Walnut Bowls

August 26, 2026

A friend asked me to make a couple of bowls for a fundraiser to benefit a good cause. I agreed. I had just acquired some 8 1/4” x 8 1/4” x 3 1/4” Walnut and so I decided to make both bowls out of one blank. I re-sawed it into 1 7/8” pieces and then marked a center and circle and trimmed them to be mostly round.

I put a 2 1/4” x 3/16” recess in the flattest side of each blank and chucked the first one on the lathe. I also used the tail-stock and live center for support. I trued up the blank so it was round and then I shaped the bottom of the bowl. For this one I wanted to experiment with reverse curve under the rim of the bowl and I managed to get a nicely proportioned curve and flare under the rim.

I also wanted to have a matching undercut under the rim on the inside. I figured out how to do it and I really like how it came out.

The second bowl I wanted to have it be a more modern profile with two different curves from the top edge to the shoulder and then from the shoulder to the bottom. This one would also have an undercut on the inside.

I finished these the way that I have been doing sanding up to 320 grit then putting on a shellac based sanding sealer and once that is dry sanding through 600, 800, 1000, 2000 grit and then applying a beeswax and mineral oil final finish. It comes out nice and is food safe.

I learned a lot on these two getting better at the work holding, doing better at hollowing, creating an undercut, using various tools to manage rough areas that would develop because of the very open grain of walnut. All in all I really enjoyed this project.

Wider, Lower, More Curved Segmented Bowl

August 14, 2026

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.

Learning to Turn

July 15, 2026

So… In the six years and some months since I retired I’ve been doing a lot of woodworking. I’ve learned a lot and the shop has evolved steadily and I’ve even joined a woodworking guild. One of the things that often comes up is wood turning and if I’m going to do it. I deferred deciding that on the grounds that I didn’t know where I would put a lathe in my shop. However, recently I figured out how to make some more space in the shop and I finally decided to go ahead and learn wood turning and get a lathe.

I didn’t have enough space for a big lathe so I got what is termed a midi-lathe it is a 16” x 12” RIKON lathe. It fit my price point, came with a good collection of accessories, and fit my goals which were to mostly turn bowls and other hollow things that were 12” or less in diameter.

I also got a nice stand for it and eventually I put it on a mobile base that I had purchased when I got my band saw but never used due to height restrictions. Fortunately I have a chain hoist and a fine collection of heavy duty eye-bolts so I was able to hoist it onto the mobile base and re-adjust the working height.

The other thing that folks talk about when discussing wood turning is the plethora of additional tools and work holding accessories you need to acquire in addition to the lathe. This lathe came with a nice chuck, a worm screw, a live center, a drive center, and a face plate. Which is quite bit more that many similarly priced lathes come with. I then acquired several sizes and types of high speed steel turning chisels gouges, scrapers, etc… as well a several sizes and types of carbide turning tools… because I couldn’t decide what kind of person I was going to be and figured I would just do both. I also got a drill chuck, some cole jaws for gripping a hollow form after it has been hollowed, a new wet sharpening system, and a special jig for sharpening turning gouges.

I justified a bunch of the expense by having sold all of my photographic equipment that I no longer used for a decent percentage of the total cost of this project.

The other problem was, where would all of these tools live in my already somewhat full and small shop? I decided to build a storage cabinet that would ride on the mobile base with the lathe and also house some dust collection.

I used up a lot of scrap plywood and made my very first set of very crude bypass doors.

On a parallel shop improvement track I also upgraded the dust collection in the shop with a Dust Cobra from Oneida Air. It is a very nice dust collector and has a 25 foot hose that lets me get to almost all of the shop without moving it. It was a serious two day project to assemble it but it was worth the effort.

I then practiced turning on some scrap wood and then once I’d achieved some sense of what I was doing I glued up some scrap 3/4” Sapele into a turning blank for attempting a covered box. It went ok, mistakes were made but then covered up or at least hidden from the pictures below. I also made a knob for the lid by doing some spindle turning and then gluing it in. I practiced doing some sanding and finishing as well even though it is far from perfect.

For my next exploration I glued up two smaller blanks of cherry and the first one I tried turning a “cup” shape.

This one is now housing my pens, pencils, knives and scissors on my desk. The other Cherry blank I decided I would try to make a covered bowl that was close to spherical.

More ovoid than spherical but I like the shape. I also did some more spindle turning to make it a finial.

The next project was to make a useful sized serving vessel, so I glued up a 8” x 3” blank of white oak. I cut it to mostly round. I drilled a recess for mounting it on the chuck. I turned the bottom and the outside without too much difficulty. Even sanding it. I put another recess inside the foot of the bowl and turned it around.

Unfortunately the board that I made the blank out of had a crack in the end of it that I thought I would cut off when rounding. I did not. A big chunk came out of the top so I had to shorten the whole piece by about 3/8”, no big problem.

Hollowing something of this size was challenging and I learned a lot about tool selection, cutting angles, etc… there were mistakes. The final bowl is another half inch shorter. But still perfectly proportioned.

I’m having a lot of fun learning about wood turning. It is very engrossing when you are doing it. The problem solving and debugging when you make a mistake is also very rewarding. Even my crude beginner efforts are nice objects that I’m happy to have. I will be continuing my journey soon.

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