replicating lemon skin

[Shay Vings]

Made a few apples and pears with no problems. Now trying a lemon but struggling to get the skin (orange peel) effect.
Close inspection of a real lemon reveals v.small circular indentations surrounded by irregular scaly patches.

I don't have a Sorby texturing tool so I tried filing some teeth on a 1 inch dia washer running on a 8mm bolt. Its not a million miles away but the tooth indents are a bit square and it doesn't make the bigger scaly bits.

Any ideas?

 

[gus3049]

Dremel burrs should do the job. The two attached have a pretty close approximation to lemon peel I reckon. The bowl was done with a 1 mm burr and the vase with a 3mm burr. The vase was intended to look like the surface of an omelette I was cooking!!!

How you would do the really small dots I'm not sure, it would take ages. I reckon just the main pattern is close enough.

Do you have a rotary tool??

 

[Shay Vings]

Hi Gus

I have a cheapo dremel knock off which I could try. Looks a bit laborious to do one at a time rather than offer up some wizz wheel, but I'll give it a go.

 

[gus3049]

Hi Gus

I have a cheapo dremel knock off which I could try. Looks a bit laborious to do one at a time rather than offer up some wizz wheel, but I'll give it a go.

Aha, yup, it might take a while but then lemons aren't that big are they??

I have a high speed air tool that spins at about 40,000rpm. Just a touch is all it takes so its pretty quick. Damn noisy though so I need ear defenders, your Dremel sub shouldn't be too bad.

 

[Paul Hannaby]

I have a home made air powered "texturing" tool made from a needle descaler. It gives a very realistic orange / lemon peel effect.

 

[nev]

Just a thought. Could one utilise a hammer drill (type tool) set to hammer only with an adapted bit? - a mini jackhammer thingy?

 

[Silverbirch]

A Proxxon long neck mini grinder will produce a good approximation of citrus skin, in double quick time, but you'd need to be producing a lot of lemons to justify its cost for that alone - but it does have plenty of other uses.



Ian