quote="tango"]
Charlese]
There was a offset of about 1/16". I worked the bit in past the offset several times from both ends. That took made a chamfer in the ledge. Then some sandpaper on a dowel. Daughter reports no problem in hanging up pepper seeds.

The attached photo shows a disaster in the making. There are two 6" extenders on the end of the bit. To make this disaster, I drilled all the way through. The hole at the top was 3/16" off center. Of course, the top would rotate like a cam. (bad news).

If I would have planned better, I would have stopped the bit about 1/2" from the top. Then I could have drilled a centered top hole and easily have carved down (tapered) the offset. Instead, I turned a new body and used the already prepared top.

The off center one turned into a flower vase. Maybe some day it will be a lamp.

[ATTACH]5479[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH]5477[/ATTACH]

You know, I was intrigued by the title of this thread and it made me chuckle. If anything, this was definitely not "boring"!!:D
BPR

P.S. Charlese, that's a great pice of work you have there! It makes me want to try making one!
BPR

charlese wrote:There was a offset of about 1/16". I worked the bit in past the offset several times from both ends. That took made a chamfer in the ledge. Then some sandpaper on a dowel. Daughter reports no problem in hanging up pepper seeds.

The attached photo shows a disaster in the making. There are two 6" extenders on the end of the bit. To make this disaster, I drilled all the way through. The hole at the top was 3/16" off center. Of course, the top would rotate like a cam. (bad news).

Finally somebody saves me from my own critcism! I've been turning pepper mill cams for so long that I forgot how they're actually supposed to work! It took a long time to learn from my mistakes, but I think I've mastered all the wrong ways to do it now so I'll be moving onto learning the right way soon.

Once I receive my Barracuda 2 and my new 18" auger bit I'll be in pristine shape. I've got some blanks staring at me in the garage just dying to transformed into pepper mills and I can't wait to start on them.

With the hole bored out from one end I'm hoping that everything will line up better. This new setup of mine should alleviate a lot of the problems I've been having, but I'm sure some new ones will pop up before too long.

Murphy seems to like hanging around my garage when I'm working... can't get rid of the guy

If anyone is really interested in the pepper-mill area of wood turning I recommend checking this out:

http://www.pepper-passion.com/

It's a great site dedicated completely to pepper mills and the like. Apparently there is some money to be had in this area!

Thanks for the insight Charlese

Tango