I really enjoyed making the last Segmented Bowl so I decided to make another one. This time I wanted to make it wider, lower, and more curved. I drew up a rough scale design to figure out the sizes of the rings:
Using the same software as the last time I figured out the segment sizes based on twelve segments this time. I think this was a good choice because it made the initial rough turning a lot easier than only eight segments
The largest ring was very close to 12” which is the widest thing I can turn on my lathe and I also had to use big elastic bands ( a bunch of them ) to glue it up because my spiral duct clamps didn’t open wide enough to clamp it.
I also had to make a larger clamping fixture to clamp the ring flat like I did before.
As before I sanded the rings flat on a whole sheet of sandpaper attached to a flat board. I also cut a solid disk of Maple for the base.
Using the trick I came up with the last time of using framing points to temporarily keep the rings from creeping when I glued them I was able to glue and clamp the entire stack in one operation which saved a lot of time and steps.
I drilled a 3/8” by 2 1/4” recess in the bottom and mounted it on the lathe. There was a small clearance issue due to run out in the largest ring so I just trimmed it a bit on the band saw until it cleared.
I turned the outside following a much more curved profile than the last bowl. Then I turned the inside aiming for a 3/8” wall thickness and following the outside profile.
I then sanded everything to 320 grit and cleaned all the dust off and applied a Shellac based sanding sealer.
The next day I sanded it 600, 800, 1000, and 2000 grit and then removed the dust and applied Howard’s butcher block conditioner and waited twenty five minutes and buffed it in.
Now I had to turn it around to clean up the base and I needed some kind of a work holding solution. My Cole jaws wouldn’t hold it and still clear the base of the lathe so I cut a pressure disk from 3/4” birch plywood on my band saw with a bevel on the edge that matched the angle of the opening of the bowl.
I mounted the pressure disk on the chuck using the worm screw that came with the lathe. I trued up the disk and smoothed the saw cut on the bevel using a full size carbide finishing tool.
Then I pressed the bowl against the disk with the tail stock, it wasn’t perfectly centered but it was good enough to finish up the foot of the bowl. Then I sanded the foot to 320 grit and put some sanding sealer on it. The next day I sanded 600, 800, 1000, and 2000 grit and then cleaned all the dust off and applied the same finish as to the outside and inside.
I like this one a lot, there is also a cool half moon pattern in many of the segments because the stock I used was glued up lengthwise and the bowl cuts through the glue line. It looks good on the dining table too.