Scroll Saw Bowls with Segmented Feature Ring

A year ago my wife gave me an interesting book on how to make bowls without a lathe. At that time I did not have a wood lathe and the prospect of making bowls without creating mounds of wood shavings intrigued me.

Carole Rothman Uses a Scroll Saw to Make Her Bowls 

Carole Rothman has developed techniques that transform flat boards as wide and long as the dimensions of the piece into incredibly beautiful bowls. One drawback: these bowls typically have sides that are around 45 degrees. 

I like to make things that are useful and have been planning to make a series of sturdy bowls for chopping vegetables and nuts so that the process doesn't send pieces all over the place. My wife's mother had a very functional wooden bowl and chopping knife that she used many decades.  The bowl was shallower than the one pictured above so, in order to use a scroll saw, I had to modify the technique. 

Mother-in-Law's 12.5 Inch Diameter Bowl and Chopping Knife

My first attempt used two boards of hard maple to make the bottom four layers of a bowl. Turning a solid piece of wood involves slicing through the grain at various angles. It is much easier to cut "with the grain" than "across the grain". The woodworking group I belong to introduced me to segmented bowl techniques and the advantages of creating layers that have no "end grain". For the fancy top layers, I added feature rings of trapezoids.

First Chopping Bowl with Cherry Feature Ring on Top of Four Layers of Maple

Side View of First Bowl

Two Handled Chopping Knife, Handles Cover Blade When Not in Use

Second Bowl with Cherry Feature Ring and Pine Separators

Top View: Second Bowl Showing Trapezoids and Separators

Second Bowl Complete

Discs on Left Have Been Cut Out of a Square Board at 45 Degrees. They Will Be Cut Again to Make Layers #2 and #4 of Two Bowls.  Stacked Discs on Right Are Layers #1 and #3 of Those Bowls.

The Four Bottom Layers of a Bowl

Glued Up Stack of Four Layers of Yellow Birch

Feature Ring: Alternating Trapezoids of Walnut and Cherry

Feature Ring Added to Four Layers of Yellow Birch

Chopping Knife with Leather Cover

Bottom View of Chopping Bowl #3

Top View of #3

Top View of #4: Yellow Birch Layers 1-4, Alternating Trapezoids of Cherry and Oak, with Purple Heart Separators

Bottom View of Chopping Bowl #4

Turning Segmented Wood: Making Beads-of-Courage Vessels

Every year the Beads-of-Courage (http://www.beadsofcourage.org/) program provides 60,000 sick children in 250 hospitals beads for every procedure they have to endure. They start out stringing these beads together but too often they have so many that they need a container to hold them all. The organization asks woodworkers create fancy boxes to hold beads. In March I made a vessel using flat boards. 

My First Beads of Courage Vessel With Rings Made Out of Two Flat Boards

I recently joined a group of woodworkers learning to make round objects using segments. The technique uses triangles or trapezoids glued together to form rings that are stacked to make bowls, vases, urns and similar cylindrical forms. By incorporating different colors of wood, these creations can be extraordinary. The pieces of wood are typically arranged so that grain is tangent to the circumference of these round forms. Tools then shave nice ribbons when slicing along the grain. When making a ring from a solid board, only two small parts cut along the grain the rest becomes more difficult as more and more wood fibers have to be cut at up to 90 degrees. Cutting tools often pull bits of fiber out of the wood that require more sandpaper and effort to finish.

Three additional vessels use twelve trapezoids that have 15 degree angles on each end to create five or six rings. The upper and lower rings of the cylinder are walnut and the three layers that make up the top alternate cherry, walnut and soft maple. The sides of the vessels utilize either soft maple or birch dowels, lined with clear formed polycarbonate sheet. Knobs (actually rejected wine stopper handles) were turned from lilac. In contrast to the first vessel that used two pieces of wood, the solid cylinders use 74 pieces, not counting knobs.

Views: Inside Lids and Solid Cylinder Bottoms

Views: Inside Vessels and Tops 

Stepped and Blended Three Ring Tops on Vessels

Three Rings Glued Together Make the Tops

The Vessel With Clear Sides Supported by Six Dowels

View Showing Inside the Lid and Open Vessel

View Showing Maple Bottom and Inside Lid with Pine Ring That
Centers the Lid on the Vessel Opening