Kuksa mania

So Jim Jakosh made me do it. I had looked at these before but never got around to working on them. Rainy cold weather also helped.

Here is my rendition of his Kuksa cups which all vary a bit from his and each other. They are made of (1) western red cedar, )3) big leaf maple, and (5) apple. All finished with 3 coats of walnut oil and the exteriors waxed with carnauba wax and buffed. You will notice the cup on the right front has a different colored handle. I tried gluing on a contrasting wood because the size of the cup blank was too small to include the handle. It seemed to work fine. 
I started more or less free style with the cup in the center of the pict which is cedar and is easier to work with; especially on the band saw and sander. It came out a bit large and the handle too extended, maybe good for soup. Then I worked on the big leaf maple and finally the apple wood.....hard to differentiate in the photo. The apple is very dense and harder wood than the maple and I like its final product the best. 
I tried Jim's technique of hot gluing a counter balance opposite the handle for the lathe turning part and it made it easier to turn at a higher rpm but I found with my heavy lathe (Powermatic) that I could turn at 1100 rpm with out vibration so I left that step out. 
These will be gifts to the outdoors people in the family who hike and portage canoe a lot.