Kevin Hou

I found a similar design online and I decided to use a combination of walnut and poplar.

I discovered the single piece I had made previously was not going to wide enough.

I am gluing the duplicated designs together. I had to use many clamps as it was imperative I had no gaps in the wood.

I sanded and cleaned up the pieces. They are no ready to be cut and glued in a ring.

I cut the long rectangular prisms into slices and angled the edges. Because it was going to be a 12 sided ring, I cut them at a 15 degree angle. I also added another layer of walnut on the top and bottom.

These rings make up the rest of the bowl. I originally planned for only three poplar rings, but I discovered they were not thick enough to make a good bowl.

I am preparing to sand the segments into a perfect ring. The angle was slightly off on the table saw. I numbered them to keep track of which goes where.

As you can see, it would have been very, very shallow.

This is what it would have looked like without the extra walnut ring.

This is the walnut ring I added. It is thicker and looks nice between the two poplar rings. This was one of the first things I had done in my home shop. I cut them at school then glued them at home.

At this point, I had all my pieces cut and ready for glue. I glued my scrap pieces of walnut together to create a non-segmented base for my bowl. It is currently drying in the picture, that is why there are clamps.

I am gluing the bottom half and turning it separately from the design ring in order to get it in a perfect circle. This part was much easier to make so if I messed up, it wouldn't take as much time to fix in comparison to the design ring.

I was worried about turning this section because I had never used this particular lathe. My bowl was so big that I needed to use a different lathe.

The bowl is now completely assembled and ready to turn.

I was so terrified of breaking it at this point.

I got the entire bowl into a circle and I am now ready to sand.

It is nearly complete. It is about a foot in diameter.

Because the design ring is end grain, I needed to use a different technique to prevent tear out. This new method meant I needed to do a lot of sanding.

My friend watching me work. A lot of people in the school were waiting for me to finish since it was such a large undertaking. I got a lot of support from friends and teachers alike.