Miniature pestle and mortar, a little tutorial

Hello my friends, 

First I want to thank you all for your interest and response to my project. Last week, on the 27th of April we celebrate the birthday of our king, Willem Alexander. (Whom I think should call himself William IV but that is an entirely different matter. On the anual fleamarkets that (besides festivals etc.) are held in every large and small town, I found and bought three miniature 'bronze' mortars. Two small mortars which  (in 1:1) could be found in many kitchens in the 18th century, but certainly in the kitchen of Huis ter Swinnendael. The third one is a large mortar of a type which you would usualy find in an apothecary or sometimes in a castle's kitchen. You understand I could not walk passed them without snatching them up for a very fair price. I did not even haggle. they were dirt cheap.

They are cute in their own right but they do miss their pestles. Normally a bronze mortar (in the Netherlands) used to have a bronze pestle. However I have decided to turn them from wood. I have looked up several pictures of old pestles and made a few sketches.

On the right you see the sketches I made for different types of pestles. I have cllected some photo's of pestles and mortars for comparison. On the left I have drawn the large mortar to scale with the miniature and added two designs for a turned collumn which acts as a base for the mortar.

Not long ago I was in the museum 'Het Prinsenhof' in Delft. There they have a great example of an Apothacre's mortar on a turned stand. Both beautiful examples from the 17th century as you can see in the picture below.

Unfortunately I still do not have bought a lathe and have used an old drill for this. The base of the large mortar must be made from a piece of wood with a diameter of at least 3 cm. But that does not fit in my drill so that project has to wait until I buy the lathe. I am however very pleased with how the three pestles  that I have turned, turned out.

To make them I stuck a length of wooden dowel in the drillbit. I put one of my desing for pestles next to it and marked he dowel at every point where the design either gets thicker or thinner or just gets scored. By turning the drill at low speed the pencil mark goes round the dowel without having to move the pencil.

Then I used a small chissle to remove the wood where nescesary. Now I had the rough shape of the pestle. Lastly I used small woodfiles to add the texture and smooth everything off. And voila! three pestles to scale.

I am very pleased with the result. I will sand them with a very fine grade of sandpaper and colour them with a light woodstain. to give them a mre uesed look. Now I only have to build the kitchen to put them in. :-)

That is it for now. Thank you for your visit and till the next post!