owlelope

I am working on my first segmented bowl and I have an issue. It has a base and two rings. Each of the rings has six segments. The middle segment has a thin strip in between each segment. When I glued the pieces together they didn't match up exactly edge to edge on the last segment I glued in. Will this be a problem when I turn the bowl or do I need to make sure everything matches up? Any suggestions are appreciated.

PTownSubbie

Everything has to match up. If it is not matching, that means your angles are off a little bit. Probably off by a fraction of a degree.

What are you using to make the angled cuts? A standard miter gauge is not usually accurate enough.

There is a device called Miterset that I have purchased that makes your miter gauge more accurate. It made my segmented bowls much easier to complete accurately!! www.miterset.com

Good Luck!!

__________________
Fred

www.luv2turn.com

Foot: A special device for finding furniture in the dark.

phinds

When doing any even # of segments, I find it WAY easier to do half at a time and then sand the flat surface on each of the halves and then glue them together. It makes the distances off by a generally imperceptable fraction and it absolutely prevents alignment problems.

Paul

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phinds
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www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/

john lucas

There should not be any gaps in your finished ring or your glue joints will fail. I used to do what was mentioned above. Use an even number or rings. I glue half at a time if they don't fit perfectly. Sometimes you can put a spacer of cards or anything that will fill the bad joint. don't put glue in there. This allows you to clamp the whole ring. Don't put glue in the joint 180 degrees from the bad joint either. When your done there are a number of ways to flatten the 180. I use to use a 2x4 that I had squared up with sandpaper on it. I would lay that on my work bench and the half ring was laying flat. Then I would simply sand until there wasn't a gap.
Now if it's off I usually just clamp the half ring on my table saw on a special sliding table I built. Then run it through the blade removing only as much material as it needs to be flat.
These methods work. I did it for years. However if your designs get more critical you will find that you need to learn to make the cuts accurately enough to glue a completed ring. When you glue the half rings you have removed just a little material and the visual elements may not line up properly when you start stacking the rings.