Making Beautiful Wooden Bowls

Create the look of lathe-turned bowls with your scroll saw.

At every craft fair I’ve attended recently, I’ve been drawn to displays of beautiful lathe-turned 
bowls. Having had some experience with cutting steep angles on the scroll saw, I thought it might be possible to replicate the look of these bowls on the scroll saw using far less wood.
    I have seen instructions for scroll saw bowls made from concentric rings, but they either looked plain and clunky or attractive but complicated to construct. Seeking a middle ground, I found that simple laminations and careful shaping are sufficient to create bowls that can hold their own at any craft fair.
    The bowl in this project uses a combination of cherry and walnut, woods that are readily available and work well together. Once cut, the rings are rotated slightly during the gluing process to create an attractive swirled effect.

Beyond the Bowl

You can combine two bowls to make a vase. The bottom section of this vase consists of a three-ring bowl with the base glued on as usual. The top section is an inverted three-ring bowl with a hole cut in the base to form the vase opening and a matching straight ring added to form the neck.