I Mugged My Son

I haven’t had much time to comment or even read all my email notifications from this site lately as I have been using all my time on some projects and also learning how to use my new GoPro camera and my iMovie video editing program. A bit of a challenge for me and time consuming too. Don’t worry, I’m not planning to produce a lot of bad woodworking videos! creating videos just seems like a logical extension of photography, which I like, especially now that the new cameras are smarter than me!

I was just now deleting a lot of my old project and blog photos from my photo gallery and I came across this traditional beer mug I turned for my son’s birthday a few years ago and I thought I would post it to let you all know that I’m still alive (at least I think I am). Besides the turning work I did a little amateur carving on it. I will be catching up with your posts pretty soon.

The photos pretty much speak for themselves except the bottom piece is maybe slightly unusual. The body of the mug was turned from wet wood (birch) and hollowed out like a pipe. I then turned a groove on the inside for the bottom. A dry piece for the bottom was cut which had the same inside diameter as the mug body where the groove was located. The body was then allowed to shrink in around the bottom piece to make a water proof fit. This was a trick used occasionally in the old days for mugs and buckets.

The decorative bands are also somewhat significant because in the past these mugs were made from staves and held together with real bands made from willow branches and other types of trees too. When filled with liquid the unglued staves expanded enough to make the joints watertight.