Bowls from Boards

Turn a bowl from a board?

The bowl shown above was police thesis turned from a flat piece of wood IE: a board. I developed this technique so that bowls could be turned from rare woods without having to find blanks. This simple technique involves the cutting of rings on the lathe. Variations in segments and materials can be used as shown in the last two pictures. Even plastic bowls are possible. Note: Unlike conventional ring cutting techniques this method does not require you to buy a new machine and it does not put ugly HOLES in your bowls.


The “Bowls From Boards” book describes the technique and associated tooling!

Why would you want to turn a bowl from a flat board?

  • New to bowl turning and don’t want to spend a lot of money to reduce expensive hardwood blanks to chips?

  • Midnight Clear on dvd Can’t find a size-able enough blank for the large bowl you are trying to turn?

  • Got some scrap wood, and looking for a new turning challenge?

  • Want to try out the basics of segmented turning?

  • Want to explore new materials not available in bowl blanks (like plastics)

  • Don’t have a chain saw and the desire to cut your own blanks?


Click on these Example pages from the book:

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