A mortar and pestle has been on my list of things to do. One of our club members asked if I would turn one for him to give to his friend that is either already a Dr or is studying to become one (can't remember which). So I've kind of been waiting until the time "felt right" and I decided which wood to use.
So I got home from work today after picking up a small load of some mesquite and the mystery wood, which I think now might be arborvitae (a couple of branches still had some foliage left). Anyway, took the truck over to the wood pile to unload and seal the new load, and one of the left over chunks of pecan was laying there, staring me in the face
It was a good size chunk, maybe a 1/4 of a log about 1' long. It had a nice streak of heartwood and was clean and clear. So I jumped online to see if I could find a pic of a mortar & pestle I liked and then I got out the chainsaw and cut out about a 5" x 5" x 9-10" spindle blank. Turned it round, then cut a tenon on each end and parted it in about in half so I had 2 pieces each with a tenon, 1 for the mortar and 1 for the pestle.
Something in the air was just right today, it turned as sweet and smooth as can be! I used my hollowing rig to turn the inside of the mortar (good practice with the rig being able to see exactly what it was doing, and also made it a breeze to get a very consistent wall thickness to the exact thickness I wanted).
So here it is with just a 1st coat of DO. 3 3/4" tall x 4 1/4 wide, 2 7/8" deep and 3/8" walls. I wanted to keep it fairly heavy since a delicate mortar would be pretty useless. The pestle is 3 3/4" long and maybe 1 1/2" at the widest (forgot to measure that part).
Comments alway welcome!
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Originally Posted by Lupe Duncan
