Oak bowl

Fun to do, nice to touch, useless to keep things in

Better view, but still useless

This bowl was designed by Steve Good, and I made it yesterday in an idle hour.

My Bloganonymous American Son (BAS) had seen a complex folding fruit bowl at a show in Colorado, and mailed me a video link to how it had been made. It looked terrific but needed more time than I had available, so I scuffled around until I found some bowls that looked as if they might be do-able in less than a fortnight.

And this is the result. 

I cut it on the scroll saw, glued it overnight, and treated it with hot linseed this morning. I like the feel of the wood when the linseed has dried. The oil isn't tacky to the touch at all, you can feel the smoothness in your hands, and it doesn't look as if it has been sprayed with yacht varnish.

The base is too small and the rake of the sides too steep, so I have been modifying the design to give me a more generous bowl shape. I quite like the way the wood makes the angles. 

I don't have a CAD package, so do my drawing by hand. This pattern had a nightmare quality to it. It turns out that there are subtleties in the design which hadn't struck me. Doh !

This is the modified bowl so far:

Pattern drawn out and stuck to the oak

It is stuck on a piece of oak here. The wood is covered with masking tape to keep adhesive out of the grain, and the pattern is glued to the tape with spray adhesive. The line on the tape at the right is just a warning of a duff bit of grain I had to avoid when sticking.

And here is the thing roughed out on the bandsaw and ready to take to the scroll saw.

Perimeter rough-cut with the band saw

This is as far as I have got this morning, and the sun and bike are beckoning. Like any other project, a whole lot can go wrong. But if it works out, I will post the finished product later this week.

Maybe I should post the results whatever happens. Watch this space.