Weed Pots

These little guys gives you a great place to put those sweet little weeds your child gives you.

I saw these at a few craft shows. They are basically miniature vases. Instead of being hollowed out, they are simply drilled.
Simple to make, these are great gifts. And great for getting rid of those cut-offs you have been hanging on to.
I made three this afternoon. one walnut, one ash and one chestnut.

First, find your block of scrap/cut-off that is suitable for the size of weed pot you are going for. These can be as tiny as a shot glass, or as large as a beer bottle I suppose.
In this particular case, I had a piece of fallen Ash tree I was hanging onto for some time now. It dried nicely and didn't really split anywhere. Using my band-saw I cut a couple flats on it that were somewhat parallel to one-another. It doesn't have to be perfect. Just get it as close as you can. The two flats are going to take the drive spur and live center and I will form a tenon for the chuck to clamp onto. At the same time, I will rough it to round and decide which end to be the base of the weed pot.

Once you have a good tenon formed and rough rounded, you can remove the drive spur and attach it to your chuck. I still slide the tail-stock up to give it more support during the shaping procedure.

Once it is mounted to the chuck and onto the lathe, bring the tail-stock up to the workpiece and tighten it in place.. This will give you smoother cutting action while you are finish shaping the weed pot.

I roughed it with a bowl gouge to my finished shape. Then removed the tail-stock and put the tool-rest on the face (top) of the weed pot.

I simply smoothed and flattened the top a little, The replaced the tail-stock and sanded the entire outside up to 320 grit.
now its time to drill the hole...

I mounted my Jacobs chuck into the tail-stock of my lathe with a small 1/4" brad point drill bit. Brad point bits tend NOT TO drift when attached to a lathe. After I drilled the hole to my required depth, I followed up with a larger 1/2" drill bit.

Time to finish sand the top of the weed pot.
I used my round nose scraper to make the top concave entering the hole created by the drill bit. Sand it to 400 grit and finish it with what-ever you want to finish it with. I used a mix of tung oil, wipe on polyurethane and mineral spirits. It is something I have been experiencing with a bit lately and this mix ratio seems to work quite well.
Maybe a forthcoming instructable on it.

Once your finish dries, its time to part it off and wax it to help protect from moisture around the sink.

These are very very simple to do. and quite fun.

Thanks for looking