Hi, Cip: Good job! One thing that might help with the dovetail joint is to check your router table to ensure that there is no sag at all. If there is any sag then as you start the cut the bit is cutting full depth but as the cut progresses the leading end of the board is riding up the other side of the sagging table and the board is bridging the sag so the center of the board does not get cut to full depth. Then the trailing end of the board comes down the infeed side of the sagging table and the bit is cutting at full depth again as it exits the cut. It does not require much sag at all in the table to throw off the fit of the joints. A slight crown is better than any sag as long as you are aware of it and maintain downward pressure on the board directly over the cutter with a hold down of some sort. Take care Bob
Bob Hamilton Good to hear from you, Bob. I should have viewed more of your videos before attempting this. I will be working on that dovetail join again. I tried it twice and both turned out a bit loose. I should have done all my passes from right to left so the torque of the bit would force the work against the fence. A better router table would also help. Mine is not as flat as it needs to be. Definitely a learning experience. Other viewer say they will be trying it soon. Thanks for the pointers in the right direction.
Thanks Cip. Very attractive bowl and a very helpful video. Good job too! I really like your Nova DVR. They are so quiet and a very simple design. Great machines!! Regards, Charlie
Hello Cip, I'm just about to embark on my first "economy" bowl,and I just hope it comes out as nice as yours. I'm also pleased about what you said about bowl gauges,as I'm really quite hopeless with them,and use my scrapers of all shapes and sizes as much as I can!! So that's at least 2 of us on the planet! Take care, Keith.
Keith Barrow Yes, Keith scrapers are my fall back. But I am always practicing with my gouges. I made myself a shallow gouge. I think it is a cross between a scraper and a regular gouge. It helps me practice cutting with a curved tool. Hang in there.
I've watched Bob's videos and he makes all this look easy. I appreciate you watching my videos. I'm enjoying yours as well. Keep up the good work! Steve
Lovely piece Cip, and the idea with the dovetails is great, as we always say practice improves things :). I'm sure your next one will get the dove tails just right. Take care Mike
I like the Idea very much Harold. I'm going to try one where if I glue the two boards with dove tail, before cutting the segment rings and see how that comes out. I very much enjoyed your video!
+Lou Turcotte Greetings Lou. I use a band saw, so I must cut the rings before bonding. I like things that are different and the dovetail join adds an interesting visual effect. Cheers...
I wanted to make one of these for a while and now seeing yours and the offset dovetail joint idea gives me a bit more hope that I may be able to do one. The 45 degree on the bandsaw does look scary alright. Great work on yours.
+Moray1949 Thanks Moray. I think I used the wrong bandsaw blade. I have been using Vermont American 1/4 inch, 15 TPI and they appear to cut smoother and less catchy. Next time I will try that and make a tighter sliding dovetail joint. Thanks for watching.
I really like the way the bowl looks: At first glance it looks way more complicated than it really is and that draws in people's interest. An artist is his own worst critic. You did a really nice job with the bowl. As you said, the outside seams are just about perfect and the inside seams won't be seen once you fill it with something. I'm just starting in this craft and don't have a router table or band saw yet, but they are high on my list of priorities. As soon as I have them I really want to try this bowl. Thanks for making the video: It inspires me to expand my skills.
Beautiful Bowl, Cip. The idea of the dovetail joint is really good. Well, if you make such a connection for the first time, as can sometimes errors occur. I think it is in any case great.
Very nice, I like the contrast between the two different woods. I going to try something similar but only smaller, my lathe right now can't handle stock that big. Very nice video.Thanks for all your videos.
Thank you for sharing this. I generally stick to platters as u cant stand the waste from making a bowl. Like this very much, especially as u can incorporate some of my other skills, am a dab hand at dovetails. Tye detaioed instruction us greatly aopreciated as is your time tyvm
You did a great job! Nice to see something a little original and as I said earlier, a particular thumbs up from me when i can incorporate different skills. Look firward to learning more from you - no pressure 😆
Neat idea. I think if you get the dovetails very tight in the beginning you will not have those gaps at the end. I hope to try this when we get moved to our new place this summer.
Hi cip: I’ve made quite a few of these economy bowls but never one with the dovetailed joints, something for me to try in the future, the bowl came out really nice! and a good video well demonstrated and explained, Cheers Harry
Harry Watts Hey there! Harry. I've seen a few of these but this was my first. I need to try this again soon to see if I learned anything. All the best.
Miguel Sanchez Hola! Miguel Yes, I need to work on that. It seamed too tight and would not slide. When I got it to slide, it was way too loose. I should have used a featherboard and practiced more. It was fun and makes for good discussion.
I think you done an awesome job for the first time practice makes perfect and I will be trying it for my first time I like the looks of it so tel next time keep up the good work
What a great concept. A little more work on tight fitting dovetails and this would be an awesome art piece. I think you did very well, my dovetails aren't that tight either, but I'm working on it whenever I get the chance. Love the idea of a dovetailed economy bowl. Just might to have a try at this one.
Beautiful bowl Cip! I love the dovetail jointed half-rings. One thing which always surprises me, is that you're talking about a 'soft oak'. Over here in Germany oak (aka as English Oak) is one of the hardest domestic woods. I think I know the 'mistake' you made with the dovetail. As you'd been routing the groove into the oak, your second pass was with the bit removing wood in between the fence and the bit. Instead of moving the fence closer to the bit you should have moved it away from it. This way any error, while passing the board through, would end up in a narrower groove, which can be corrected by simply running the board over the bit again. The way you did it ended up in a wider, impossible to correct grove and in the end with the gaps on the inside of your bowl. (I hope this makes sense, sorry for my poor description, still trying to improve my English) -- Great minds think alike! :-) -- I started on a similar bowl today, wanted to call it 'Single Board Bowl'. I'm using a single board of reclaimed Dark Red Meranti with a layer of plywood on top, which hopefully ends up in something as beautiful as yours. We should take the chance and call out a challenge for turning Economy or Single Board Bowls. I'm looking forward to see some other nice and interesting projects from you. Greetings from Good Old Germany Peter
***** Hallo Peter. The White Oak was new growth wood and a bit pithy. Yes, the sliding dovetail was the challenge. I needed more precission. It must be late there at night in Germany. Cutting the rings at 45 degree was also scary for me. A finer tooth blade may have helped. I am not one for a turning challenge, but you are welcome to do so. Kind regards, Cip...
I'll do the 45° cut tomorrow, at least some time after I left my bed :-) (it's 4:20 AM over here at the moment, 9:20 PM (Yesterday for me) Central Time) After making a few test cuts today, I figured out, that a 'virtual pivot point' (a mark on the table of the bandsaw works the best for me. I don't concentrate on the circle, but on leaving the board'as close as possible with its center to my mark, time will tell. Greetings from Good Old Germany Peter
It looks very nice Cip..you must to work a little more in dovetail assembly but , IT LOOK SO PRETTY..Congratulations Cip..!! Greetings from Argentine.! Steve.
Hi, again, Cip: One point I would like to make is that the angle of the cuts for the rings is not necessarily 45 degrees. The angle is dependent on the distance between the circle layout lines and the thickness of the wood. In your case 3/4" spacing and 3/4" thick does result in a 45 degree bevel angle but different spacing or thickness of the wood would yield a different angle. If you check out my pictorial article on my website it shows how I determined the tilt angle for the bandsaw table: bobhamswwing.com/Articles/economy/TRUE%20ECONOMY.htm Take care Bob
Howdy John! I made this bowl from what I had on-hand, 3/4 inch stock. The thickness of the stock determines radius and diameter of each ring. If the bottom piece is 6 inches the next ring is 7 1/2 inches = 6 + (2 * 3/4). Please view video at 1:00 and 5:15 I hope that helps, cheers.
when you are running your boards through the router on a wide side like that you should support it on the table side with a nice block of 3x3" up against it to stop it wobbling about so much, it works pretty good for me. oh yeah, and I think your Oak is actually Ash, cheers Geeezer.
I think I heard you say that you have trouble with your bowl gouge and that is why you use the scraper so much. I would really encourage you to improve your skills with a bowl gouge as you will get a much better cut on the wood than you get with a scraper. A little practice and you will get the hang of it. I did like the project and will give it a try soon. I think the key is to joint the sides of the boards that will receive the dovetail so they fit perfectly together and then make the dovetail only loose enough to slide it together. A little tapping would be better than a loose joint. Stu
Cip, nice video, thanks. You said it was a bit off centre and of course that reduces the amount of wall thickness available to you. I'm not sure, but it looked like you put the compass on the joint line between the two boards? However that is not the centre! Because the boards overlap in the dovetail joint you need to centre the compass on the middle of the the dovetail. ie if the height of the tail is say 12mm, then the centre point should be 6mm to one side of the joint. Then when you line up the joint lines the dovetail should be in the centre of the bowl and the wall thickness even on both sides. Please let me know if I'm wrong because I'm going to try it myself. Thanks.
not to bad - if I may be so bold as to offer an observations, when you cut the dove tail channel in the oak you were cutting backwards. On the router table unless you are doing a climb cut always cut from right to left. I could see it grabbing and I know you could feel it.
kencmain Hey there Ken! Yes, I did have a problem with that. Cutting the center cut helped, but it still grapped on the first pass. The next cuts were into the cutter. On the practice piece the router really wanted to grap the piece. Thanks for the comment, Cheers.
Actually, Cip handled the dovetail cut properly. With the center plowed out on the tablesaw, the dovetail bit was cutting on both sides of the cutter, so no matter which direction he would have gone, he would have been doing a climb cut on one side of the bit. Perhaps the use of featherboards or holddowns would have reduced the chances of the bit grabbing.
I draw an rotation arrow around the bit opening to remind me which way the bit is turning. Then it is easy, even for me, to visualize which way I should feed the workpiece into the bit.
Howdy! I do not remember if I ran the pieces over the jointer. His was mostly an experiment, learning experience. There were other errors that contributed to the problems. I was hoping others would give it a go and see what was learned. Thanks for watching. Cheers
bonjour M. Mendes j'ai 2 questions pour vous.1 quelle sorte de finition pour votre bowl. 2 quelle sont les dimensions de la planche pour faire le bol,merci danyboy.