Most turners start with a board or a burl, but the maker behind Birdie Buster Golf started with a spice rack. The build is a decorative lidded jar where commercially packaged cinnamon sticks, the Moulin de Paris brand, were set in epoxy resin and then worked on the lathe like any solid blank. Casting the raw sticks first and turning the result afterward is a very different route from the usual spindle or bowl approach, and it pays off in looks.
The assembly sequence is what stands out. Sticks were arranged in two plastic containers, one for the body and one for the lid, weighed down with tape, and covered in resin mixed from Magic Resin Deep Pour and hardener, weighed on a digital scale and tinted with Liquitex acrylic ink. Both blanks cured in a pressure pot before demolding into amber-tinted cylinders. The larger blank went on a Nova chuck and was shaped with carbide tools, while the smaller lid blank was turned separately with a center pilot hole drilled in it. Gluing the lid to the body with Starbond Medium Thick cyanoacrylate, then shaping the whole assembly into a contoured urn-like profile before cutting it free, is a tidy way to get matching contours across the joint.
Sanding and polishing with liquid compound on a shop towel revealed cross-sections of the cinnamon scrolls, and the interior was drilled and carved out with hollowing chisels before the base was finished on a sanding pad. One open point: the maker said the material still gives off a lot of smell five days after casting, and that the finished jar turned out nicer than expected.
Project by Birdie Buster Golf . Watch it on their YouTube channel: