Salt and Pepper Shakers

P. Michael Henderson
July 22, 2026

I started making salt and pepper shakers as gifts to give to friends.  Although they take time, I'm retired and always looking for a project.  I use cutoffs from other projects, but I found that some wood does not make very interesting shakers.  Over time, I've changed the process of making the shakers and this tutorial covers where I am now.

I recently did a project out of some bloodwood and, in my opinion, bloodwood makes an interesting set of shakers.

To begin, I glued up all the pieces of bloodwood that I had left.  The light colored piece is just a caul to hold everything straight.

After it was glued, the piece was 1 7/8 by about 2 1/4.

From here, I went to my miter saw and cut both ends square.

Then, I took it to my table saw and cut it so that it's square, 1 7/8 on each side.

I used a set of dividers to divide the stock into four equal pieces.  The shakers don't have to be any specific size, so I took what I could get.

Went to my miter saw and cut it into four pieces.  These pieces are in the order of the original wood.

The pieces came out to 2 1/4 inches, which is a good size for a salt and pepper shaker.

Refer up one picture - I took the two left pieces and turned then upward with the same face upward.  So, the one to the for left was turned counterclockwise 90 degrees and the piece next to it was turned 90 degrees clockwise.  It did the same with the other two pieces.

Then I marked them with the orientation I want, and numbered the pieces so they wouldn't get exchanged.

I also marked one corner of each piece.  It doesn't matter what corner you mark.  These marks are for use in the lathe chuck.  While I try to cut everything perfectly, the pieces will come out with slight variations.  If you put the pieces in the chuck the same way all the time, you'll get better results.  I'll show how I use these marks later.

I also mark the center of the bottom of each piece.  You don't have to do this, but I use the mark as a check when I'm going to drill the hole.  If the drill bit is not aligned with the center mark, maybe I don't have the piece chucked properly.  It doesn't take much time (line from corner-to-corner) and might save you from a serious mistake.

Next, I'm going to drill the hole in the pieces.  This hole is where the salt or pepper will go.  I mount the piece in my chuck, with the bottom pointing out.  Look closely at the jaws.  The two jaws towards the top have a black mark on each one.

A closer view of the jaws.  The mark on the piece of wood is placed between the to marks on the jaws.  If I have to remove the piece from the jaws, I can put it back in the same orientation.

Here's the setup on the lathe to drill the holes.  I have a 1 1/4 inch carbide Forstner bit in the tailstock.

I'll slide the tailstock over to bring the drill in contact with the stock, then lock the tailstock, and turn the lathe on.  Using the crank on the tailstock, I push the drill into the wood. 

In this case, I want to go in 1/4 inch.  There's no magic about 1/4 inch - it's just to leave some space for the cork.  To know how deep to go, you can mark the bit with a black magic marker.  Since the bit is not spinning, you can see the mark clearly and stop when you're that deep.

I change the bit to a 1 inch carbide Forstner bit.  The question is how deep to drill the hole, and how to tell when I reach that depth.  The wood is about 1 1/4 inches high so I want to drill maybe 1 7/8 inches.  In this picture, I marked the drill at the 2 inch location and I just won't drill all the way to that mark.

Here's about how deep I drilled.  A lot of the measurements I give here do not have to be exact, but your sure don't want to drill too deep.  Short is better than too deep.

Here are the four pieces after drilling.

I take the four pieces to my bandsaw and cut the corners off.  This is just to make it easier to start the work on the lathe.

Here are the four pieces with the corners cut off.  Note that I've put a mark on each piece.  This will be used when I mount each piece in the chuck jaws.  Just as I did with the first chucking, I want to be able to remove a piece and then put it back into the chuck exactly the same way.

I also mark them for the first set, and the second set.

Here I am mounting one of the piece on the chuck.  Note that I've put a black mark on two of the adjacent jaws.  I'll mount the piece so that the mark I put on it is just between those two jaws.

Here are the four pieces roughed out round.

The pieces go back on the lathe and I'm going to round the top end a bit.  They're still too "fat" at the top and I'll work them down as I go.

Here's what one looks like with the top rounded a bit.  I didn't like the overall shape of this one and I narrowed down the upper part of the blank.   Use your judgment as to what looks good to you.  There's no right or wrong answer.  Earlier, I did some with straight sides, but prefer this shape.

Then, while the piece is spinning, I take a pencil and mark the center.  What I used to do is mark the center of the blank before I started turning it, and then drill the holes for the 'S" or 'P'.  But what I discovered is that sometimes when I drilled the hole through the center, it was actually at a bit of an angle, and the 'S' or 'P' wasn't really centered on the final product.

I take the blank to the CNC machine and align the drill bit with that center mark.  I know that my 'S' or 'P' will be centered on the piece.

The drill bit is 1.5mm and the cutting part is 12mm long.

This is what it looks like after drilling.  The bit can drill 12mm (about a half-inch) but I don't have the CNC set to drill quite that deep.

Here are the four shakers, salt and pepper.

I sanded each one to 150 grit on the lathe and now I hand sand them to 320 grit prior to finishing.  I could get my spray gun out to finish these, but it's a fair amount of work to set up and clean up afterwards, so I just dip them into the finish.  But before that, I put a piece of paper towel into each one because the finish would come through the drill holes and get inside the shakers.

I use a pair of needle nose pliers to hold the shaker and dip it into the finish (sometimes called long-nose pliers).  The finish is Target Coatings EMTECH EM-6000.

I did it deeply, but try to be careful that the finish does not flow into the center of the shaker.

Then I put the shaker on a stick to let the finish cure.  Of course, this puts too much finish on the shaker and it flows down to the bottom.  I use a paper towel and carefully blot the excess finish off the bottom of the shaker.  The blue paper towel at the bottom of the stick is just to protect my vise from the drips of the finish. 

Since the finish is waterborne the first coat raises the grain so I have to sand it with fine sandpaper after the finish cures.

It takes at least two coats of finish and I often do three, with light sandings of 400 grit sandpaper between applications.  When the finish is well cured, I remove the paper towels that I stuck inside the shakers.

Finish has gotten into some of the holes so I now take one of the drill bits and clean out each of the shaker holes by hand.

The wooden part of the shakers are now complete.  Next, I'm going to make the corks that go into the bottom of the shakers.  I bought 100 used Champagne corks from Amazon.  There are not 100 corks left in this bag - I've used a number of them already.

I mount one of the corks in my lathe and turn it to a taper. 

I don't measure anything - I've done enough that I know how much taper to put on the cork and the size.  Corks are cheap so if you mess one up, it's not a big loss. 

Before I take the cork off the lathe, I sand it with 150 grit sandpaper just so it looks better.

Then I stick it into one of the shakers.

Using a pencil, I draw a line around the cork even with the bottom of the shaker.

I then take it to my bandsaw and cut along the line.

Here's the tapered cork next to the shaker.

And inserted into the shaker.

Here are the four shakers.

And the most important step, signing your work.

That's it.  But it was a lot of steps to get here.

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