Valentine's bowl

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Updated Fri Jan 17 2025

A purple heart bowl for my still almost new girlfriend. The inlay is crushed fire opal. There is a second inlay on the bottom of the bowl: a personal inscription.

1 hr 30 min
Easy

5

Decor

Files Included (5)

  • Heart bowl topside edge detail.svg

    4 kB
  • Heart bowl topside roughing cuts.svg

    6 kB
  • Heart bowl topside.svg

    29 kB
  • Heart bowl under side roughing.svg

    4 kB
  • Heart bowl under side.svg

    23 kB

Materials

150mm x 150mm x 50mm square turning blank (purpleheart)

Optional: Crushed fire opal and epoxy for inlaying

Tools

Shaper Origin

ZedSled

8mm upcut bit (100mm)

8mm ball nose bit (100mm)

1.5mm upcut bit for inlays

Instructions

Flatten the top of the top of the wood first by defining an on-tool rectangle (170mm x 170mm @-10,-10) and pocket cutting 1mm deep over the whole surface with the 8mm upcut bit. Cut the perimeter with an outside cut and a slight positive offset to allow for any misalignment when turning the block over and re-gridding later. I went to a dept of 20mm but its arbitrary. Cut the topside roughing cuts with the same cutter, pocket cuts then inside cuts. The final depths are encoded. Switch bits to the ball nose and cut the heart bowl topside paths as inside cuts, starting in the middle. The first 5 paths are uncuttable because they're smaller than the 8mm cutter but I've included them because you may be using a smaller bit. After each cut, I change the cut type to guide and SO automatically moves its attention to the next cut. The coded depths are decreasing so at each cut you will have to enter the smaller figure. (Or you may have Autopass). If you are going to inlay the top, now is the time. I cut down 1.5mm, inlaid opal and epoxy then skimmed the whole surface with the 8mm upcut bit again to plane off the excess. It's important to plane the entire surface so you have a flat surface to secure the bowl upside down. Now reposition the bowl upside down and re-grid OFF THE SAME CORNER as originally. With the 8mm upcut bit (which should be in the tool anyway) cut the underside relief pocket to a depth of 1mm. Cut the under side roughing cuts. Be careful when reaching the 30mm depth because the 4 wate corners will detach. With the 8mm ball nose bit, cut the underside. Cut from smallest to largest, increasing the depth by 1mm per cut (the depths are encoded anyway). You cannot make all 50 cuts because SO has a 42mm plunge limit but those last few are so slight that subsequent sanding will do instead. If you want to place an inscription on the base, do it now. I did another opal inlay then recut the relief pocket 0.25mm deeper to clean up excess epoxy. The rest is sanding. I use a 2" sanding disc in a right-angle drill.


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