Woodworking
My last wood turning project was a maple and purple heart segmented bowl. It's a design I got from another turner, and I've already made one but I really like it, so I made another one.
The way this type of hollow form is created is by cutting out hundreds of wedge shaped blocks of wood, gluing the blocks into rings, and then gluing the rings into a stack of rings. Then you simply turn it as if it were a solid piece of wood. Here is a shot of a couple of rings and a shot of several rings glued up and clamped while the glue dries.
Unfortunately, my cheap-o table saw can't really do repeatable, close-tolerance angled cuts, so a few of the rings are out of round this time. The result is that I can't turn the walls as thin as I would like without risking tearing through. This means the bowl will be "fatter" in appearance than is intended. Still looks nice though.
Here is a shot of the current one on the lathe. The thin black and white separation rings you see are sheets of white and black dyed birch veneer glued between the ring layers.
At this point the turning is done and the first pass with 150 grit paper is done. Next is progressively smaller grits down to 600. Then the finish. I usually use what is commonly referred to as "French Polish". It's a high-solids shellac based finish that you apply while the piece is spinning.
And below is the finished product.
-Steve