Pepper grinder tip (with Mill Drill)

[rtyuiop]

Hi folks,

I've been on a bit of a pepper grinder kick lately, and have struggled from time to time getting the holes for top and body completely coaxial (the result being that as you turn the top, it's a smidge out of alignment with the body, apart from at one point in 360 degrees of rotation).

One thing which has helped - I realised one source of error came from drilling a slightly off centre/out of alignment mortise in the top of the body. I use a mill drill to drill the crushgrind holes anyway, and if you make the hole which contains the salt/pepper/whatever 25mm and put it all the way through the body, you can use the mill drill to help ensure the mortise is accurately centered on the centre hole.

This does put some restrictions on design (can't make the grinder overall too thin due to the thickness of the tenon), but overall it seems to be helping me keep things straight. You could address the thickness by moving the cutter on the mill drill, but I'm too lazy as it'd mean resetting it to drill the hole the grinder mechanism every time.

I still have a bit of an issue - struggling to find a good way of turning the top so it's dead on coaxial with the hole (going to drill and tap a plug chuck when I have the time), but this has helped on the body side, so thought I would pass it on... Hope it helps someone, and it's not excessively obvious!

Cheers,

Danny

[dai sensei]

Yes, you need to ensure tenons and recesses are lined up and at right angles to the meeting faces. I use a jam fit between the top and bottom sections to turn the overall shape, then open up the recess afterwards.

Another cause of out of round issues is oversanding. Many timbers, depending on grain and hardness, will sand differently from one face to another (ie sand more in one direction to other)