Osage Orange bowl with paduak rim

Osage Orange bowl with paduak rim

Dominic Greco in Richboro PA

>Hi Everyone,

Below are some pictures of a osage orange and paduak bowl I just finished last night.

I have several roughed out osage bowls in the last stages of drying out, and was toying with the idea of adding a segmented rim. I wanted some wood that would really compliment the bright yellow of the osage. But that the same time, I wanted something that would work as the color of the osage mellowed to golden. I had these scraps of paduak laying around and just happened to find them when I was cleaning up my shop. They seemed perfect for the job.

The paduak rim was constructed from (2) layers of 1/4" thick (12) segment rings. The bottom layer separated from the osage by black veneer. One problem with paduak is that like many tropical or exotic woods, the color will bleed over into the adjoining wood. On the advice from Mark Kauder and Joel Hunnicutt, I used black veneer to separate these woods, and to give definition to the inner segmented ring.

Like just about every bowl I turn these days, I tried something new. After reading Keith Thompkin's post about maintaining tight joint lines in segented work, I decided I would re-think my modus-operandi for assembling segmented rings.

With past bowls, I would cut out the segments, and then lay some packing tape (sticky side up) along a straight edge. I would then assemble the ring "in the flat", add glue, and bring the ends of the tape together. The still wet ring was then added to the bowl, along with the other rings. This method works OK. But unless you are dead on, there is bound to be a gap or two.

If you take a look at Kevin Neely's website, you will see the method I used this time. Basically you assemble the segments in pairs and allow them to dry. After a bit of time, you assemble the pairs into groups, and so on until you have a complete half-ring. In order to make up for any angular inconsistencies, you use a special tablesaw sled to trim the ends of the half rings. Thus ensuring that the half rings will fit together with no gaps. After this, the ring is flattened using a belt sander, or on the lathe using a MDF disc, hot glue, and a sanding stick. The nice thing about this method is that each joint receives your full attention. That way, the final assembly consists of a series of very tightly joined pieces.


Another new practice was using my lathe as an assembly press. With the trued up solid bowl held in my talon chuck, I needed something that could apply even pressure to the rim of the bowl. So I decided to make a platten from a 10" diameter piece of 3/4" plywood. Using a Oneway live center adapter, I was able to attach a faceplate, which in turn held the platten onto the live center that came with my Jet lathe (BTW, this cheaper Jet live center can use ALL of Oneway's accessories). A couple coats of Behlen's Woodturner's Finish (fast drying waxed shellac) insuerd that nothing would stick to this. Applying pressure to the glue up was a simple matter of locking the tailstock and advancing the tailcenter.


The bowl was then dry sanded to 2000 grit, reverse chucked using my cole jaws (too lazy to get out the vacuum chuck!) and the base turned.