I made a Turkish Spindle

After searching the web last night for a small Turkish Spindle and not finding one, I went out to my husbands work shop and looked around.

He has lots of small pieces of wood left over from other projects and I found a piece of redwood from a salvaged deck to play with.  I chose the redwood because it was already in cut into a circle and about the thickness I was looking for.  All I had to do was draw my arches and cut it out with the scroll saw.

This is what I came up with:

It measures just over 6 inches long and 3 inches wide

It's far from perfect, but it works !

I even shaped the dowel down to fit into the holes!  My craftsmanship needs lots of improving, but I think after consulting with my husband, I know what tools might do the job better.

I used the scroll saw to cut out the shape and a drill press to carve the openings. The drill press was not the best choice of tools to use for cutting out the center.  Next time I am going to use the scroll saw to cut out the center opening.  I used the belt sander to shape the dowel.

I don't know much on balancing spindles, but that didn't stop me
I was very surprised how well it does spin and how balanced it came out !

I like a bit more weight to my spindles and I think the redwood is too light to keep a good spinning rotation going, I added a metal washer and now it is more like the weight I like.  I don't have a scale to tell you the exact weight, but I think it is close to 1/4 of an ounce and 1/2 an ounce with the metal washer.

 I am going back out to the shed to find some hard rock maple and try it again.