I had a beautiful lump of Bocote (Central America, specific gravity over 1.0, so the wood does not float), and the coloration on it was simply amazing. It is very dense, oily wood, sort of like lignum vitae. It turned like butter! The outside was beautiful and it came off so clean with the chisel, that I started my sanding at 240 grit. No tearing at all. I was so proud that I was able to make a perfectly square top. No chipping on the corners, all perfect 90 degrees on all 4 sides. I got the entire outside sanded, flipped it over, and started cutting on the inside. I chucked it with a recessed hole instead of a extended plug, because I wanted as much height as possible. I drilled a forsner bit hole in the middle, correctly measuring to leave about a quarter-inch bottom, including the recessing. I calculated enough space so that I even had room to get rid of the center point divot from the forsner bit. What I did not calculate was after getting the divot removed, to make sure I had enough room to make the bottom of the bowl FLAT. I mis-calculated just a weeeee bit on my measurements....and blew out the bottom. So, what do you do with a perfectly good funnel?
Here was my solution. I have a 4" diameter marble made from uranium glass, and after cleaning up the frayed funnel bottom, I inverted it and made it a stand for my giant marble! ("When life gives you lemons......")
Dave Peterson
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Originally Posted by Dan Hintz
