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,