Variations on a Bowl

TEXT AND PHOTOS BY CHRIS CHILD

When you have reached the stage in woodturning when basic bowl turning no longer provides the challenge it once did, you might like to try your hand at making these two examples. One is a bowl with sides which curve round and form a stand, and the other is an egg cup and bowl combined together. They both involve turning a hollow shape around a central projection, which may not seem problematic at first glance, but if you have not done it before it will be a real test of your gouge control.

BOWL & STAND

     The bowl and stand was made out of a 9″ × 3″ disc of well-seasoned cherry. Screw the disc to a faceplate to hold it on the lathe (1). These screws need to be grouped close enough together so that the holes do not intrude into the finished workpiece but lie within the hollowed area of the bowl where they will be removed with the waste material.

     WEAR A FACE SHIELD. THIS IS ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT WHEN TURNING WIDE DIAMETER WORK, SINCE THE SPEED GENERATED AT THE RIM OF THE DISC IS MUCH FASTER THAN ON SPINDLE WORK.

     With the bowl blank firmly secured, use a 3/8″ bowl gouge to slice the rim true, removing all the old sawn surface (2). The bowl gouge was ground with a standard 40° bevel and standard straight-across edge. Use the same gouge to form the underside curve of the stand and the blocked-out section of the underside of the bowl. Work in from the edge of the disc as if you were hollowing out a normal bowl, and then cut in the other direction to form the cavity, leaving the center area untouched.

     I fitted two vertical tool rests to the horizontal rest on my lathe to make sure that the gouge did not wander outside the area that I wanted to cut (3). By pressing the back of the gouge against the rest at the beginning of the cut, you prevent the tool from catching and being dragged backwards out of control. Once you are past the critical area at the edge of the bowl, you can relax and let the gouge take over. If it is sharp, it will just feed itself in without the need to exert any forward pressure (4).

     The same technique using the vertical tool rest is adopted when cutting in the opposite direction (5). Alternate your cuts until you have formed the smooth inside curved surface of the stand and the vertical wall of the bowl section. Make sure that the wall of the stand is 90° or slightly undercut at the rim, so that when the work needs to be reversed it can be held successfully on a jam chuck.

     You will need all you wits about you when you come to form the tight junction at bottom of the hollow. I changed over from my bowl gouge to a spindle gouge (one with a pointed tip and a more acute bevel angle) to form the side of the central projection. The gouge was fitted with a long handle to provide more leverage and control when stretching over the gap between the tool rest and the work surface. When slicing vertically down the side of the bowl section, use the same technique as with the bowl gouge, feeding the tool on its side with its bevel flat against the work surface that has just been cut (6). To form the tight radius at the junction, work with the tool flat and at right angle to the work surface so that only the tip of the blade comes in contact. Take care it does not get caught in the curved inside wall of the stand. If you have a tool rest which will go closer into the corner to support the gouge, use it; otherwise, reduce the depth of the gouge’s cut to a minute amount so that it does not dig in.

PLANS AND PATTERNS

TWO BOWELS

     Next, use a bowl gouge to flatten off the bottom of the central bowl section and block it out to its overall dimension (7). Make a record of the outside dimensions of the central bowl while it is in its blocked-out form (8). Then use the bowl gouge to round off the bottom of the bowl using the standard slicing technique. The bevel of the gouge acts like the sole of a plane, gliding over the surface that has just been cut, and follows the curve round right into the junction with the stand (9).

     After sanding the inside of the stand and the bottom of the bowl, you will now need to make a jam chuck to hold the workpiece on the lathe in reverse. The jam chuck is a square-sided projection which is cut on the corner of a disc of fairly dense-grained wood such as beech or maple. Making it is one of the most critical stages of the project. Use a parting tool to size the projection so that it creates a very tight fit in the inside edge of the bowl’s stand (10).

     With the work firmly jammed onto the chuck, mark out the width of the bowl on the face of the disc and carefully position your vertical tool post so that it supports the back of the gouge when slicing at right angles into the work face. WEAR A FACE SHIELD IF YOU ARE NOT ALREADY DOING SO. Use the bowl gouge, which you must keep sharp at all times, to hollow out the center bowl (11). Use the same gouge to form the smooth curve of the stand (12). Work slowly and remove the workpiece from the jam chuck from time to time to check the thickness of the stand between you fingers.

     Sand the work using 80-grit abrasive at first and then work through 240-grit and finish off with 400-grit, using each successive grade to remove the scratch marks of the previous grade.

     Make a template using a thin piece of card or plywood and mark out the four equally-sized legs on the side of the stand (13). Saw the waste off on the bandsaw with the bowl held flat on the table (14). Sand away the saw marks by pushing the stand up against a disc sander (15) and form four equal arches.

     The rest of the finishing work is done by hand, although you can use the disc sander to do most of the smoothing by fixing a finer grit abrasive. You will need to decide the use that your bowl is to be put to before applying a finish. Many people prefer to leave the work au naturel when it is to be used with food, so that it can be washed under a tap after use. To finish my bowl, I wiped on a couple of coats of tung oil, a water-resistant colorless oil that dries to a soft satin finish.

COMBINED EGG CUP & BOWL

     This combined egg cup and bowl was made from a single 6″ × 3″ disc of cherry that was attached to the lathe using a single screw chuck (16). Drill a pilot hole first and make sure that the face of the disc is flat so that it winds up hard against the face of the faceplate. Set a suitable lathe speed of about 700 rpm and shape the bottom of the bowl, working the gouge with the grain so that the grain fibers are left unruffled and smooth (17). The bevel of the gouge performs similarly to the sole of a plane, gliding on the surface of the work, while the cutting edge cuts a predetermined section of waste away. I hold the gouge in a left-handed mode to cut the bowl’s base and side shape. This enables me to look down the back of the tool and judge the angle of the bevel in relation to the workpiece surface. It also allows me to see the precise point at which the cutting edge of the tool comes in contact with the work. Because the left hand anchors the tool handle against the body and the right hand is positioned between the back of the tool and the work, most of the pressure on the tool is exerted downward onto the tool rest. This helps avoid the tendency to press the bevel too much against the workpiece, which causes uneven cutting, leading to a rippled or wave effect on the work’s surface.

     To clean and flatten off the base, simply slide the gouge across with the same slicing technique as for the sides. Cut the dovetail recess in the base of the bowl using first a small square-end scraper and then an angled scraper that forms the same profile as the jaws of your expansion chuck (18). Fit the chuck onto the lathe and tighten the bowl to the chuck. Form the small conical hollow in the center of the bowl, testing it for size using a standard-sized egg (19).

     The next stage is to hollow out the side bowl. First remove all the waste from each side of the egg cup by working the gouge in the opposite direction to that used earlier (20). As the shape gets closer to the finished egg cup, fit a vertical tool post. Arc the gouge while feeding it forward and form the side of the egg cup, testing the thickness between your fingers after each cut.

     Position a tool post for cutting the outer rim of the bowl and work the gouge in the other direction. By working down one side of the side bowl and then the other, gradually form a round-bottomed cavity of the bowl (21). Use a smaller bowl gouge to undercut the sides of the egg cup (22) and work the tool in an arc so that you form a continuous curve with the sides of the bowl. At the bottom of the cavity where you are at full stretch, take particular care to avoid digging in with the gouge. Take very light cuts with the flute of the bowl gouge held upwards. Trim the tops of the rims using the same technique.

     After sanding the work smooth, I finished the work with Food Safe Finish made by Chestnut Products. The finish was applied very easily with a clean cloth and left the wood looking very natural.

Chris Child is a contributing editor for Woodwork magazine.