Hole in the Bowl advice

[Hilel Salomon]

I've now accumulated half a dozen bowls and platters where I went too deep and have small holes in the bottom. I've seen platters where the bowl bottom is lined with different metals. How does one do that. Thanks, Hilel.

[Neal Addy]

Check the Craft catalog here.

http://www.woodturnerscatalog.com/store/Decorative_Materials?Args=

Metal leafing kits are listed under the "Coloring" section. Inlay material might also be an option.

You could also use CA and coffee grounds. Another option is a plug from another wood, although I personally think that says "I'm patching a hole".

[Mike Vickery]

I usually desquise the hole by burning the piece in my fire pit. Once I am done with that treatment their is no evidence a hole was ever their.

[Paul Engle]

Right on Mike.....

[Mike Golka]

Although I am very green at this turning business I figured out that using that method disguises all nature of flaws!!

[John Taylor]

HI

A slightlly less drastic method is to make the hole larger and add a feature button.

Bowls like this sell faster than normal ones. :confused:


http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i237/jptaylor_photos/th_walnuttop.jpg (http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i237/jptaylor_photos/walnuttop.jpg)


John

[Jude Kingery]

Hilel, many good suggestions to you as I've shot through a couple of bowls myself - one thing that's helped me avoid that since then is a good set of calipers, like bowl calipers. Just a suggestion. Jude

[Paul Engle]

John, is that a '' push to talk '' button ???

[Neal Addy]

You can always flip them upside-down and call them a lamp shade. :D

[Kevin McPeek]

For me if the hole goes all the way through its a goner and it'll have a similar fate to Mike's. If it just gets real thin I may try to save it with a glued on foot.
With just a small hole I'd look at it and say, "he went through the bottom and tried to save it". How ever if you cut the bottom inch or two off and made it look like you started with a disk like a lot of segmented bowls that would be a little easier to pass off.

Remember it was just firewood when you started with it, sometimes it just has a longer journey.

[Hilel Salomon]

Thanks for all your suggestions. In preparing the bowl blanks, my wood stove gets more than enough fire fodder. In many cases, the hole appears after many hours of work and when I've reverse chucked it. Even if it is early in the turning process, I am reluctant to burn anything but the completely unsalvageable. Not a few of my bowls are already worm eaten, half destroyed blocks of wood. I'm not cheap when it comes to tools or outfitting my shops as I've got over a dozen chucks and close to eighty turning tools, but I sure am cheap when it comes to wood, so I guess I'll opt for the suggestions which involve saving the darn things. no matter how odd they look. Fortunately, I'm such a shoddy craftsman that I'll get laughs from the true artists no matter what I do.
Regards, Hilel.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Hilel I will turn the bottom of the bowl off to get a sqaure glue surface and glue a piece of contrasting wood on and then after the glue dries finish the bottom. Like John these bowls seem to sell faster than the others for some reason.

[Martin Braun]

Or you can take your collection of 'lamp shades' and make a ribbon sculpture ala a recent AAW journal article.

[Horst Hohoff]

I would also say that John Taylor`s method is the best way to save a bowl with hole. But make sure you use a wood with a contrasting colour. If you use the same or similar type of wood as the original bowl it sort of never looks right to me.

When the gouge is running sweetly,
it's so easy to plough on, until suddenly you find,
an interesting hole has appeared in the bottom of the bowl.
Geoff Heath, Woodturner

http://de.geocities.com/horsthohoff/durchblick.jpghttp://mitglied.lycos.de/hhohoff/durchblick3.jpg

[Hilel Salomon]

I like that bowl. I doubt that I can make one as nice, but I guess I could (when I give mine away) refer to them as slightly segmented. Hilel

[David Wilhelm]

Bringing this back up......... I've had this happen a few times. Depending on how you hold your bowl and it's shape. I use jumbo jaws. I've taken a skew and made a very sharp fine clean cut and opend up the bottom of the bowl. Then with a mismatched wood (maple bowl, I'd used walnut) take a measurement and turn a section that fits nice on the opening in the bowl with an attractive new foot. Then turn a nice looking spindle design. now you have a fruit bowl or nut tray to give as a gift or sale..... either way you didn't have to burn it and it looks like you planned it from day one.

[Joe Delfino]

I haven't made a bowl yet. I've only had my lathe about four weeks now. I saw Norm last week turn a bowl and he drilled a hole in the center as a depth guide. When he hit the bottom of the pilot hole he knew how close he was to the bottom. I've never seen this anywhere before. Is this a good method for a beginner?

[Jim Underwood]

Here's a thread where a couple of us do the patch thing in the bottom of the bowl with a hole.

I made a nice save on a Christmas present (even if I do say so myself!):D that way.

By the way, nice save on that Ash bowl Horst!


Whoops. It'd be good if I included the link:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=72352

[David Wilhelm]

Thats A good way to tell how deep you are going on the inside joe. But remember when you cut if off not to go to far either. when we just started out most of us just had basic simple tools. I know my first bowl was flat on the bottom. I soon learned that as the moisture changed in the wood it would have movement and man did it move. It never cracked but the sides rolled up and warped like a rambler hubcap that had been run over by a dump truck and it would not sit flat at all. I learned that if i would pert the bottom off giving it a dished out shape if it moved it would still sit flat and not wobble around after that dump truck ran over it. These bowls are nothing to take to a show but I'm as proud of them as I am of any. They are from the day when turning was cheap LOL. Enjoy it while it last!!!