Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
Wood Bowl Blanks
Julie
>IT is very difficult to find any exotic wood for bowl blanks. Is there a way to glue up the bowl blanks to NOT have a glue line. What is the best way to glue them up to hide the glue line? I was given some purpleheart and some paduck and would like to make a couple of bowls from them. Segmented work looks way to time consuming.
Thanks
Julie
Re: Wood Bowl Blanks
Gary Hern (St. Louis)
>Hi Julie,
I'm afraid what you are asking is impossible. If you look at the pieces that were posted recently, you'll see that ofsetting them with a different species and creating a pattern is about your best bet. Any time you try to glue wood with different grain configurations, etc. you are going to see a glue line. In man made items like Corian, the glue basicaly melts into the material creating an invisible glue joint. In wood, the glue is sucked into tho wood fibers, widening the effect bonding area and appearance of the glue joint. Look at some of Lester's pics and you'll see the glue joints in the same wood, however, he designed them to make them appealing. The segmenting is about the only way to do this. It doesn't mean that you need to use 1000 pieces per bowl!
Re: Wood Bowl Blanks
Wally Dickerman at Green Valley, Az.
>Julie, trying to hide a glue joint seldom works. Instead accent the glue joint with veneer or a thin piece of contrasting wood. A good way to add depth to a bowl is to add a foot and a segmented rim of a contrasting wood. In the photo I had a beautiful blank of quilted maple, but it was only about 2 inches deep. The foot and rim of Bolivian Rosewood added what was needed to make an attractive piece.
Wally
Re: Wood Bowl Blanks
George Van
>Wally,
Was the foot and rim added after the bowl was partially turned or was it a continuous layer as part of the original bowl blank?
At times I have slabs off the sawmill (cherry, hard maple, yellow birch) that would make great blanks if I used your method.
Please let me know. Thanks, George
Re: Wood Bowl Blanks
Wally Dickerman at Green Valley, Az.
>George, I usually attach the material for the foot at the same time that I install the waste block. It then just becomes part of the blank. The blank should be dry or nearly so. To do the segmented rim I leave a wider than usual area on the rim when the blank is roughed out. After remounting the dry roughed out bowl, I true up the area and install the segments one at a time. A white veneer spacer between segments can be attractive. For small and medium sized bowls I use 8 segments, and for larger ones I use 12.
Wally
Re: Wood Bowl Blanks
Julie
>Thanks all for the info,
Wally your bowl is really beautiful.
Good Grief Wally!
Marc Phillips
>That took my breath away!!
Really a wonderful piece of art there... and thanks for posting that pic...
Marc
Re: Wood Bowl Blanks
George Van
>Thanks Wally,
I will give that a try. I really like the fine detail you created.
George