Running Dog Woodworking

I’ve been turning rolling pins lately.

I turn a lot of rolling pins.  I use a story stick to mark out the workpiece diameter in five places and then I used to use three different calipers to measure the diameter as I parted down in the marked locations.  I would occasionally pick up the wrong caliper or the calipers would sometimes move and I would sometimes ruin workpieces.

My solution was to take an old cabinet scraper and cut three dovetail shaped openings.  I used a cutting wheel on my angle grinder to cut the openings and a grinding wheel to grind the points of the dovetail back until I had size of the opening exactly right.  I also cleaned up the cut edges with the grinding wheel so that they weren’t sharp.  Of course, you also want to round off the corners of the openings so they’re not grabby.  A hacksaw and a file would also work.  The reason for the dovetail shape on the opening is that the caliper slips over the workpiece and then drops into the bigger part of the opening.  This prevents the caliper from being too grabby or burning a line into the wood.

These take an hour or two to make, but if you’re making a lot of something that has to be turned down to a few consistent diameters then I think this is the way to go.  I no longer have to set my calipers, or worry about them drifting.  I pick up one tool and work my way from one end of the spindle to the other.  This saves a fair bit of time when I’m making a bunch of identical items.