Cigar Holder

[Joe Burns]

Made this Cigar holder out of Coobalah wood for a friend. 1st time making it. Had to scrap it. The wood on the cap and body both split within hours of delivering it to my friend. I mostly turn pens and razor handles. Looking for tips on drilling and milling the ends. Im able to drill on the lathe, but notice this is a lot of heat buildup while drilling blanks of these size. The kit provider suggests a unusual size fostner bit for this kit. Any tips or suggestions in making these?

 

[magpens]

It might be helpful for us to know the kit provider, please.

 

[EricRN]

Only tip I have is to go slow. Also, I wonder if moisture may have caused the wood to move after you turned it. I've had pepper mills crack and I'm pretty sure that was the reason. Both times, it was an exotic that was fairly wet when turning. I never scraped off the wax to let it acclimate before turning. Was one of the first exotics i had turned

 

[monophoto]

You mentioned an 'unusual size' forstner bit - what size?

I agree with the others - the problem was likely that the wood got too hot.

You were drilling end grain with a forstner bit - that almost always causes heat. Mike Peace recommends using twist drill bits whenever possible in end grain - they cause less heat. Could you have used a twist drill rather than a forstner? You can purchase relatively inexpensive 'reduced shank' (Silver and Demming style) twist drill sets from Amazon that are useful for this kind of drilling, but the maximum diameter usually tops out at 1".