Welcome to my blog. Let what you see stimulate your imagination and inspire your own creations.

Friday, October 4, 2013

My new petal bowl

Finally finished the bowl, and it will serve as a prototype for variations that I'd like to try.  I'll be covering various aspects of this type of construction over several posts.

This is what the finished bowl looks like.  It consists of three separate elements: incurving rings for the lower part and bottom, incurving rings for the upper part, and a flared ring for the outcurving petals.



Here's what the rings look like, and how they stack together.  You can see why it's necessary to have all blanks and tops clearly marked to avoid mixing up the rings.















The rings have to be glued in stages in order to sand the insides.  The more work that can be done at this stage, the easier it will be to work on it once assembled.  Here are some of the parts ready to glue and sand.  The only type of sander that can be used is the round inflatable, both larger and smaller sizes.  Sometimes it's necessary to use them with a flex shaft if the drill chuck gets in the way.



I'll cover other aspects of the construction in later posts.  If you have any specific questions, please feel free to post comments or send an email.

3 comments:

  1. Beautiful Carole! How do you cut the tops? Do you sand them down?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. First I rough sanded the outside (not the flared rings) using a 2" pad and 60 grit scalloped disc. This established the shape. Then I marked the center of the top ring, and used the coarse sleeves of the large and small inflatable sanders to get down to the bottom of the petal. Then it's a matter of sanding the inside and outside alternately, and shaping the petal tips by eye until it's the way you want it. Extremely time consuming and demanding, so it really has to be spaced out over a number of sessions. I'm going to try to work up a slightly easier version for publication, since this one is too tedious for most folks--almost did me in!

      Delete