This evening, Bryan Brumfield demonstrated the making of a coloured discus bowl from an ash blank about 215mm diameter x 50mm thick.
With a tenon already on one side of the blank, Bryan mounted it on a screwchuck and marked the middle of the rim before using a bowl gouge to shape the underside.
To remove any turning marks, he experimented with using a Simon Hope negative rake scraper and a rotary friction sander.
Not entirely happy with the results, he then used a Sorby KT200 tipped scraper and finished off with an oil/wax mix and standard abrasives. Next he sprayed the wood with acrylic sanding sealer which was rubbed in with some Yorkshire Grit abrasive wax and then polished with a cloth and wax.
With the underside finished, Bryan reversed the bowl onto the tenon and faced it off before shaping the upper side of the bowl with a bowl gouge, mostly using pull cuts from the centre out to the rim.
After sanding, he applied a purple spirit stain with some paper towel….
….and allowed it to dry before sanding down to leave just a few areas of purple.
This was followed by a little red stain down one side and some yellow over the red and towards the middle. Next was some royal blue splodged over the other colours, but leaving some gaps and some green here and there. These colours were all artistically applied after a bit of umming and aahing!
With the colour applied, he rubbed them all over with a bit of meths on a towel to blend the colours and remove any sharp edges.
After a few minutes, he sprayed it with acrylic sanding sealer and allowed it to dry. For a final finish, Bryan applied finishing oil and wiped off the surplus.
At this point he remarked that he would often take a bit off the edge of the bowl and colour it with a black marker to add definition. The whole thing would then be allowed to dry overnight before rubbing down lightly with webrax and adding a further coat of oil.
For the purposes of the demo, however, he proceeded straight to the next operation, which was to hollow out the bowl with a bowl gouge. He tidied up using the Hope negative rake scraper (more successful used internally) then finished off with sanding, Yorkshire Grit and a gloss wax.
With the demo complete, Bryan pointed out that he would later add more coats of finish on the rim and underside and reverse the bowl into cole jaws or a longworth chuck to remove the mounting tenon.
The grain of the ash was beautifully complemented by the colours applied and the final result was a very attractive little bowl. Thank you Bryan!