pfbarney
Member
I've been wanting to make a travel mug, but didn't want to spend the $10 on the kit form one of the stores and haven't been able to find the cheap stainless mugs anywhere like I've seen from others...until I went to Goodwill and found a couple of old Chik-fil-a travel mugs for $1.99 each. At that price, I figured I could afford to mess them up if it didn't work out.
The first thing was to disassemble the mug by pulling the pad off the bottom and removing a screw that held it all together. To get the plastic to separate from the stainless liner, I stuck my air hose in the hole and gave it a blast of air. It popped right apart. There was a piece welded on the bottom where the screw attached that wasn't needed anymore, so I ground it off.
I used a 4x4x7 chunk of spalted maple I cut from a log and turned it round between centers before cutting a tenon and mounting it in my 4 jaw chuck.
Then I used a 2 1/8" forstner bit in the Jacob's chuck to drill a 5 3/4" hole in the blank.
After that it was shaping and hollowing and test fitting. Once I had it close, I sanded and finished and gave it a try. It fit okay but I had a couple of places where it was too tight so I would scribble on it with a Sharpie and stick it in and twist it around to see where I was rubbing. I used a flap sanding wheel on my Dremel to sand the inside in those places until I had a loose, but good fit.
I used some epoxy around the top of the wood to attach it to the stainless liner and voila! Well, sort of voila. Apparently the wood wasn't completely cured and it dried some more over night and now I have a small crack in one spot. Oh well. It's still usable for me personally and I have another Goodwill mug to try it again.
I also found that Ikea sells a stainless travel mug with a plastic cover for $3.99 that can be taken apart the same way. So doing the math, $20 will get you 5 mugs from Ikea with a little disassembling required, or 2 kits from the wood working stores.
Needless to say, I will be going back to Ikea and stocking up on travel mugs soon.
If anyone has any thoughts of something else that may have caused the crack, I would love to hear it. Thanks for looking.
The first thing was to disassemble the mug by pulling the pad off the bottom and removing a screw that held it all together. To get the plastic to separate from the stainless liner, I stuck my air hose in the hole and gave it a blast of air. It popped right apart. There was a piece welded on the bottom where the screw attached that wasn't needed anymore, so I ground it off.
I used a 4x4x7 chunk of spalted maple I cut from a log and turned it round between centers before cutting a tenon and mounting it in my 4 jaw chuck.
Then I used a 2 1/8" forstner bit in the Jacob's chuck to drill a 5 3/4" hole in the blank.
After that it was shaping and hollowing and test fitting. Once I had it close, I sanded and finished and gave it a try. It fit okay but I had a couple of places where it was too tight so I would scribble on it with a Sharpie and stick it in and twist it around to see where I was rubbing. I used a flap sanding wheel on my Dremel to sand the inside in those places until I had a loose, but good fit.
I used some epoxy around the top of the wood to attach it to the stainless liner and voila! Well, sort of voila. Apparently the wood wasn't completely cured and it dried some more over night and now I have a small crack in one spot. Oh well. It's still usable for me personally and I have another Goodwill mug to try it again.
I also found that Ikea sells a stainless travel mug with a plastic cover for $3.99 that can be taken apart the same way. So doing the math, $20 will get you 5 mugs from Ikea with a little disassembling required, or 2 kits from the wood working stores.
Needless to say, I will be going back to Ikea and stocking up on travel mugs soon.
If anyone has any thoughts of something else that may have caused the crack, I would love to hear it. Thanks for looking.
