This beautiful bowl is the work of Kevin Neelley. Kevin operates the site TurnedWood.com. We are honored to have Kevin as a guest of The Segmented Turner and hope to bring you more examples of his work in the future!
The bowl that was designed in the “Designing a Bowl” and “Designing a Bowl Using a PC” webpages is shown here. This project is intended for the beginning segmented woodturner.
I have attempted to show the photographic sequence of bowl construction steps with descriptions. There are many different techniques for constructing and turning a segmented bowl. This page shows the way I decided to make this bowl, but I might make the next one totally differently.
An inside view of the new bowl. It was completely finished on the inside.
This is the newly completed segmented bowl. It was made from maple and purpleheart with holly and blackwood veneer details. It was constructed from 12-sided frame-mitered rings, except for the base, which was a solid disk.
CUTTING SEGMENTS:
These nine maple and purpleheart boards were cut using the filled-out “Segmented Bowl Design sheet” from my “Designing a Basic Segmented Bowl Using a No Math Method” webpage (click here). Since maple is cheap, I decided to save time by cutting all the maple boards the same 22″ length, so there will be some maple scrap left. If I made the bowl entirely from expensive exotic wood, I would have cut the board length for each ring as per the Design sheet plus 1″.
This is the frame-miter table saw sled I used to cut all the segments for this bowl. The sled plans are found on another page on this website (click here). Before making any saw cuts I made sure that my table saw blade was perfectly vertical, which is very important.
Using the #2 ring segment board as an example, the first step construction step is to pencil mark one board face (as in the above photo) so the segmented ring can be assembled with each segment’s grain oriented in the same direction. Before cutting segments, I fully raise my table saw blade to keep from excessively cutting into the fence. The next step is to cut off the end of the segment board using the miter sled. Then, flip the segment board edge-for-edge for the next cut (and for each successive cut). Note that during a cut, there is a tendency for the saw blade to push the segment board to the left, making a wavy cut. Gluing a strip of fine sandpaper to the fence edge helps hold the board in place.
Using the Design sheet outer segment width for ring #2, mark the 1-3/8″ width dimension on the #2 ring segment board, as in the above photo. Align the mark with the fence sawcut. Butt the stop board against the segment board and clamp the stop board tight. Make sure there’s no chips or sawdust between the segment board and the stop board or fence. All 12 segments can now be cut. During the cut, the cutoff segment must be held tight against the fence and stop board. To prevent possible kickback, hold the cutoff segment tight until the saw blade has been fully withdrawn from the cut. Check for chips and sawdust after every cut. If holddowns are used, they should be used on both the segment board and cutoff segment.
This photo shows how the the 12 segments have been sequentially cut from the #2 ring segment board. This is not a normal construction step. Normally, I just cut each segment board and put the segments into individual piles. All the segment boards should be cut at this time.
All the segments boards have been cut into segments. I have loosely arranged each stack of segments into rings held with a rubber band. This is not a normal construction step. Note that the pencil marks on each segment are facing the same way (either up or down). I normally start gluing the segments as soon as I finish cutting them.
To show what all the segment rings look like at this stage, I have rubber-banded all the cut segments together and stacked the rings like they will look when glued. This is not a normal construction step. Note that each ring is turned 1/2 segment from the ring below it.
This is the waste wood left over from cutting the segments. Since maple is cheap, I had cut all the maple segment boards the same length of 22″. If I had made the bowl from exotic wood, such as cocobolo, I would have cut all the segment boards 1″ longer than the calculated Design sheet length.
This is part 1 of a multi-part tutorial on Turning a Segmented Bowl by Kevin Neelley. For more great information, visit Kevin’s Turned Wood site.
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