So I finally started on my brothers birthday gift.  I decided to try a different approach before going in to hollow out the piece.  I decided to shape it sand it down to about 400 grit which still looks quite okay.  Then I went and put the first coat of stain on it.  I'm wondering if that's going to be the better route to go with these little pepper mill bodies.  Either way its 90 degrees outside right now so I had to stop for the day.

 

Still a work in progress project how ever as I said I've been trying something different with this one and doing a lot of the staining first before drilling out.  I've still got to take off the tenon on the bottom how ever I want to wait for that until the middle is drilled out and a bit more work done on the middle.  So top tenon has been removed and first coat of stain put on.  Id say this may work out quite a bit better in the long run doing it this way.  If I mess up I can always just go and re sand it and re stain it.

 

 

Okay Project finally finished up....

 

 

Nice project Andrew!