Calico Bowl Project-working on the bottom and sides of the bowl

 Hi Everyone

Went outside and worked for a couple of hours on the bowl. Here's today's photos-

I'm continuing to work on the bottom of the bowl. The foot of the bowl has to lay perfectly flat on a table surface and I spent some time measuring and carefully turning off excess wood so it would do exactly that. Otherwise the bowl will spin like a top on flat surfaces and not hold still when it's being used. I'm also refining the turned outer edge on the bottom of the bowl:

Here's a shot of the side of the bowl. I've turned the side smooth and you can see it just beginning to take shape:

Here you can see some ripples in the side as well. This entire surface needs to be hollowed out a little bit more so as to offset the heaviness of the bowl a bit:

Ok, more work tomorrow on the sides and bottom. I suspect I'll be sanding and refining the side and bottom next week and once that's done it will be time to flip it over and create the rim and begin the hollowing out process.

See you soon,
VW

Calico Bowl Project, continued: Shaping the bottom of the bowl

 Hi All,

Well, work proceeds slowly on the calico bowl. It would go a little bit faster if it wasn't so hot and humid right now (and tomorrow is supposed to be worse). But I worked on it for a bit and here are today's photos:

Here in this photo you can see the markings for the edge and the foot of the bowl:

So I turned on the lathe and began removing wood from the surface. As this wood is hard, it took a while to see the shape of the bottom begin to emerge but eventually it did. I used a roughing gouge to round off the bottom edge and remove about 1/4" of wood up to the edge of the foot. Then I used a straight scraper to refine the surface somewhat and this is what it looks like:

It looks pretty good. Next I got out the Titan III chuck as I'm going to need to cut a deep slot into the foot for it to sit in and provide the attachment point for the lathe:

Add caption

And here it is marked off. I'll cut that out tomorrow with a bedan tool, slowly.

Ok, tomorrow, more refining the bottom and the sides.

See you soon,

VW

Calico Bowl Project: Getting the block on the lathe

 Hi Everyone,

Well, it's been a hot, humid, trying, hand wringing day today getting the salad bowl blanks onto the lathe but I got it and it's turning. Here's today's photos and comments:

Here's where I started out today. The square block was ready to be cut into a circular shaped block for turning. The new band saw (which has been one problem after another) blade had to be changed to a wider, coarser blade to cut big pieces of wood like this. I wound up spending most of yesterday afternoon mounting a 3/4" wide blade onto the saw. 

I took a look at the saw bearings today to make sure that they were properly adjusted and one of the bearings under the saw table was out of adjustment so I spent a while fiddling with that. There was another problem, which I won't go into, but eventually the band saw was properly adjusted. Since the block is so thick  I decided not to press my luck by trying to cut it into a circle so I just cut off the corners. 

Here in this photo you can see the blank on the lathe. I screwed a face plate onto it with some very long heavy wood screws and placed it between centers to help manage the weight of the piece a little better. 

Time to turn on the lathe and begin truing up the sides. I was worried about the weight of this blank bogging down the motor on the lathe but it turns quietly and without effort. Finding this out was the high point of the day. Here you can see the marks from the gouge on the side:

Now my friend requested a bowl with straight, parallel sides so this will need a wide foot so it will be stable when it's used. In the following two photos you can see the inner circle with marks the foot and the outer circle with marks the outer edge of the bowl. Also I did some turning across the face of the blank as it's easier to do that working on the side of the blank. Once you remove the glue, dirt, and other crud from the surface, you can see kind of what it will look like and I think this is going to be a very pretty bowl when it's done:

Now given the depth of the bowl, it's going to take a week or two to true up the sides, shape the bottom, and flip it over and hollow it out. I'll be posting here and there so you can see how this takes shape.

Stay tuned,

VW

Calico Bowl Project, continued:gluing the block

 Hello All,

Well, I got the block assembled today with a whole bottle of Titebond glue, 6 heavy duty bar and pipe clamps, and a lot of elbow grease. It looks like a giant layer cake with too much icing on it!

Ok, I'm going to leave this over night and tomorrow I'll remove the clamps and see how it went.

See you all tomorrow,
VW

Calico Bowl Project-working on the turning blank

 Hi Everyone,

Today I spent some time working on the bowl blank. Here's today's photos and discussion.

You'll remember from the previous post that I had cut most of the wood to length and wound up with wooden boards with different widths. I spent my wood shop time today refining the blanks and cutting several more to make the turning block large enough:

So I began trimming down the widths of the boards on the table saw:

And I added several more boards to the stack. Here it is at 13 1/2 inches high x 14 inches wide:

Here's a photo of the blank laid out on a table. If you look closely, you can see the outline of the cut line on the edges of the boards. This blank will fit into the bandsaw for sawing it from a square to a large round blank ready for turning.

I think I have a good mix of colors and grain patterns. I also have two furniture grade pieces of plywood in the blank. Plywood looks lovely when it's turned.

Ok, the next step is to glue it all together tomorrow and while I'm waiting for that to dry, I'll change the saw on the band saw to a wider, coarser blade.

See you later this week,
VW

Calico Bowl Project

 Hi Everyone,

I have had a request for a salad bowl from a friend who wants one that is large enough to feed a crowd at her house. Since I now have a larger lathe, I think the time has come to fullfill that request!

Background

Earlier this year during the pandemic lockdown here in the US, I carved a salad bowl set, a spoon and a large fork, for a friend of mine down in Florida. She liked them and requested a matching salad bowl to go with them. The salad set was made out of red birch, a common, medium hard hardwood here in the Midwest. But unfortunately I haven't been able to find any red birch at the moment so I offered to make her a calico bowl which is nothing more than a bowl made out of different types and colors of hardwood. So I went through my hardwood pile and went and saw my friends at Forest Wood Products in Oakdale and purchased some hardwood shorts and between all of that I have enough wood to construct a turning block 14" x 14" in size, which I will trim down on the bandsaw.

Plans

Now, take a look at this photo:

In the above photo, you can see the various pieces of wood that will be glued into a solid turning block but the problem here is that the pieces are of various widths. Ripping all the boards down to the narrowest size board will result in a bowl that is a little too shallow so what I plan to do is the edge join some of the narrow boards with wood of the same species and then incorporate those boards into the block in a day or two when it's time for gluing. That way I'll be able to make a deeper bowl, with all the boards in the same size range.

Now the photo below shows the boards that are stacked one on top of another and you can see various species and colors stacked at random. I need to add several more inches to this and I'll do that tomorrow with some jatoba, hickory, and furniture grade plywood, which is turnable:

When the bowl is finished, we will have a wide deep bowl. I'll finish it with General Finishes Salad Bowl Varnish and it will be ready to whisk away to Florida.

Ok. Tomorrow I'll do more trimming and I'll show you how I worked around the narrowest boards.

So, over the next couple of weeks, if it's hot and miserable were you are, get something cold and drop by the woodshop! 

See you all soon, 

Side Table project-completion photos

Hi Everyone,

The side table is finished:

I'm pleased with the way it turned out. The parts went together very well and the color works in my living room. I had originally planned to put a second shelf underneath the top but decided that I'd rather have a more "open" look as my living room is quite small and blocky furniture tend to fill it up too much.

The finish was Minwax polyurethane and the stain colors were 2 coats of Minwax puritan pine color followed by a single coat of Minwax gunstock. The gunstock color alone is a strong orange-red color on soft wood and the yellow of the pine stain toned that down somewhat. The rest of the table, except for the top, was made out of scrap lumber from several previous project. The top was made from select grade pine that was edge-joined together. The table is 20" high from top to floor, and the frame is 18" x 20" in size. 

Here's several more photos:

The only problem are the screw holes from the Kreg jig. I plan to make some wooden appliques out of thin maple veneer to cover those later this week.

Well, basically this is all done. What's next?

The next project will be a wooden bowl for a friend of mine and it seems that the pet urn I made several months ago is missing in the mail. I'm going to wait another week or so and if it doesn't turn up, I'll be making another one. So wood turning is next.

Thanks for tuning in! See you later this week.

VW