Segmented Wood Salad Bowl

This segmented wood salad bowl was a way fun project. Not that it went off without a hitch - for my first segmented bowl, however, not too shabby.

I designed it in AutoCAD at lunch, and went to work. I wanted to go as wide as my lathe would allow (10" diameter) and deep enough for salad. I had some leftover aromatic cedar, a gorgeous wood that smells so good, so I ripped it into strips, and started cutting the pieces. There are 6 layers of 16 pieces each, and a solid base. That's 97 pieces of wood. I don't have a thickness sander so I had to complete each layer, sand one side, glue it to the lathe, wait for it to dry, and then true up the top of the layer in preparation for the next. It took some time, that's for sure.

Then turning the finished bowl was a bit tricky. A learning experience that's for sure, but the finished results were great. I sanded it smooth, rubbed in mineral oil, melted in and polished beeswax to give it a food-safe satin finish, and it was done.

You can't help but run your hands up and down and around every part of the bowl. I read somewhere where wood bowls were called sensual and thought, OK somebody is just being gross - they're BOWLS for crying out loud. After finishing this though I see what they mean. It's not a sexy thing, it's just very cool to hold, and to look with your fingers every bit as much as with your eyes. And whenever somebody new takes a look, without fail they do the same thing - it feels as beautiful as it looks.

This one was for my wife. I told her I was glad it was done so she will give me peace and stop forcing me to go out in the garage every chance I get. I'm not sure that she thought that was very funny :)

I've since looked around and seen hand-turned segmented salad bowls of this size on the internet for about $150. I think I could beat that price by about 25%, depending on the complexity of the bowl and how many kinds of wood you want. And I could throw in matching, smaller segmented bowls for a complete set at about $30 each.