KNITTING BOWL

My wife loves to knit, along with a bunch of her friends, so I made a bunch of these bowls for them.

I made one bowl from a large oak log. Other bowls were from walnut and aromatic cedar that I had to piece together from smaller logs.

I decided to make the bowls in the same manner that I make bandsaw boxes. The process is a little different because I cut the bottom of the bowls from separate flat boards. The rounded circle is cut on the bandsaw. I wasn’t concerned with getting a perfect circle. I purposely made these to be rough shaped.

After cutting the outside circle, I drilled a ½” hole just inside the interior line, that is drawn on the log. This is to allow you to spin the bandsaw blade after cutting the entrance slot for the blade.

I am showing the slot in the ring, which needs to be closed up. I just glue the slot and clamp it together.

Even though the shape was rough, I needed them to be smooth, since the yarn will be rolling around in the bowl.

After sanding the bowls smooth, I glued oversized bases on. Then trimmed the base on the bandsaw.

Using a pattern bit on the router, the base blended in well.

To make the cut-out in the side of the bowl, I found I had more control using the router table. I used a ¼” bit for the slot, to accommodate thicker yarns. I’m glad I went with this size, because if I had gone to a smaller size, it would have been difficult to smooth the inside of slot. This needs to be very smooth, since the yarn slides through it.

I finished them off with four coats of wipe-on-polyurethane.