Making a Bowl Without a Lathe

I started by preparing the blank. I decided to use this piece of poplar that was leftover from my construction of the train table. First, I broke it in half on my cross-section sled.

Then glue them together to make a thicker blank.

After the glue dried, I cleaned the vacuum on the table saw.

I found the center of the blank rectangular space and drew the largest circle I could get.

Next, I used a circular cutout template attached to my router to make a perfect circle at the top and bottom of the blank.

I didn't have a long enough router bit to completely cut through the circle, so I finished the cut on the bandsaw.

We hope you enjoy watching this video about Making a Bowl Without a Lathe

Source: 3x3Custom - Tamar

To clean the bandsaw cut, I used a standard drill on my router on both sides. Once again, I didn't have enough time to complete this cleaning ...

So I finished cleaning the bench sander.

Now I had a perfectly round blank ready to be carved for the bowl!

I have seen chair manufacturers use a similar type of template to sculpt the seatbacks. It is a type of router rail that curves so that the router follows the lines of the curve and makes a notch in the cup.

At least that's what I expected ...

I used the circular cut to create the template and I really had no idea what kind of curve I was going to get. In the end, it was a bit shallow so I adjusted it to make it deeper.

I nailed placeholders to the template so the router would only work in the center of the bowl.

Then carved!

I'd put a line on the bowl, turn the bowl slightly, and use the router again. I repeated this process until I carved the bowl.

This was not a quick process. Delayed ...

I also had to add a clamp extender so the router could reach the bowl even further.

To clean the router lines, I used a Dremel with a sanding disc attachment. This worked very well.

So I had to figure out how to shape the bottom of the bowl ...

I made this quick little template which is just a piece of MDF with a slide nailed to the bottom and a pin at the top.

I looked at the angle of the blade and set the bowl on the pin. I spun it until it tore as much of the bottom of the bowl as possible.

When I couldn't get any further on the table saw, I removed the rest of the material from the band saw.

And when I couldn't get any more material off the bandsaw, I removed the rest of the bench sander!

This was really the final step in training from abroad. I looked at the angle of the sander and sanded it until the bowl was really smooth.

I wasn't sure if I was going to use this for food so I decided to use a food-safe wax and mineral finish just to be safe.

Tools

  • Router
  • Upcut Spiral Bit
  • Pattern Bit
  • Benchtop Sander
  • Collet Extender
  • Dremel Sanding Discs
  • Mineral Oil

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Images and project courtesy of 3x3Custom - Tamar

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