Segmented Travel Mug for Jeanne

One of the reasons I began wood turning was the idea that I'd never have to buy my loved ones a Christmas present again. Now, I'm not saying I didn't plan on ever buying a gift again. And I'm not even saying it was one of the top three reasons. But the idea was appealing.

Two weeks before Christmas and nine projects behind schedule that dream died. I had grand plans. Wonderful notions. All I was lacking was time and experience.

One project in particular was a present for my girlfriend. She loves coffee, so when I saw Woodcraft's Travel Mug kit I knew it would be the prefect present. The kit is very simple; you get the inner liner and the cap that goes on top. A wooden body is turned and glued up under the lip.

But I didn't want to do just a plain simple body. I wanted to do something she would fall head over heels for. I was going to do a segmented mug. Eight bands of Purpleheart, Paduak, Maple and Walnut. The four made up a color palette that I knew she'd love.

Segmented turning is when you glue up multiple pieces of wood into a blank, giving your final project a particular pattern or color scheme. For this particular mug I cut the above mentioned wood pack into eight staves. These are long trapezoid pieces, that when stacked together make a cylinder. I then turned a base with a tenon to hold the mug when turning. My glue up gave me a 10" long cylinder which I chopped down to about 7" and then attached it to the tenon base.

The next day I set my lovely blank onto the lathe and began my turning. To add stability I turned a cone piece that was pressed into the top of the mug with the tail stock. I was quit pleased with myself, and making good time with turning the mug down to size, when I started to hear a flapping sound. To my dismay I had begun to turn through the bottom of the mug.

Not a major problem. I would just part off the top of the cylinder, glue it on to the base and add an inch thick lip of mahogany to the top. But the piece decided it would rather jump of my lathe.

Left with just my original mahogany base and a dejected spirit, I packed it in for the night. The next day, with some extra mahogany from fellow Quantum Woodworker Matt, I came up with a new design. I drilled a 1/4" hold slightly into the base of the mug. I then turned two pieces of mahogany into 4" diameter x 2" thick disks. In the center of the disks I again drilled a 1/4" hole, but this time all the way through. This allowed me to align each piece with a dowel, keeping everything centered for gluing up. I then stacked one disk on the base, the remaining 3" of glued up cylinder, and the final disk.

I was much more careful this time. Since the top piece was a solid disk with only the 1/4" hole I was easily able to support the mug with a cone center. The outer diameter was turned down to about 1/4" over-sized first in order to lower the weight of the piece when I turned down the inside diameter.

When I had the piece turned down to the proper size I sanded to 400 grit. Over the next week I applied several coats of a clear polyurethane finish lightly sanding with a 400 grit in between each.

Before finish:

After finish:

While it was a frustrating beginning, I'm ultimately much happier with the final style, the bands are much more balanced with a top and bottom of mahogany. More importantly, however, Jeanne absolutely loved it.