Baseball bat pepper mill

My first attempt at a pepper mill started out as a professional baseball bat. At a minor league game recently, one of the players was kind enough to give a broken bat to my 8-year old at the end of the game. She thought it was the greatest gift ever. She wanted to me to glue it so she could play baseball with it, or make a display case so she could display it proudly in her room to forever remember this moment. I’m thinking, come on now, this isn’t Mickey Mantle’s bat. With this free lumber, how about a nice pepper mill made from my new lathe? It took about a week of convincing, but she agreed even though she does not like pepper. When I took the bat’s original finish off, she disliked the color of natural ash, so she wanted red. So three coats of water-based aniline dye “Cardinal Red” and many coats of oil-varnish later, she’s a happy customer. I wanted to keep the bat’s basic shape so no fancy spindle work. Maybe next time… I now owe my 9-year old a set of salt and pepper mills. :)

-- Lou