# My first Segmented Bowl Build Thread



## BigJoe16 (Feb 20, 2012)

Had the urge to make a segmented bowl today and had the wood already to go. I pretty much winged it as far as the design and size. 

I am making it out of sapele and I think red oak from a pallet. 

I cut the angles to 22.5• so I needed 8 pieces per ring. 

I have the first 4 rings cut and glued up. I was thinking of having somewhere between 6-8 rings. But I don't know how to make the bottom.


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## BigJoe16 (Feb 20, 2012)

I had one big screw up when making this. It's due to my own stupidity. When I was cutting the pieces on the mitre saw, I left an already cut piece in line with the blade when I was cutting another piece. It jammed up the saw, bending the teeth on the blade and sending the chuck flying. It split the other piece and almost got me. 

After it was all said and done, I ruined a $90 blade, and had to buy a $60 blade to replace it. But I would rather spend money then pick up fingers.


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## sawdustfactory (Jan 30, 2011)

If you have a saw sharpening service nearby, they can probably fix that blade. Don't ask me how I know ;-)


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## dmh (Sep 18, 2010)

BigJoe16 said:


> I had one big screw up when making this. It's due to my own stupidity. When I was cutting the pieces on the mitre saw, I left an already cut piece in line with the blade when I was cutting another piece. It jammed up the saw, bending the teeth on the blade and sending the chuck flying. It split the other piece and almost got me.


How's your underwear? :laughing: Just kidding and glad to hear it didn't get ya.


Looking forward to the progress.


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## Horatio (Apr 4, 2012)

I just don't like miter saws. They work great for cutting very specific things but you stand there with a chunk of something in your hand, own no other saws, and it calls out to you, tells you soothingly everything will be okay, just take it nice and slow......I can't count how many times I've cut something I have no business cutting on the miter saw, had it grab, and told my wife "I'm getting a band saw before I lose a finger!"

And then, well, I do dumb things with it to. 

Ok, that being said: looking great so far!


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## robert421960 (Dec 9, 2010)

this will be fun to watch and learn from:yes::yes:
you said you dont know what to put on the bottom why not just a solid piece


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## BigJoe16 (Feb 20, 2012)

robert421960 said:


> this will be fun to watch and learn from:yes::yes:
> you said you dont know what to put on the bottom why not just a solid piece


That's what I was thinking of but I don't really like how it looks on bowls I've seen online. Last night I thought of keeping the same design as the walls of the bowl, and just cutting the strips thinner so it looks like the bowl is deeper than it really is. I'm not so sure I will be able to get it to work but, it's worth a try.


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## sawdustfactory (Jan 30, 2011)

Try a solid bottom. Start with it thicker than final and cut it so there is basically a tenon that fits in the bottom of the bowl. Glue it in and then turn away the excess so all you see when looking at the bowl from the side is the segmented pattern. (I hope that's clear, but I'm not thinking clearly this am :blink


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## BigJoe16 (Feb 20, 2012)

sawdustfactory said:


> Try a solid bottom. Start with it thicker than final and cut it so there is basically a tenon that fits in the bottom of the bowl. Glue it in and then turn away the excess so all you see when looking at the bowl from the side is the segmented pattern. (I hope that's clear, but I'm not thinking clearly this am :blink


I think I know what your saying. 

Make a normal ring then cut a piece to fit inside that bottom ring for the bottom. So it would look like another ring from the outside but the inside has a solid piece.? Is that what you mean?


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## BigJoe16 (Feb 20, 2012)

Here's what I did for the bottom. I just cut a octagonal piece for the bottom to fit inside and glued it up. The joints are pretty tight. I think it came out good. Thanks for the idea Sawdust!


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## oldmacnut (Dec 27, 2010)

Ill make this fast as I'm at the surgeons office waiting for him to come in.

I use solid material for my bases, unless I glue up a design, I've yet to try the segments to make a base.

Ditch the miter saw, take a piece of 3;4" plywood, about 18" long, make your 15,30/etc cut, put that piece on a sled, slide up to blade, boom, easy.
Like this...











Man, ditch the danger saw, cut your pieces on the table saw, and put something like this on your insert, to keep kickback from happening.










Sent from my SGH-T989 using Woodworking Talk


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## BigJoe16 (Feb 20, 2012)

oldmacnut said:


> Ill make this fast as I'm at the surgeons office waiting for him to come in.
> 
> I use solid material for my bases, unless I glue up a design, I've yet to try the segments to make a base.
> 
> ...


I have been wanting to make something like this for a while. Now I probably will. I have the plywood laying here left over from a mother project. I already have all the pieces cut though. I just have 2 more rings to glue up then I can glue them together. I was thinking of offsetting them so the colors kind of swirl as they go up. I will either do that or just alternate them so the colors to red, white, red, white as they go up. 

How do you get them centered right. I know some people make a clamp using a piece of plywood for the base and a threaded rod with another piece of plywood to complete the clamp. I wasn't going to make one. I planned on using 45lb plates. Will this work? 

Why are you in the surgeons office? I hope it's nothing serious.


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## robert421960 (Dec 9, 2010)

i saw someone using weights to glue theirs and it worked fine


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## dmh (Sep 18, 2010)

BigJoe16 said:


> How do you get them centered right. I know some people make a clamp using a piece of plywood for the base and a threaded rod with another piece of plywood to complete the clamp. I wasn't going to make one. I planned on using 45lb plates. Will this work?


Are you talking about centering one ring to the next? I just use a hose clamp and some spacers to get it centered. I'll pull the spacers out before the glue sets up real good.


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## BigJoe16 (Feb 20, 2012)

dmh said:


> Are you talking about centering one ring to the next? I just use a hose clamp and some spacers to get it centered. I'll pull the spacers out before the glue sets up real good.


I was askig about centering the rings. I did t think of using the clamp like that. It would work except my rings get bigger towards the top so the is overhang. Also each ring is turned a little to the right compared to the next ring so the flat spots don't line up. Thanks for the tip though.


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## BigJoe16 (Feb 20, 2012)

Well I got it all glued up today it's clamped up now. I used pipe clamps on the wings of my table saw. I glued a piece of 3/4 in ply wood to the top so I can mount that to the chuck on the lathe so I can turn the tenon into the bottom. Then I'll just turn that off. On the largest rings, I had to sand off the corners because they were too wide for my lathe. They were 10 1/2 in at the widest and my lathe can only handle 10 in. 

I arranged the rings so they look like they twist as they go up, then twist back the other way. I thought this looked cool and was easy to do. I hope to turn this tomorrow evening.


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## BigJoe16 (Feb 20, 2012)

I got it all finished up today. I marked the center on the plywood and screwed the faceplate to it. When I started rounding it out, I was getting a lot of chipping at the corners when using a bowl gouge. So I had to use a round nose scrapper untill I got it round. It took probably 2 hours to get it done. I sanded up to 600 grit and wiped it down with mineral spirits. I think it turned out damn good for my first attempt. What do you think?


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## Horatio (Apr 4, 2012)

Very nice!


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## BangleGuy (Apr 24, 2012)

Wow Big Joe, That is really cool. Thanks for sharing the experience! and I hope you can fix that saw blade of yours.


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## dbales (Jun 21, 2011)

That came out great!


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## dmh (Sep 18, 2010)

Turned out great!:thumbsup:


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## robert421960 (Dec 9, 2010)

thats looks great man:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:


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## BigJoe16 (Feb 20, 2012)

BangleGuy said:


> Wow Big Joe, That is really cool. Thanks for sharing the experience! and I hope you can fix that saw blade of yours.


Thanks, I am going to call a local blade sharpening place and see what they say. Hopefully they can fix it.


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## MagGeorge (Jul 5, 2012)

May I say, you are a genius! This one is coming out supremely!


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## BigJoe16 (Feb 20, 2012)

MagGeorge said:


> May I say, you are a genius! This one is coming out supremely!


Thank you! I have been called names before but not a genius. Making this wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be.


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## WillemJM (Aug 18, 2011)

BigJoe16 said:


> I had one big screw up when making this. It's due to my own stupidity. When I was cutting the pieces on the mitre saw, I left an already cut piece in line with the blade when I was cutting another piece. It jammed up the saw, bending the teeth on the blade and sending the chuck flying. It split the other piece and almost got me.
> 
> After it was all said and done, I ruined a $90 blade, and had to buy a $60 blade to replace it. But I would rather spend money then pick up fingers.


Sorry to hear about that, at least you did not get hurt.

This is the set-up I use for my miter, perhaps I'm lucky but never had an issue so far.


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## BigJoe16 (Feb 20, 2012)

WillemJM said:


> Sorry to hear about that, at least you did not get hurt.
> 
> This is the set-up I use for my miter, perhaps I'm lucky but never had an issue so far.


That's close to what I was using. It would have worked just fine if I was more careful. Why do you have that piece of wood on the left side. Is it so a small piece of wood sits up against it. On my saw, a small piece dosent contact enough of the fence so I have to be really carefull cutting Ben so they don't get pushed back.


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## WillemJM (Aug 18, 2011)

BigJoe16 said:


> Why do you have that piece of wood on the left side.


The wood on the left side as the fence I work against serves two purposes:

1.) It allows the segment once cut, to pull away from the blade, preventing the segments from being launched as missiles.

2.) For large bowl segments, one has to be extremely accurate, otherwise there will be a slight gap between two segments somewhere in the glue up. I often do 18" diameter bowls, then this becomes a big problem. The casting on my Dewald saw is not accurate enough, so if the piece being cut is against both left and right fences, I lose more than 0.001" accuracy.


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