The Woodshop Shed

Napkin holders...Pentagonal

Furnished content.
(from Lumberjocks.com)


This is a fun little project to finish on the lathe. It would be a good one for those folks who have small lathes. They make great gifts. Pictured on the right are Myrtle wood (Calif. Bay Laurel), center apple wood, right plum wood. I made sets of 8 of each.First I made a pentagram template piece so I can mark off the blanks on a board. Then I cut them free with the band saw and sand the 5 flats on a belt sander to remove the saw marks.
I have made them before and struggled with drilling the center holes on the drill press so I came up with another method on the lathe using a jig that mounts on a lathe chuck to hold the blanks and a Forstner drill bit mounted in a chuck in the tail stock. (see picts) Boards that are 3/4” to 1-1/4” thick work well and for a challenge you can try cutting a pentagram shaped column from a thick piece of wood (possibly a tree limb?) and slicing pieces off. The hole is 1-1/2” in diameter and each side measures 1-5/8”...or more if you want larger finished pieces.
After the hole is drilled I mount the rings on the short small diameter jaws of the chuck, round over the each side with a scraper tool and sand as needed. It is best to start the cut from the outside on the tips to reduce chipping and because of the smaller diameter I find a high speed (2000rpm) work well.
These were first coated with processed walnut oil. The Myrtle wood ones looked “flat” so I applied 3 coats of salad bowl finish to bring out the wood color better. The Plum ones the same and the Apple were just oiled and waxed.

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