Ways to repair a bowl rim?

Re: Ways to repair a bowl rim?

JL

>Pictures? Do you have the chunk? - CA glue works wonders. How about using it as a design opportunity? Could you make the "chunk hole" part of a matching set? "Pierce" the bowl around the top?

I have a beautiful bowl out of mahogany, with a very nice maple insert. (Yes, I made an expensive donut!)

No chunk found

Harvey Bernstein (Philly)

>No chunk

No pictures available at the moment, no camera

Castle tower design out of the question

But thanks for your reply

Re: Ways to repair a bowl rim?

Bill Howatt

>Can you make it look more artistic and natural-occuring with a Dremel sander and perhaps some carving tools?

Some people seem to be able to do this fairly well but I am not one of them.

Bill

Re: No chunk found

adrien

>patch it with colored epoxy?

Re: Ways to repair a bowl rim?

Keith Tompkins

>Harvey, I don't want to sound unsympathetic, but when this happens to me, I instantly bandsaw the piece in half, to prevent even a thought of fixing it....don't get too emotionally attached to your pieces, it gets in the way of the learning process.

With that piece out of my mind, I can start another. Why? First, a repair will probably never look right. I think it's a bad habit to get into....you will find yourself constantly fixing mistakes.

Understand why the problem happened, and learn from it. We all blow pieces up from time to time....there is always a certain risk involved...

As you gain experience, your technique will improve, the broken pieces will become a rarity. Chalk it up to experience, and move on.

Re: Ways to repair a bowl rim?

Dave Peebles Lyons, Ohio!

>Hi Harvey,

I will disagree with Keith a little here. This being your first bowl, you have nothing to lose by playing around with it a bit. Some of the best work comes from mistakes. I have done several that didn't meet my expectations when they were first completed. Sometimes they sat around for a while until I decided what I would do with them. Like Keith said, sometimes they will end up being sawn in half, or fed to the wood stove Gods, But you never know until you try.

I am not a big fan of trying to fill a void in a bowl. It always seems to look like just what it is. A patch job.... at least when I do it. :) But I have had some sucess with carving or altering the rim of the bowl. I have done this with a Dremmel rotary tool, a fine tooth Japanese saw, or anything I can think of to use.

I guess my point is, go for it, let your imagination run wild. Sometimes great work comes not from a plan, but from just plain dumb luck.

Best wishes,

Dave

Re: Ways to repair a bowl rim?

Barry Turner

>I say chalk it up to learning. Most folks never see my duds. Not even my wife! She commented the other day that, "You never really ruin a piece of wood." Heh, heh, heh. I feed the woodstove and the trash bin just like everybody else. She just never sees 'em!

Re: Ways to repair a bowl rim?

Barry Irby

>First, Let me say that I am beginning to agree with Keith. I have spent too much time trying to resurrect bowls that were too far gone. I agonize and patch and return and display and then throw them away. Might be better to make a harsher judgement up front and move on. HST:

A 1/4" hole can be quickly filled with shavings or sawdust or coarse sanding dust from darker wood such as walnut or even bark from your current blank, and soaked in CA. Build it up higher than the surrounding surface and cut or sand it flush. I have done this on salad bowls where the owner wanted them to be "Practical" and not leak salad dressing. Worked fine, looked OK.

I guess no other replies coming

Harvey Bernstein (Philly)

>So thank all of you for your suggestions. This one time I am going to try to save the bowl, as a learning exercise if nothing else.

Thanks again,

Harvey

Re: I guess no other replies coming

Bill Howatt

>IMO, good idea. I do have some sympathy for Keith Tompkin's view that you should move on and spend time improving your turning technique but on the other hand learning how you might salvage a valuable piece down the road is a good learning exercise too.

I don't believe most of us only end up with pieces that are pure wood. From forums like this I have learned about using CA glue to stabilize knots, bark and end-grain shakes. How to fill holes with epoxy and various packing materials which end up looking like they were part of the tree or are considered an artistic detail.

Without these techniques some nice stuff would have turned into fireplace ashes.

Although I don't do it, some people would apply what they learned carving a problem like yours to carving perfectly good bowl rims to embellish them.

I used to work for a fellow that said as long as we learn something we didn't waste our time. Sometimes what we learned was that we won't do that again.

Good luck,

Bill

Thanks for your support Bill

Harvey Bernstein (Philly)

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