Turning a Coffee Cup
using a metal insert

by William Young

This project is a fun one; not only because it's a good turning project but also because it's a very functional item making it great for yourself or for gifts.

They can be hollowed out of a solid block of wood but in this one I chose to use the glued up Stave method and chose cherry and walnut for this one.

This project uses the stainless steel coffee cup inserts that are available these days.

You can purchase them for less than $10. You can see them and purchase them HERE.

Start by cutting staves. In this example, I've used 8 staves to make a circle. I've cut them on the table saw, just by adjusting the tablesaw to cut my wood blanks at 22.5 degrees.

And then glue them together like this.

Next I turned a couple jam plugs for the holes in the ends.

Tne one at the headstock end will become the drive plug. The one on the tailstock side will keep our blank centered. These plugs don't need to be finely cut, they are just temporary plugs.

 

Then I rounded the blank with my spindle roughing gouge and made a tenon for a chuck. You can see the tenon clearly on the headstock end (left).

 

I then put our blank into my chuck using the tenon cut from the last photo. You can also see that I'm holding it with my homemade steady rest. This set up is for hollowing out the inside.

There is a bit of an optical illusion in the picture . It looks like it is not turned to a round
cylinder at this point but it is indeed round.

In this picture, you can see that I've hollowed out the blank. The inside doesn't need fine sanding as it's going to be completely enclosed.

I've been testing the internal size by sliding the coffee cup insert into it until it fit properly. Now I'm turning the a tenon for the lip of the Stainless Steel insert.

I've now reversed our blank and put its top into my chuck in expansion mode before cleaning up and then parting off the excess wood at the bottom.

The bottom of our project needs to be inserted into our cleaned up bottom. So, here I've turned a slightly tapered plug.

I've now glued the plug in place and turned a concave into the bottom. I've also sanded it it to same 4000 grit as the rest of project.

 

Next will be 5 or 6 coats of polyurethane and then fasten the Stainless Steel liner into it. I like to glue the bottom of the cup to the wood using epoxy and then using silicon sealer around the lip to keep it watertight.

A liberal coat of polyurethane will also be applied to the inside to seal the
wood.