West Michigan Woodturners spotlight molinillo demo by Dave Kerley

A molinillo is the kind of spindle project that makes turners lean in, because it is useful first and beautiful second. Dave Kerley showed West Michigan Woodturners how to make one at the club’s May 9 meeting, and the May 26 recap preserved the project as more than a one-night demo: it left members with a shape, a purpose and a piece of turning history they could take back to their own lathes.

The molinillo, a traditional Mexican utensil for stirring hot chocolate, gives a woodturner a slender form to solve and a finished object that still earns its keep in the kitchen. The National Museum of American History says the whisk was first produced by Spanish colonists in Mexico to stir and froth chocolate drinks. It also notes that a small molinillo would have been used for an individual cup, while a larger one would have served a chocolate pot. Smithsonian reporting adds that the tool has been used for centuries in Mexican and Central American kitchens.

That combination makes it a useful club project. It asks for controlled spindle work, repeated decorative shaping and a careful eye on proportion, but it never loses sight of the fact that it is meant to be handled. For clubs looking for a demo that travels well from beginner technique to more refined spindle design, the molinillo offers exactly that bridge. It is familiar enough to make sense fast, yet distinctive enough to carry cultural history and practical use in the same piece.

West Michigan Woodturners used the recap to do what good club notes do best: keep niche knowledge from disappearing once the meeting ends. The club says it is a 501(c)(7) nonprofit focused on promoting education about woodturning in southwest Michigan, and it describes itself as a member organization of the American Association of Woodturners. The AAW says it was established in 1986 and now has more than 360 chapters worldwide, which puts a local molinillo demo inside a much larger network of shared projects and shop ideas.

The club also says it serves woodturners of all levels in the Kalamazoo and Portage area, and that range shows in a project like this one. A molinillo is simple enough to invite a first try, but specific enough to reward attention to form. By keeping Kerley’s demo on record, West Michigan Woodturners turned one evening at the lathe into a reusable note for the next turner who wants a spindle project with a little history built in.