– Serge Duclos
Delson, Quebec

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There are two basic types of Euro hinges: concealed or long-arm. Both have a cup on one end of the hinge that fits into a round mortise on the inside back of the cabinet door; creating this mortise involves simply drilling a stopped hole. On the other end of the hinge, a mounting plate fastens either to a face frame stile or the inside wall of the cabinet carcass with screws. No mortise is required.

Compact styles are one-piece hinges, while long-arm styles have two main components that snap together at the mounting plate. Longarm hinges are particularly handy, because they make doors easy to remove.

Door Details

The manner in which a door interfaces with the cabinet’s carcass will impact which Euro hinge options are available for your project. Inset doors (left illustration) fit completely inside and flush with the cabinet opening. They’re common on both frameless and face frame cabinet styles. Some doors, particularly on older cabinets, have a 3/8″ x 3/8″ rabbet around their back face, enabling them to recess partially into the face frame opening (center illustration). Other door styles overlay the front edges of the cabinet carcass or a face frame by the full thickness of the door (right illustration). Euro hinges are made to accommodate these full-overlay doors with varying amounts of overlap around the opening; this may range from 3/8″ up to 1-1⁄4″. Hinge descriptions in catalogs or online will specify inset or overlay style, face frame or frameless cabinet type and maximum swing range, among other important product details.

Installation Process

All the conveniences of these production-quality hinges can also be part of your shop-built cabinet projects, and they’re super easy to install! If you can drill holes, you can mount these hinges successfully on the first try.

The photo series explains the process for mounting typical long-arm hinges on a frameless cabinet with a frame-and-panel door. Most Euro hinges require that the cup mortise be drilled with a 35 mm Forstner bit. Using a drill press for this step is best, but a handheld drill will also work, provided you drill carefully and not too deep. A JIG IT Deluxe Concealed Hinge Drilling System from Rockler simplifies the task.

Jigs Make It Easy!

Rockler offers several more inexpensive jigs which will make the installation process even easier. A JIG IT Hinge Cup Jig enables you to set the Forstner bit the exact distance away from a drill press fence to locate the hinge cup mortises accurately on the cabinet door. Then, several options of JIG IT Mounting Plate Templates can help locate the hinge mounting plate screws on the cabinet or face frame without measuring.

For an informative overview to help you choose the right Euro-style hinges, visit here.

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After college, I took a job as an automotive design engineer where 95 percent of my time was spent sitting in front of a computer. It was completely different from what I did in college, and there were very limited opportunities where I got to do any hands-on work. But my job always kept me busy, so I never had much time or energy to explore hobbies.

I didn’t discover my interest in woodworking until after my wife and I bought our first house. One problem with it was that there wasn’t a door between the master bedroom and bathroom, which made showers in the winter months very chilly. We wanted to put up some barn doors, but all the ones we liked were really expensive. I remember thinking, “How hard would it be to make one?” At the time I’d never done any woodworking, so I went to the obvious place to learn: YouTube.

It All Started with a Door

After watching a bunch of videos from several popular influencers, I bought a circular saw, router, pocket-hole jig and a random-orbit sander and got to work. It turned out that making a door was not easy! It took me much longer than I expected, it wasn’t pretty and the size wasn’t even right.

But I could not contain the excitement that came from building something with my own hands. So the next thing I asked myself was, “What else can I make with these tools?” But I didn’t want to just build things for the sake of building. I wanted to build things that better fit our lifestyle and the aesthetics that both my wife and I love. But I knew I had a lot more learning to do.

That’s when I found Chris Salomone’s YouTube channel, “Four Eyes Woodworking & Design.” I was inspired by both his designs and his teaching style that made me feel like woodworking wasn’t beyond my abilities. Even though I only had a couple of projects under my belt then, I ended up designing and building my first Mid-century Modern credenza. That was the piece that really boosted my confidence and love for woodworking. I not only designed something useful that fit our lifestyle needs and space, but also something that was aesthetically pleasing to us.

When we were expecting the birth of our son, I decided to build him a crib. I thought it’d be cool to document the process so I could show it to him when he was older. I began sharing photos and video clips on social media, and a lot of people urged me to post the full-build video to YouTube. So that’s what I did.

I not only enjoyed being able to share my hobby with the world and inspire others, but I also discovered a rare opportunity to combine three of my biggest passions: designing, woodworking and filmmaking.

My builds nowadays still revolve around creating things that can function to improve my family’s daily life as well as fitting our aesthetic style. I feel very lucky to have stumbled on this creative outlet that fulfills me. And I hope to continue producing content that’s entertaining and educational for my audience. I hope it will help spark someone else’s creativity the way others have sparked mine.

The post Alex Fang: Door Project Opens Other Creative Doors appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

Made almost entirely of 3/4″ Baltic birch plywood, this cabinet has some definite heft, ensuring a stable base for a tall machine. Built with rock-solid rabbet-and-dado joinery, it’s easy to make and can be tweaked to fit specific drill presses and storage needs.

Since woodworkers (and benchtop drill presses) come in all sizes, it’s a good idea to first measure your ideal working height. You don’t want to reach higher than is comfortable or have to bend over. Stand as you normally would using a drill press with your hand held where it would rest most comfortably on the feed handle, and measure the floor-to-hand height.

Now measure your drill press and use both measurements to determine how tall the cabinet must be, including the height of your wheeled base. I’m 5′ 11″, so a cabinet about 31″ high works perfectly for me.

Plywood Playbook: Tips for Taming Baltic Birch

Baltic birch plywood is a reliable building material, but the thin outer plys easily splinter on the corners when they’re freshly cut. Take care when handling it, not only for personal safety (I can’t tell you how many splinters I got during this project), but also to avoid damaging the plywood. These edge splinters, while seemingly tiny where they stick out, can continue separating from the stock for several inches if snagged, potentially ruining a clean edge.

Lightly sand all fresh edges and corners to remove protruding splinters while a project is in progress, then give them a more thorough sanding afterward to slightly round over these areas. Once sanded, a few coats of finish such as polyurethane can help prevent further splintering of the delicate edge plies.

Should a completed plywood project get “dings” on the edges during use, sand these over to prevent another running splinter from forming.

Cutting Parts, Milling Joinery

Begin by cutting workpieces for the main carcass. A table saw is perfect for breaking down your plywood sheets, but you can also use a track saw or a clamp-on guide for a circular saw. Keep in mind that plywood is prone to splintering, so use a sharp, clean blade and orient the stock so the blade cuts down into the face side of the material. This way, any tearout will be on the unseen side.

This is a solid cabinet, thanks to a simple but strong combination of rabbets and dadoes (and technically, grooves when the dado is in-line with the grain). A dado blade on your table saw, or a straight (or rabbeting) bit in a router table tackles all the joinery you’ll need to make quite nicely.

Cut the drawer and shelf sides, and the sub-top workpieces, to length only. This provides a longer working edge to make cutting these joints safer and more efficient — fewer passes needed over the blade or bit. Once your joints are milled, just rip the parts to final width.

Finally, cut the door and drawer front slightly larger than their Material List dimensions. Since those must fit perfectly inset into the face frame, we’ll tweak the fit a bit later.

Marking and Fitting the Top, Sub-top

Speaking of fitting, before reaching for a glue bottle, there are a few preliminary things to do, beginning with a dry assembly.

Visually, the main top is just a flat surface, but there’s a lot happening underneath it. With the dry assembly clamped up, mark the underside of the main top to show where the three sub-top pieces are located by tracing them from underneath.

Disassemble the top and sub-tops, and arrange them on your marks to lay out the leaf supports. The separate sub-tops create gaps for attaching the supports on the underside of the main top. You’ll need to stagger the supports for internal clearance, but this won’t affect their holding ability. Their exact location depends on the supports you use, so a bit of tinkering will show the best arrangement. Trace around the mounting plates and mark screw holes, and also carefully mark where the supports will exit the sides of the cabinet.

Transfer your exit hole marks to the top edges of the cabinet sides, enlarging them a bit for wiggle room. (Mine are 1″ high by 1-1/4″ long.) Cut the holes for these openings with a jigsaw. To minimize splintering, use a fresh fine-cut blade for wood or even a metal-cutting blade, and turn the saw’s orbital action as low as it goes. Clean up the exit holes with a light sanding.

Assembling the Cabinet Carcass

Assembling and gluing a cabinet this large and heavy while keeping everything square is difficult, so I like to start with a single corner and let it dry before going further. I’ve glued and clamped the cabinet back to one of the sides, using Rockler’s Clamp-It Assembly Squares to ensure a 90-degree joint. Once dry, this secure corner joint helps register the rest of the assembly as you add the remaining side, structural bottom and the three sub-tops.

A separate inner bottom piece adds weight for even more stability. Just brush some glue onto the structural bottom, slide the workpiece in, and anchor it with a few screws driven up from underneath the cabinet where they won’t show.

The last piece of the cabinet is the main top. Because it’d be more difficult to do later, lay out and mark the hinges for the folding wings now. This is also the time to drill pilot holes and drive in all the screws for the hinges and leaf supports; having those pilot holes already threaded will make things easier later. As with the supports, you may need to stagger the hinges.

Remove the hardware, then place and attach the main top to the cabinet with screws driven up through the sub-tops.

Putting on a Good Face

Cut the face frame rail and stile workpieces to size. I’ve opted to assemble the face frame with fast-and-easy pocket-hole joints. I doubled up the screws on the wider bottom rail and used single screws on the ends of the narrower top rail.

Before attaching the assembled frame, measure the opening and trim the door and drawer front to allow a uniform gap all around. Do a test-fit on your worksurface. A reveal of 1/8″ is ideal; it’ll look great and allow the door to swing freely. When the gap is just right, give these workpiece edges a careful sanding to remove their sharp corners.

Attaching face frames can be done in a variety of ways: brads and glue, pocket screws from inside or with biscuit joints. But this cabinet’s double-thick top and bottom offer a lot of gluing surface (nearly the full width of the face frame top rail, and more than half of its bottom rail), so I opted to just glue and clamp the face frame in place. Glue joints will be plenty strong here.

Inside Work Comes Next

While the face frame glue joints dry, build the drawer and pullout shelf. Assembling them is pretty much the same process as the cabinet, but because they’re smaller it’s easier to assemble everything at once. Just make sure the drawer and shelf remain square when the clamps are tightened.

Next, prepare the inside of the cabinet for drawer slides. Slide hardware varies widely, so follow the specific instructions that are included with your slides. However, for a framed cabinet like this, all slides need something to attach to.

To support the slides used here even with the face frame, I’ve cut four 1-1/2″-wide spacers from 3/4″ stock that run front to back in the cabinet. The slides attach to the middle of the drawer/shelf sides, so the drawer spacers should be located 1-1/2″ down from the top. To center the shelf midway in the remaining opening, position their spacers 12-1/2″ below the drawer spacers.

Locating these is straightforward for the first side, but getting an exact match on the opposite side can be tricky by measuring only. So I made a variation of story sticks using scraps cut to the exact measurements to serve as layout guides.

Starting with the right side, place the drawer guide at the top, then the drawer slide spacer, the shelf guide and the shelf slide spacer. Three screws in each spacer anchored them. Then, just repeat for the other side for perfect alignment.

While the drawer slides are the same on both sides, the shelf slide on the left is offset to allow the door and hinges to function without blocking the narrower pullout shelf. Normally, slides are even with the face frame, which they are on the right side, but for the slides and hinges used here, I needed to offset the shelf slide on the left by 1-7/8″. To do this, I tacked a second “thick” and third “thin” spacer to the first spacer (see Exploded View Drawing).

Attach the cabinet-side components of the slides to the spacers in the cabinet so the drawer box and shelf will be flush with the back edge of the face frame. Then, attach the mating components of the slides to the sides of the drawer and shelf, and do a test fit. Choose the slotted holes in the slide hardware when installing them so they can be adjusted if needed.

Euro-style hinges for hanging the door use an attachment “cup” that fits into a stopped hole into the back of the door bored with a 35 mm Forstner bit. This can be done freehand or with a drill press, locating the cup per the manufacturer’s instructions. There are a number of jigs made specifically for this task that make the process fast and easy by dialing in the required offset for drilling.

Attach the hinges to the door, then use the door hinges to mark the left frame for the hinge mounting plates and attach them on your marks. Mounting the door is as simple as snapping the hinges onto their mounts. Check the door action and fit. If it’s not centered or too far in or out, Euro hinges are adjustable up-and-down, side-to-side, and in-and-out with screws. Just tweak these screws until the door is perfectly set.

To locate and attach the drawer face, first drill holes for your drawer pull. Then, using 1/8″ shims around the edges, snug the drawer face in place in its opening and drill through your pull holes and into the front of the drawer box behind it. Slip the pull’s screws into the holes to hold the drawer face in place, remove the drawer, and secure the drawer face with screws driven through the drawer front from inside.

The cabinet is now ready for attaching the internal hardware and hinges as well as hanging the folding wings. This is easiest to accomplish by turning the cabinet upside down on a large worksurface. Remove the drawers and unsnap the door hinges first, and get some assistance for upending the cabinet as it’s pretty heavy at this point.

Your pilot holes are already drilled and threaded, so it should only take a couple of minutes to screw the hinges and leaf supports into place. If you plan to use this project mainly in a corner, consider angling the back edges of the wings at this point so they can be lifted while the drill press is in place. Then remove the hardware so you can apply a couple of coats of your favorite protective finish (I used polyurethane).

With assistance, set the cabinet upright onto your rolling base. Center the drill press on top of the cabinet and drill down through the mounting holes in the drill press’s base plate. Slip a pair of bolts through the baseplate, and secure the machine with washers and nuts from underneath.

Now, customize your rolling benchtop stand any way you like to accommodate the accessories you plan to store in it. If this project will be one you’ll be moving around a lot (perhaps because a car needs to park in your shop space, too), it’s worth adding a rear handle. Doing that early on in the construction process will make the cabinet easier to muscle around and very handy thereafter.

Hard-to-Find Hardware:

20″ Series Centerline  Slides (2) #47758
Salice Soft-Close Hinges, Inset (1) #52024
Metal Drop Leaf Supports (2) #30006
Bora Portamate Mobile Base (1) #39379
Butt Hinges, 21 ⁄2″ L x 11⁄2″ W, Nickel (2) #54646
Stainless Steel Metropolitan Pull, 51 ⁄4″ (2) #24418

Click Here to Download the Drawings and Materials Lists.

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Initial Surfacing and Getting Organized

On many projects, it makes sense to prepare your lumber as you need it while you build. But for this plant stand, you’ll gain some efficiency during the repetitive joinery stages if you make up most of the part blanks now, at the beginning of the building process. So that’s what we’ll do first.

Start by surfacing and rip-cutting enough 8/4 stock down to 1-3/8″ x 1-3/8″ to make four 36″-long legs for the taller center unit and four 25-3/4″-long shorter legs for the two outer units (two legs per outer unit), plus at least one “test” leg to use for dialing in your mortise sizes.

You’ll need eight rails for the center unit and a total of 12 rails for the two outer units. Let’s make blanks for all of the 2-1/4″-wide rails first, following the Material List. Rip several long strips of stock to 2-1/4″ wide, and crosscut them to the following lengths for the center unit: two at 10-1/4″ for the top side rails and two at 11″ for the top front and back rails. Crosscut two top side rails to 7-1/4″ for the outer units, then cut two more to 12-1⁄8″ for the top back rails. You’ll need two top front rails for the outer units as well; cut these 1/4″ overly long. And while you’re at it, crosscut two blanks for the center unit cross supports, making them about 1/4″ longer than specified.

Continuing with rough stock preparation for the rails, rip several long strips to 3″ wide. Follow the Material List lengths to crosscut blanks for the center unit’s two bottom side rails (10-1/4″) plus a front and back bottom rail (11″). The outer units will need two bottom side rails (7-1/4″) and two bottom back rails (12-1⁄8″) cut to length. Crosscut two bottom front rails for the outer units as well, but make these 1/4″ overly long. Label and group these rail blanks carefully to avoid confusion.

Blanks for the plant stand’s side slats can happen next. Prepare enough 1/2″-thick stock to rip a dozen slats for the center unit and two spares at 1″ wide. Crosscut these 1/4″ longer than needed at 31″. Rip 10 slats for the outer units (eight required plus two spares), and make them overly long at 20-3/4″. We’ll trim all the slats to final length later.

Laying Out Leg Mortises

Arrange the legs into the orientation you’ll want them to be in when the plant stand is assembled, and mark their ends to make this clear. Then follow the Drawings to mark all the 1-1/2″-long mortises on one long leg and one short leg. All the mortises are centered on the leg thicknesses. Transfer these locations with a square onto the other legs — there’s no need to measure if you use the original marked legs as your guides. Notice in the Exploded View drawing that the back two legs of the center unit have two extra mortises that receive the top and bottom back rails of the outer units.

Mortises for the plant stand’s 20 slats are all 1/4″ wide x 1/2″ long and spaced 1-1/2″ apart from center to center. Mark their locations on the inside edges of the top and bottom side rails of both the center and outer units, using the Drawings as layout guides.

Milling Leg/Rail Joinery with an FMT Pro Jig

But you can certainly use a router and an edge guide, a hollow-chisel mortiser or a drill press and Forstner bit to cut these mortises instead. These options will work fine, too. Cut all the rail and leg mortises 9/16″ deep, which leaves a bit of extra depth for excess glue to pool at the bottom.

When the dust clears from mortising, go ahead and machine tenons to fit them. Here again, the Leigh FMT Pro makes this process easy. It enables tenon workpieces to be clamped vertically against the jig’s body for routing. The same plastic template for the mortise guides the tenon-cutting process, too. This time, tracing around the perimeter of the template with the subbase pin directs the router for milling the tenon with a spiral bit.

But you can use whatever tenon-cutting method you prefer. All of the tenons on the rails and slats are 1/2″ long. Be sure to keep in mind that one end of the top and bottom front rails of the outer units have no tenons where they butt against the cross supports and bottom side rails of the center unit.

Creating Side Assemblies for the Center Unit

Dry-fit the top and bottom side rails to the legs to create frameworks for two side assemblies of the plant stand’s center unit and one side assembly for each shorter outer unit. Make sure the top edges of the top side rails are flush with the top ends of the legs. Now measure between the rails in order to double-check the slat lengths. The distance between the inside edges of the rails, plus 1″, equals the overall slat length.

Trim all the slats to final length. Then raise tenons on their ends, using whatever tenon-cutting process you prefer, and install them in the side assembly frameworks to check their fit. If the parts go together well, sand the legs, side rails and slats up through the grits to 180 and ease their sharp edges.

This plant stand will have a lot of nooks and crannies to contend with if you assemble it all before staining and finishing. Pre-finishing the parts in stages before putting them together simplifies things here and minimizes potential frustration. It also makes glue easy to wipe away. I stained the legs, slats and side rails with an oil-based red mahogany stain, sealed it in with a coat of dewaxed shellac and then topcoated with aerosol satin lacquer. Be sure to keep the finish off of the tenons and out of the mortises. When that cures, glue and clamp all four side assemblies together.

Detailing the Front and Back Rails

We’ll make top panels and shelves of this plant stand from solid wood, so cross-grain wood movement of those pieces needs to be taken into account. Rockler’s steel Table Top Fasteners are a good solution here: one end of these offset fasteners fits into a saw kerf on a rail or apron, and the other end screws to the bottom face of a panel. This way, the fastener allows the panel to expand or contract while still holding it securely. We can prepare for this hardware now by cutting a kerf along the inside face of the 12 front and back rails at the table saw with a standard blade. Position the kerf 7/16″ in from one edge of each rail. Make the kerfs 5/16″ deep; they can run the full length of the rails.

Once those are done, the front and back rails of the center and outer units are ready to receive a broad arch along their bottom edge. The large radii of these curves are 10-5/8″ for the center unit and 13-5/16″ for the outer units, and the apex of these curves extends 1″ up from the bottom edges of the rails. To cut them uniformly and efficiently, I first created two rail templates from scraps of 1/4″-thick MDF — one for the center unit and one for the outer units. Cut out the templates and sand their bottom curves smooth and fair.

Use the templates to trace an arch onto each of your rail workpieces. Notice in the Drawings that the curves are centered on the lengths of the center unit’s rails. However, on the outer units these curves are centered on just the top and bottom back rails. On the top and bottom front rails, the arches are actually offset. Locate them so the curves begin 1/2″ in from the tenon shoulders on the outer ends of these particular rails.

Rough-cut the curves at your band saw or with a jigsaw, cutting about 1/16″ outside your layout lines. Then adhere the hardboard templates to each rail with strips of double-sided tape, and template-rout them to final shape on the router table with a piloted flush-trim bit. Touch up these arches at your drum sander to remove any router bit marks before you final-sand, stain and finish all 12 side rails.

Putting the Pieces Together

At this point, assembling the center unit is a snap! Spread glue on the rail tenons and into the mortises of the side assemblies. Bring the whole framework together with clamps.

While those joints set, glue up panels for the three tops and shelves. In order to contend with wood movement, be sure to orient the long grain of these six panels so it will run left and right on the finished project, not front to back. This way, the panels can expand and contract outward without being constrained by the legs. When the tops and shelves come out of the clamps, finish-sand them and set them aside for now.

Round up the two cross supports you made earlier for the center unit and cut them to length, making sure they fit snugly between the legs. I trimmed the ends of their outer faces to 45-degree bevels; size these bevels to 5/16″ x 5/16″ so they’ll transition the front face of the cross supports nicely into the leg faces. Sand the cross supports up to 180-grit, and apply stain and finish to complete them.

Position and clamp the cross supports to the side slats of the center unit so the top edges of the cross supports are 25-3/4″ up from the bottoms of the legs. Then dry-fit the top and bottom back rails of the outer units as well as their slatted side assemblies to the center unit, clamping these components into place. Now measure the distance between the inside faces of the front legs and the cross supports to verify the final length of the top front rails. Trim the un-tenoned ends of these rails to that length. Repeat this process for measuring and cutting the bottom front rails to length.

Dry-fit the top and bottom front rails of the outer units into place and mark their locations on the cross supports and bottom side rails of the center unit. Then dismantle the outer units so you can attach the cross supports to the top front rails with pairs of 2″ countersunk wood screws driven through the cross supports. Now attach the cross supports to the center unit by driving two #6 x 1″ flathead wood screws through each outermost slat and into the cross supports.

With those installed, dry-fit all the rails and side assemblies of the outer units to the center unit one last time to check all the remaining unglued joints. If everything is shipshape, bring the three plant stand frameworks together with glue and clamps. Attach the bottom side rails of the center unit to the bottom front rails of the outer units with pairs of 2″ countersunk wood screws driven from inside the center unit.

Installing Tops and Shelves

We’re in the homestretch now! Crosscut the tops and shelves to final length. Notch the back inside corners of the top panels and shelves of the outer units so they’ll tuck around the back legs of the center unit. Then soften the edges of all these panels and apply stain and finish. I switched to satin polyurethane here; it offers better protection than lacquer against those inevitable spills that are bound to happen when watering plants.

To install the tops and shelves, insert two tabletop fasteners per rail into each of the saw kerfs and locate them about 1-1/2″ in from the rail ends. If you’re building this project during the wintertime when these panels are fully contracted across the grain, back the tabletop fasteners about 1/16″ out of their saw kerfs to give the panels room to expand in the summer. Fasten them to the top panels with the included screws.

Click Here to Download the Drawings and Materials Lists.

The post PROJECT: Breakfront Plant Stand appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

Until the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Hawaiians did not have lathes, so their bowls were made by using stone and coral to shape and then pumice and shark skin to bring them to a very high polish. The calabash shape is not flat on the bottom but rounded with the sides tapering slightly inwards. The height varies from shallow to very deep, and there is usually sap wood at each edge. Many extant Hawaiian bowls are quite curved on the bottom; the lack of a flat bottom may seem off-putting, but it works out fine on tables and counters as well as on the ground. That Hawaiian craftsmen could bring a piece of wood to look like it had been turned but without the use of a lathe is truly amazing, but craftsmanship in woodworking offers much to amaze us.

Thoughts Before Turning

With all of this in mind, we should try to incorporate the following thoughts into our rendition of the Hawaiian calabash motif so as to best honor the people and culture of our fiftieth state.

• Use a close-grained wood with some sapwood at each edge. Choose wood that will exhibit beautiful grain and color as it ages. Cherry and hickory are good, widely available North American woods, but tropical woods are fair game as well.

• Be faithful to the shape. A round bottom to the bowl is part of the fun and will be a good topic of conversation with guests.

• Sand and finish a calabash bowl to a very high sheen, both inside and out.

• The size of a calabash bowl can be anywhere from 6″ in diameter to very large, with depth generally going down as the diameter increases. Small bowls can be spindle-turned, allowing them to be much taller.

Turning Process

Most modern turners of this art form start with green wood, which makes the shaping and hollowing much faster. Because of the round bottom, if you turn your calabash bowl all the way to completion, expect that the rim will become slightly warped as the wood continues to dry.

But that’s just part of the fun. The wall should be in the 1/4″- to 1/2″-thick range, becoming thicker as the overall bowl size increases.

If you’re familiar with basic bowl-turning procedures, the photo series in this article should be familiar territory
to you already. Start the turning process with your green bowl blank mounted to either a faceplate or a worm screw held in a four-jaw chuck.

Turn the bowl’s outer profile as well as a short tenon or a shallow recess for re-chucking. Sand the bowl’s outer surface extremely smooth, to 180-grit. Remove all evidence of tearout during the sanding process — remember, one of the signature features of calabash bowls is that they are sanded to a high polish.

When you’re satisfied with the exterior, remount the bowl in a four-jaw chuck so you can hollow the bowl’s interior with a gouge and scraper. Leave extra material at the bottom in order to complete this area in the next step by reversing it again on the lathe. Sand the interior up to 220-grit.

Apply finish to the interior before remounting the bowl on either a jam or vacuum chuck. Turn the bottom to a uniform, convex shape, and bring the wall of the bowl to a uniform thickness from the rim to the center of the base. Then, while the bowl is mounted on the lathe, sand the bottom and outside up to 220-grit and apply finish to the exterior to complete it.

Once your bowl is finished, go on a picnic and think of the warm sands of a Hawaiian beach as you eat lunch out of your calabash. It will sit nicely on the ground and be a thing of beauty at the center of the tablecloth.

I want to thank Emiliano Achaval, an expert Hawaiian bowl turner, for all his help and sound advice with this article. You can watch an interview between the two of us as a “More on the Web” extra. Be sure to visit his website too.
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The post PROJECT: Turning a Hawaiian Calabash Bowl appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

Walnut Storage Cabinet: Up-and-coming online influencer Alex Fang shares his rendition of a dark, Mid-century Modern storage project that will be equally useful in your dining or living room.

Benchtop Drill Press Mobile Stand: Move your small drill press off the shop counter and onto this space-saving and sturdy base unit. It’ll mobilize your drill press while providing a home base for all of your bits and drill press accessories.

Breakfront Plant Stand: The sheer number of mortises and tenons in this handsome Arts & Crafts-inspired accent piece will fine-tune those joinery skills! See how our senior editor forms them using Leigh’s FMT Pro Mortise and Tenon Jig and a plunge router.

Shop Talk: Ever wish you had three or four hands when grappling with typical F-style clamps? Rockler’s innovative new Spring-loaded One-Handed Bar Clamps makes the clamping process much more manageable.

Woodturning: While we can’t transport you to a tropical sandy beach, turning a calabash bowl will invite a bit of warm Hawaiian culture into your shop. Ernie Conover and Emiliano Achaval will show you how.

Skill Builder: This first installment of a six-part joinery series offers a short course on mortise-and-tenon joints.

Power Tool Fundamentals: Our publisher takes a deep dive into why table saws are essential to most woodworking shops.

Tool Preview: Festool’s venerable TS 55 Track Saw has earned its place as a cornerstone power tool for many woodworkers and contractors. With the new cordless “K” model, it’s even safer than before!

Hardworking Hardware: European hinges are versatile, durable and easy to use. If you’ve never hung a cabinet door with them, here’s what you need to know to install this hardware like a pro.

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Rockler Deluxe Panel Clamps

Milwaukee M18 FUEL 15 Gauge Finish Nailer

Rockler Dust Right Floor Sweep with Blast Gate

The post January/February 2022 What’s in Store Roundup appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

The post VIDEO: Emiliano Achaval on Hawaiian Calabash Bowls appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

The post VIDEO: What is a Mortise-and-Tenon Joint? appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.