When I considered making a rolling pin, one of the first things I did was to take a look at ours. It had "Baribo-Maid" engraved in one end and looking it up revealed that it was a "vintage" rolling pin, apparently made by Baribocraft in Quebec in the 60s or 70s. Who knew? Well, rolling-pin technology hasn't really advanced a whole lot in the last half-century so I used ours as a starting point for dimensions. I also checked commercial models to see what variations exist out there and ended up finding a handle shape I liked more than the ones on "the Maid" so I copied that one. Ours was about 10" x 2.1" diameter with 3" handles and I tweaked things a bit, ending up with 10.75" length, 2.25" diameter and 3.5"-long handles.

There are a few different types of rolling pins and this is of course the "classic" or "handled" style, not actually specified by the recipient but I am comfortable stating that there was exactly zero chance that anything else would have been expected.

#2

I happened to have a couple suitable pieces of maple bought for a song from Lee Valley Tools many years ago and I grabbed one to use for the roller part of the rolling pin.

Neither end of the maple block was particularly square to the rest of the wood so I mounted it between centers on the lathe and squared-up one end with a scraper. Doing that ensures that the wood will be centered the same way when a faceplate is added and it is re-mounted to the lathe.

The wood was close to a foot long so it was going to need support at the right end to prevent vibration when drilling.

I started by mounting the wood to the lathe and then rounding a section near the end to provide a place for the wheels of a steady-rest to run.

My big steady-rest was winched into place and bolted down, and then the wheels were engaged. Then a long 1/2"-diameter twist-drill bit was used to drill 7 or 8 inches into the end.

The drill bit wasn't long enough to go all the way through but since it can drift off-center in the wood, to achieve well-centered holes it's better to drill from both ends anyway.

This little sequence shows the drilling of the faceplate end. I first rounded the end of the wood so it could be held in the jaws of an adjustable chuck, then flipped the wood end-for-end and drilled in to meet the original hole. The wood was then flipped around again to get back to the "normal" orientation.

Then I could finish off the rounding, done using the large roughing gouge as shown in this exciting action shot.

Of course the roller surface needs to be straight so I cut three grooves to 2.28" diameter to help guide the rest of the wood removal.

Then the two sections between the grooves were cut down to match the groove diameters.

I perhaps shouldn't admit to being slightly surprised that this worked as hoped, and the roller ended up nice and straight.

Here is the rounded roller. I subsequently cut a slight radius at the end and a small bevel at the corner.

I wanted to use the full length of the wood so the square portion on the left was going to need to get rounded as well.

That square portion held the faceplate screws so the faceplate needed to be removed as a first step. I also needed to access that end for shaping which meant the roller needed to be flipped end-for-end again. Using the adjustable chuck to hold the roller would have marred the wood so I turned a 1/2" wooden pin to be held in the chuck and slid the roller onto that, held in place with the tailstock live center (via another 1/2" wooden pin). Then the square end could be rounded, shaped and sanded.

With the roller conveniently supported at both ends, I took the opportunity to do some with-the-grain hand sanding as seen here. I sanded to 320 grit so it was nice and smooth.

I had seen one comment that a rolling pin surface should only be sanded to 120 grit so that it remained a bit rough to help it hold flour, but our glossy-smooth rolling pin seemed to work fine so I opted to ignore that particular bit of advice.

This shows the roller, which is almost complete at this point.

After it came off the lathe I wet it down with water to raise the grain, let it dry and then re-sanded with 400 grit. I did that a second time for good measure, which should ensure it stays smooth after being washed off with water.

The last step for the roller was to add my initials and the year to one end. Often I'll do that with ink but in this case I just engraved the characters so they would be less obvious.

This rather elaborate clamping system was used to hold the end of the roller beside the table top. That give my arm and wrist a solid resting surface to better control the engraver (which was just a rotary tool equipped with a small diamond bit).

With the roller done, it was on to the handles;

A couple small pieces of cherry were cut off a short plank and here they are, ready to get turned.

Like the roller, the handles also needed a central hole.

Unlike the rollers, it was only part-way through. Here a handle blank has been mounted in an adjustable chuck and I'm drilling a 3/16"-diameter hole on the lathe

This turning summary gives a few shots of the handle turning stages.

I did most of the sanding while it was still on the lathe. The surface was pretty decent already so I just used 220 and 320 grits and that was enough.

I had left a small connecting section of wood between the turned and unturned portions so I just cut through that to free the handle.

After cleaning up the cut-off end, the handle received a final bit of sanding.

While the roller itself is best with no finish, the handles would receive three coats of polyurethane varnish, with the first coat starting to go on here.

Here the varnished handles (with inserted dowels for handling) have been mounted in a vise for drying.

Next up: Bushings.

I used Ultra High Molecular Weight polyethylene, which according to the Lee Valley Tools description is "a type of plastic that is dense, tough, rigid, impervious to moisture and, most important, has a very low coefficient of friction." Hey - that's pretty much what I need here!

I started with a 3/4"-thick sheet and cut out a pair of 3/4"-square pieces a couple inches in length.

This photo shows one of the polyethylene pieces mounted in a 4-jaw chuck in the little Taig metalworking lathe.

I've got the lathe configured to drill a 13/64" hole into the piece and the plastic shavings reveal that the hole has already been partially drilled.

Here are a couple shots showing the machining of one of the bushings. I started by drilling the hole and then cut the body to 1/2" diameter to fit into the roller, formed a small 5/8" flange and finally cut off the bushing from the main block.

The colourful sleeve in the second picture is less a celebration of diverse sexuality and more of a high-visibility guard to keep knuckles from being nicked on protruding parts of the spinning chuck.

The plastic machined very nicely and the resulting surface was nice and smooth. It was easy to take only small amounts off to achieve a precise diameter. With slightly oversized holes, it should let the roller spin freely.

The completed bushings are shown here. They will slide into the ends of the roller and should be tight enough to prevent most water ingress (a problem with the current rolling pin, I am informed).

The central rod was pretty straightforward; buy it from Home Depot, cut it to length and then as shown in this shot, roughen up the ends for better glue adhesion.

I will apologize for the dissapointing lack of sparks in this photo, but they were too few to catch on camera.

Then it was just a matter of assembly.

I used epoxy to glue the handles to the rod and here everything is assembled with a couple layers of business cards inserted to provide a small spacing between handles and roller.

Completed.

Now to go find some Christmas wrap...

Building the lyrically-named Rolling Pin #2 was a whole lot like the original above. The main difference was the use of Figured Maple in place of Cherry for the handles. However I took photos so I'll include them here, unpoluted by editorial comment.