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Redwood Spice Rack

In part one of a new project, Colwin Way makes a spice rack.

Table of Contents

As I’ve mentioned several times in previous projects, a lot of my inspiration comes from the people I visit or the people around me, and this month’s project is no exception. In 2001 I was very lucky to be invited down to Puy-Saint-Martin in southern France to demonstrate at a show organised by French woodturner Jean-Francois Escoulen. This was my first show in France and really the first time I was truly immersed in southern French culture, by which I mean stopping at 1pm for a three-hour lunch break in the full sun while tucking into paella served from the biggest paella dish I’d ever seen, plus being forced to take part in toasting the morning’s work with a glass of the local grape juice. Even though the demonstrating was hard and hot work, I still had time to go and see other turners, of course I went straight to the French turners and in particular Alain Mailland and Thierry Martenon as their work struck me as being really different and exciting.

As a way of remembering my travels I tend to, if I can afford it, buy a couple of pieces for my collector’s shelf at home and in this instance I bought a rose made from pistachio root by Alain for my wife and a couple of leaning pots by Thierry for me. These two pots have lived in my kitchen since this trip, one is used for storing garlic and the other for kitchen utensils. This is probably sacrilege to the purists, but they are really useful pots and this way I get to see them every day. The shape of these pots has always grabbed me and I’ve often thought about making something inspired by Thierry’s great design. So with this project my intention is to repeat the leaning pot design in miniature and use them as vessels for a spice compendium. As this is a fairly large project we’re going to break it up into two parts, the rack in this edition and the lidded pots in the next issue.

As you can see, Thierry’s original pots lean over and to stop them from falling they have a lot of weight left in the bottom, which is something we would normally try to remove. However, I want my pots to do the same when placed on the table but also when sat in the rack. So as well as sanding a small offset flat on the bottom of the pots, we’re going to create recesses in the rack to place the pots into.

The pots made by French woodturner Thierry Martenon. The lighter pot (left) is made from beech and the darker pot (right) from acacia

Timber choice and preparation

My first thought when thinking of material for this project was to go for two timbers, one for the rack and one for the pots. However, when I started rooting through the timber store I found some lumps of giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) that I’ve had for over 15 years and I thought it would fit the look perfectly to use this both on the rack and the pots. For the pots I’m going to use redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) burr, which is an extremely tight burr with no real grain direction, but for the rack I will use cleaner timber with less burr and an obvious grain direction. However, although I had the perfect size pieces for the pots, I couldn’t quite find the same for the rack so will have to split the timber down and rejoin.

Selecting the timbers for the spice rack

Equipment and materials

• Bandsaw
• Planer
• Sash cramps
• G clamps
• PVA glue
• 12mm drill bit
• 28mm drill bit
• M12 35mm bolt
• M12 nut
• M12 washer
• 6mm bowl gouge
• Socket wrench
• 25mm skew chisel
• Callipers
• Divider

1. Now we’ve selected the timber, clean up one side of the board with the bandsaw. Scribe one side with a straightedge, being sure to take out cracks or defects before slicing to this line
2. Make sure the timber has a square edge and clean face, so first surface plane one face before using that face against the planer fence in order to square the edge to this face. Notice that any part of the planer knife not being used is covered with the bridge guard; if the timber is thin enough this bridge guard can cover the whole cutter block and the timber pass under it; in this case the timber is too big so has to pass beside it. With a clean 90° surface to one edge and face, use the bandsaw to rip the board into two before passing through the thicknesser, making both pieces ready for gluing
3. Cut the boards straight, then glue the two parts together using PVA glue. Wipe off any excess glue before it dries, then leave overnight to dry. It helps to gently clamp both ends with a G clamp where the two boards meet before tightening the sash clamps, stopping the boards from sliding when put under pressure

Offset turning and jig

4. Once the board is dry, prepare the cut blanks. There are two pieces to prepare: one measuring 200mm for the bottom tray and one 150mm for the top tray. Using a set of dividers or a compass, mark out your two discs then cut them out on a bandsaw (or a jigsaw). To mount the discs on the lathe, drill a couple of holes, firstly a large hole of 28mm to a depth of 15mm and then a 12mm hole going all the way through the blanks. It’s best if you can to use a Forstner bit held in a pillar drill for accuracy and safety
5. Before shaping, clean up the underside and edge of the bottom tray. Hold the blank in your chuck with suitable jaws. Start with a bowl gouge to clean up the outside edge, before cleaning the face. Sand to a good finish
6. Next, turn a series of holes in the two discs to sit the spice pots in; to do this you need to offset the blanks. Here’s a simple jig to help. The drawing’s dimensions can be changed to suit your projects. Using a 24mm thick piece of ply cut to a 330mm disc, accurately mark the centre points on both sides of this disc. On one side measure 62mm from the centre point, then at right angles to this and again from centre point measure another mark at 48mm. On both of these marks, drill a 12mm hole through the blank. From these marks draw a straight line through the centre point to the edge of the disc
7. Fix the plywood disc to a faceplate and screw onto your lathe, the plate is now ready to attach the blank. Use a 35mm M12 bolt through the offset plate with a 22mm washer and M12 nut to secure the blank in place
8. Mark the positions of each recess you intend to turn into your blanks, these marks have to be visible on the edge of the blank in order to line up with the lines you drew on the ply disc
9. When everything is in line, tighten the blank into position with a socket wrench. Be careful not to crush the timber if using soft timber. It’s sensible to have the lathe disconnected from the power while doing adjustments
10. Now held securely, we can start turning. One word of warning, especially if this is your first time turning off-centre. Before starting the lathe, turn its speed down minimum and, if you don’t have a variable speed machine, adjust it to run at its lowest belt position. Start the machine low and slowly turn the speed up to a safe running speed; you need to have the lathe under control and not moving around while turning or your cuts will echo the movement
11. Mark the circumference of your recess with a pencil before touching the blank with your chisel. In this case, the recess diameter is 50mm. If all is well, loosen the nut holding the blank, turn the blank to the next position and re-tighten, then repeat the process
12. Repeat this process until all holes are made and the blank looks like this, then remove it from your offset plate and repeat on the top tray. The top tray has a smaller recess diameter of 38mm and uses the offset plates’ other securing hole of 48mm from the centre point; again mark with a pencil before turning

Fitting the bearing

13. The spice rack needs to be able to turn so no spice is ever at the back and to do this we need to use a Lazy Susan bearing. Fitting the bearing is fairly simple, requiring a shallow recess in the bottom of the main lower tray. There are many ways to hold the blank to turn this recess but I found it easier to use a set of button jaws. Cut the recess to 105mm in diameter and 7mm deep for the 75mm bearing to sit into
14. You want the bearing to sit up off the work surface, so you need a base for it to sit on – a piece of ply once again works really well. This ply is 10mm thick and 150mm in diameter
15. With the disc out, clean up; again there’s many ways of doing this but I’ve opted for a wood plate jaw. The wood plate jaw means you can create a shallow 3mm hold point and flip the disc to access both faces of the ply disc. Here you can see how to attach the bearing to both ply plate and redwood blank. Screw the bearing central to the plywood plate then rotate the plate so you have an eight-pointed star pattern, mark one of the unfixed hole positions, then drill a 12mm hole all the way through the ply disc. This is now your access point to screw the bearing to the underside of the redwood bottom tray

Finishing touches

16. Rather than leave the top of the trays flat, it’s far more attractive to turn a slight curve to this surface, however, caution needs to be taken as you’re turning over the recesses you’ve already created. Use the wood plate jaws once again to hold the tray
17. Position the toolrest slightly lower than normal and drop your bowl gouge handle low; this works better the longer you’ve ground the wings of your gouge. Turn the flute of your gouge in to the workpiece at around 9 o’clock to take a sheer cut, gently skimming the surface
18. When you’re happy with the shape, sand the top to a finish, being careful not to soften the leading edge of the recesses
19. Now you can think about the stem and the handle before fitting the rack together. It’s important to keep the design running through the project and as we already have a clear design for the pots, we can use this in the stem too. Thinking back to Thierry’s original pots and the lines, we can incorporate them here, not too thick; this piece measures 28mm by 130mm long. You can drive the blank with any drive as long as it’s smaller than the tenon you’re going to put on its end
20. The centre stem lines can be put on with a skew chisel, either freehand or marked out with a set of dividers first. If you cut with the skew stood up, you can get a really clean cut, which is especially good for softer timber, however, if you turn the skew onto its side you can achieve a much wider V cut
21. The tenons are critical to the strength of the rack so take your time with them to make sure they fit perfectly. Use a set of callipers sized over the drill bit used to drill the holes in the redwood trays, start cutting with a 6mm parting tool until the callipers drop over the tenon. Always test fit the tenon before assuming they’re the correct size as you may need to skim a little more off for the perfect fit
22. The handle at the top of the spice rack is used to turn the piece. You can see I’ve laid the skew down to show you the alternative cut. The tailstock end of the handle still has a small amount of waste that will need to be taken off; this can be done first with a pull saw, then a small disc sander. Use a bowl power sanding pad either in the lathe or held in a cordless drill with a 400 grit disc in to sand out any sign of holding
23. Here are the various parts dry assembled. I’ve oiled this piece with finishing oil, which gives it the dark red colour

Further reading

How to Make Spice Pots

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