I cut a bunch of boards yesterday in preparation for making glue ups for eventual pepper mils.  I was planning to just glue 3" x 12" x variable thickness to get to a 3x3x12 blank.  I planned to make the glue up direction more than 3" to allow for cutting the blank on a bias.  Then, I will bore a hole in the center and proceed from there.

Now, I've been thinking more about it and am wondering about cutting wedge shaped pieces by cutting the long edge of the blanks at an angle and gluing in a radial arrangement.  I know it will be a different finished look than the biased glue up but would require less wood and pieces less than 3" wide, which is wider than most of my scrap wood that I have laying around.

Have others tried this?

I have never tried it but like Ron have seen pen blanks done that way. Give it a go and let us know how it turns out.

Have seen pepper mills done that way.  Exotic Blanks sells both pen and pepper mill blanks.   Contrasting veneer between the segments looks very nice.   

A bunch of work getting the pieces aligned, but nice outcome!!

Looking forward to the pictures!!

Take pictures Jenny, it will be interesting to see the process. i did some odd ball glue ups when i first got into turning. just glued whatever scraps I had. needless to say the outcome was interesting to look at but begged some preplanning. I plan to do something similar again but with a planned outcome. I am really keen to see and hear how your project comes out.