The two-level design I’ve come up with here is relatively easy to build and offers a wide range of customization options. The dividers are made from a combination of 1/2″- and 3/4″-thick solid walnut and mounted on a 1/4″-thick Baltic birch plywood base. But you can choose just about any species of wood, mix and match multiple species or even use Baltic birch plywood for all the parts, if you like.

Cutting the Parts

Look at the the Drawings and Material List to familiarize yourself with the knife block’s design and pieces. Start construction by ripping enough 2-1/4″-wide stock to make the bottom inside and outside dividers.

Then rip 1-3/8″-wide pieces for the top dividers and handle rest. Crosscut the bottom dividers, top dividers and handle rest parts 1/4″ longer than necessary for now.

Shaping the Dividers and Rest

Face-glue three pairs of bottom inside dividers together, and do the same for the two handle rest parts. Carefully align their edges and ends flush. When the glue dries, unclamp and crosscut the parts to final length.

Now grab your compass to lay out a 1-5/16″ radius on the sides of the top dividers and a 3-3/4″ radius on the sides of the bottom dividers. Then, use a band saw or jigsaw to cut just outside the layout line on each divider.

I clamped the top dividers into a single group and did the same for the bottom dividers so I could sand their curves to the layout lines all at once. Next, use a hand plane, file or sanding block to shape a slight radius on the top of the handle rest. When that’s done, sand all the knife block parts to 180-grit.

Assembling the Knife Block

Cut the plywood base to size as well as seven spacers for the top and bottom dividers from 1/4″-thick scrap. Place the bottom dividers upside down and insert spacers between them, aligning the back ends of all pieces. The spacers are narrower than the dividers to prevent them from contacting the base when the dividers are installed.

Clamp the dividers and spacers together. Apply a thin layer of glue to the bottom edges of the dividers only. Then flip the divider-and-spacer assembly over and clamp it to the base.

When that glue-up dries, remove the clamps and spacers. Repeat the assembly process to install the top dividers. Glue and mount the handle rest to the base where it best suits the handles of your knives.

Finally, lightly sand all surfaces with 220-grit paper and apply a wipe-on poly finish to all surfaces. It will be foodsafe once the finish completely cures.

Click Here to Download the Drawings and Materials List.

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That’s exactly what we’ve done here with this sofa armrest table. It started out as a roughly 10″-wide x 30″-long slab of 3/4″-thick walnut. You can find similar slabs at Rockler stores or many hardwood lumber vendors these days. The dark brown heartwood, separated by stripes of walnut’s cream-colored sapwood, can’t help but call attention to itself! And wrapping the slab around the armrest of a sofa not only makes it a conversation piece but also a super handy place to park a coffee cup, your smart device, a bowl of snacks or the game controller you’re using at the moment.

You won’t need a lot of power tools to build this project. It requires the use of a table saw or track saw to make various cuts, Rockler’s Corner Key Doweling Jig to reinforce the miter joints, a drill/driver and a random orbit sander. A tape measure, combination square, several F-style bar clamps and a means of cutting the dowels flush (we used an oscillating multitool, but a flush-cut saw will work fine, too) are about all you’ll need for hand tools.

Cutting the Miter Joints

The sofa shown here has armrests that are about 6-1/2″ wide. So, after crosscutting the ends of the slab square, we found its center point and drew a layout line across it. Then we drew a pair of parallel layout lines across the slab that each were 4-3/4″ away from the center line. Those established the top corners of the table’s top panel; if you draw a 45-degree line back from these layout lines on what would be the edge of the slab, the “bottom” length of this top panel is 8″ — an easy fit over many sofa arms. But be sure to measure the armrest width of your sofa and adjust the length of the top panel accordingly, if needed.

It’s imperative that the slab be held securely when cutting the top panel free of the two side panels, and this becomes trickier if your slab has very irregular edges. One way to do it is by setting the slab on a crosscut sled, aligning the edge of the sled with each of the cutting lines on the slab and miter-cutting them at 45 degrees with the slab clamped to the sled. You could also tip a track saw to 45 degrees and align the edge of the track to follow each cutting line, then cut the top panel free from the rest of the slab that way. A miter saw could be another option, but it will only work safely if both edges of the slab are flat and parallel so you can set them against the saw fence for cutting.

You now need to miter-cut the edges of the two side panels that were abutting the top panel to 45 degrees. Line these cuts up carefully so all you are doing is trimming off the mitered waste but not shortening the side panels in the process. That way, when the table is assembled, the slab’s grain pattern will wrap around the armrest in a continuous “waterfall” style.

With the miter cuts behind you, set the top and side panels together to check that the miter joints form 90-degree corners. Now is also a good time to verify that the length of the side panels will allow the table to sit flat on the top of the armrest without being obstructed by the seat cushions. Shorten the bottoms of the side panels if they are too long for your sofa. Then give the faces of the three panels a finish-sanding up to 180-grit or higher.

Assembling the Table

Rockler’s Corner Key Doweling Jig enables you to drive dowels in three different diameters diagonally across miter joints. It reinforces them with a mechanical connection that makes the joints significantly stronger. The dowel ends show through the faces of the joints as ovals, which adds a decorative detail. We followed Rockler’s instructions to set our jig up for drilling 3/8″-diameter dowel holes here. The jig enables you to adjust the position of the dowels within the joint, and we located them to be centered on the joint thickness.

Both members of a mitered corner are clamped together inside the jig, so you can drill each dowel hole completely through the joint in a single pass. We positioned the dowels for our table about 1-3/16″ in from the front and back edges of the joints, but you could locate them anywhere you like. Same goes for how many dowels you choose to insert in the joints. We think two look good for this project because the walnut dowels we usedcontrast nicely with the light-colored sapwood. But you can use as many dowels as you like.

When you drill the holes, don’t try to drill all the way through at once. Drill partway, back the bit out to clear the accumulating chips and then drill some more, letting the drill and bit do the work. Ease up on your hand pressure on the drill when the tip of the bit begins to poke through the other side, to avoid punching it through the joint face and potentially tearing out the surface. The cleaner the exit holes are, the better the dowel details will look!

It’s time to round up several bar clamps so you can assemble your table! Since the dowels will hold the joints together, that’s a pretty easy process to do. We spread glue along the mitered edges of one joint, set the top panel and side panel together and inserted a length of dowel into one of the glued dowel holes.

Leave the dowels overly long for now so you can continue to install dowels in the remaining hole or holes of the first joint, then repeat the process for the second joint. Install clamps on the table to pull the joints closed, and wipe off any glue squeeze-out before it begins to cure. Allow the joints to dry for at least eight hours.

Finishing Up

When the clamps come off, trim the ends of the dowels flush with the faces of the panels. Then give the dowel areas another round of careful sanding to smooth them until you can’t detect their ends by feel from the surrounding wood.

Walnut with sapwood like this is too pretty to cover with stain, so we decided to keep the wood’s color as natural as possible. You can enhance the color and grain pattern, however, by wiping on a liberal coat of boiled linseed oil. Wipe off the excess completely, and give the oil at least a full 24 hours to dry. Then topcoat with oil-based polyurethane in a sheen you prefer — we used satin. The poly will give this project a durable, waterproof surface. Rub out any imperfections, and apply a second coat. When that dries, it’s ready for use on your sofa!

Click Here to Download the Drawing and Materials List.

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When building small projects that you want to really make a statement, material selection is one essential key. Perhaps wenge is not a lumber you find attractive. If so, this wine cabinet would look amazing if made of bird’s eye, clouded big leaf or fiddleback maple. Highly figured walnut or quartersawn mahogany would also be good choices. The point is that if the design is basic, the “wow” factor must come from the beauty the wood provides. Then the hardware will enhance the whole. In a simple project, the details will carry the day. In this case, the curly cherry plywood back and the green felt lining add much to the whole, too.

First Things First

Whatever species of lumber you choose, select your most attractive pieces for the sides and the door. As always, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but being intentional about these choices will pay dividends in the long run.

Rip the sides to width and then crosscut them to length. We did both on the table saw, but you could cut them to length using a miter saw as well. The dimensions provided in the Material List will accommodate most wine bottles, but if you have specific bottles in mind, measure them to make sure they will fit, and adjust accordingly if needed. With that step done, go ahead and cut the top and bottom pieces to size as well.

We cut out each of these parts from lumber wide enough that we did not have to glue up pieces for the sides, top and bottom.

That was not true for the door. We used 3/4″ x 5″ x 24″ wenge lumber, sourced from Rockler Woodworking and Hardware. The door needs to be just a little shy of 10″ wide, so that required a center glue joint. It was our preference that the door panel look as if it were formed from a single piece of stock, so we took care to match the figure and the color of the two pieces. Joint the mating edges so that they fit together well. Use Titebond III (its darker hue is helpful here), clamp them together and leave them in the clamps overnight. If you are using wenge like we did, that extra clamping time is important because glue joints in wenge can be fussy.

With the door still in clamps to allow the glue to cure, grab the sides, bottom and top. Go ahead and sand them up to 100 grit, then step over to the router table. The top and bottom pieces require an ogee shape on both faces of their forward edge. All the pieces need 1/4″ x 1/4″ rabbets on their inside edges.

Chuck the ogee bit into the router table and set up the cut on scrap lumber. The shape should leave about a 3/8″ flat area between the two ogees. Again, if you are using wenge, move the pieces slowly across the bit. Wenge can be brittle, and tearouts are common. You may even wish to consider a climb cut to avoid trouble. You can certainly choose another edge shape rather than an ogee, but keep the depth of the shape around 1/4″ to align with the edge of the door.

Next, chuck a 1/2″-diameter straight bit into the router table. Set the cut to form a 1/4″ x 1/4″ rabbet, checking the setup on scrap lumber. On the sides, rout the rabbet the full length of each piece. Stop the rabbets on the top.

Dowels and Dowel Points

The next step is to join the carcass pieces together. We used dowels to strengthen the joints. In hindsight, biscuits might have been a better choice. There are carefully to length. Next, go ahead and sand the door smooth up through 320- grit. We chose Odie’s Oil for the finish, and with that product, the smoother the better. (It’s another important detail in taking a cabinet like this to the next level.)

When the glue has cured on the carcass, chisel off any glue squeeze-out and sand the carcass up to the 320-grit level as well. (You may wish to install the hinges first, then remove them and do your final sanding.)

Install and then remove the door pull and the feet, then apply the Odie’s Oil. Note that with this hard wax oil, a little goes a long, long way.

Once the finish dries, put the felt pad in the carcass and attach the plywood back. Put a drop of CA glue into the holes where you mount the feet and secure them. Rehang the door with its pull, and you are ready to grab a couple of wine bottles. Enjoy the cabinet, oh … and the wine too!

Click Here to Download the Drawing and Materials List.

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This knife block will hold a typical set of kitchen cutlery — an 8″ chef knife, a serrated bread knife, a couple of smaller utility/paring knives and four steak knives, plus a sharpening steel and kitchen shears. If you have even more knives to store, you could always add more wedges or widen the block to accommodate three knives widthwise instead of two, as it’s laid out here. Feel free to modify the design to suit your needs.

Time for Some Tapering

The first order of business is to create the knife block’s seven primary wedges. I ripped my 8/4 cherry into long 3-5/8″-wide strips, flattened one face of each strip on the jointer and then ran them through the planer to create parallel faces. Try to keep this stock nearly a full 2″ thick. Then crosscut the workpieces into eight 10-1/4″-long blanks (one becomes a test piece).

The reason why it’s good to keep these wedge blanks nice and thick is that it will make them easier to clamp upright in your tapering jig for the next step — turning them into wedges. Start by marking a centerline along one edge of each blank, dividing it lengthwise. Now mark two taper lines on either side of the centerline that reduce the blanks from 1-3/8″ thick on one end to 1/2″ at the other end.

I used Rockler’s Small Parts Taper Jig retrofitted with a pair of Rockler’s long aluminum Hold Down Clamps I had on hand to cut the blanks into wedge shapes. The jig is small enough to accommodate blanks of this length, and the longer clamps pinned them down securely beside the jig’s fence to keep my hands safely clear of my band saw blade. After adjusting the taper jig’s fence to the correct angle, and setting it so that my blade would cut just to the waste side of the layout line, I sliced one face off of the test blank. Make any adjustments, if needed, then cut one face off the other seven blanks, too. After round one of these cuts, I flattened all the cut faces up to the layout lines with several passes on the jointer.

You’ll need to reset the taper jig to cut the second angled faces of the wedge blanks. I also reversed the direction of the blanks from the wide end oriented toward the back of my jig for the first cut to the narrow end of the blanks for the second cut. That arrangement enabled me to keep the majority of wedge shape positioned on top of the jig and securely clamped. When the second faces are cut, head back to the jointer again to flatten them further and remove any waste beyond the layout lines.

Preparing Thin Laminations

You’ll need eight 1/8″-thick “pinstripe” laminations for the knife block, and here’s how I approached the task. I first ripped and crosscut four 3-5/8″ x 10-1/4″ workpieces to size from my 4/4 wenge stock, then resawed them down the middle to produce eight blanks. I had hoped that these workpieces could have yielded three pinstripe layers per blank instead of just two, by making two resaw cuts instead of one, but a couple of test cuts on a scrap piece of wenge proved that cupping or bowing was going to be an issue when the stock was resawn really thin. So I abandoned that option in favor of one resaw cut per blank. Due to the variable nature of wood, sometimes we have to waste a little stock in order to come out ahead with the workpieces we actually need to make, and this was one of those occasions.

To bring those overly thick laminations down to their final 1/8″ dimension, I needed a way to send all eight through my thickness planer safely. A length of 3/4″ melamine shelf board was the ticket. Using double-sided carpet tape, I adhered all the wenge blanks to the melamine with their jointed faces down (and sawn faces up) so the shelf could act as a carrier board through the planer. It’s never safe to feed stock much thinnerthan about 3/8″ through a surface planer by itself, because at some point it becomes too thin to remain flat. Pressure from the feed rollers could cause the end of the stock to bow upward, get caught in the planer’s cutterhead and shatter — not what you want to have happen! Several passes of the carrier board through the planer reduced the wenge to 1/8″ in a safe and controlled fashion. Just don’t skimp on the tape, and keep each planing pass relatively light, skimming off material in shallow passes.

Once the wenge was pried free of the carrier board, I removed all traces of the tape adhesive, then glued a “pinstripe” layer to one face of six of the wedges. For the seventh wedge that would become the top of the knife block, I glued a wenge layer to both faces instead.

Laying Out and Routing Knife Slots

Except for a couple of larger slots that will be required to store a sharpening steel (it’s a 7/16″-square slot for mine) and shears (that one is 5/8″ x 1-1/8″ for the one in my knife set), all the knife slots need only be 1/8″ tall to accommodate typical knife blade Their widths will vary, based on the specific knife styles you own. I routed all the knife slots into the wenge layers only. For the sharpening steel and shears slots, I centered them on the wenge layers and extended the openings into the cherry wedges above and below evenly.

Lay out a slot for each knife on the ends of the wedges. Determine a slot arrangement that maximizes space and groups like knives together. Plan for two knives per pinstripe layer when possible, but keep in mind that the wenge that remains in between and outside of the blade slots is the only material that will glue one wedge to the next.

To rout the knife slots, I used a 3/8″ straight bit, raised 1/8″ above the table. My router table fence guided each of these groove cuts, with the slots extending the full length of the wedges. Try to group your routing passes to take advantage of the same fence setting when you can, even if that means routing a couple of passes on one wedge, then jumping to another wedge out of sequence. It will add efficiency to the whole process. Also, be mindful of the following safety rule: When you’re widening a groove that requires more than one routing pass, set up your cuts so that each pass after the first requires you to move the fence backward, away from the bit. That way, the bit will continue to remove material against its rotation on the side of the slot closest to you (in front). If you find yourself needing to move the fence toward the bit instead, you’ll be cutting the back side of the slot and with the bit’s rotation, which is unsafe. That’s a climb cut situation, and it could cause the bit to grab the stock and pull it through at great speed, potentially resulting in a loss of your control over it.

Gluing up the Wedges, One Joint at a Time

Wedge-shaped workpieces are difficult to glue together, because it’s challenging to apply clamping force uniformly. Here’s how I made the process easier for this situation. I used a strap clamp around the entire assembly, and I glued only two wedges together at a time. If you try to glue all seven at once, they’ll invariably slide out of registration with one another when you tighten the clamps, and the glue is still acting as a lubricant before it tacks up.

I also fashioned a couple of angled scrap blocks and taped them to the jaw faces of a long F-style clamp. That way, the clamp could apply lateral pressure across the wide end of the block where the strap clamp seemed to offer the least effective pressure. I also found it helpful to install a couple more bar clamps at the joints between the first/second and sixth/seventh wedges. These joints often wanted to slide out of alignment, but the clamps prevented that from happening. If the faces of the wedges/pinstripes are flat, it doesn’t take Herculean force to create tight glue seams, but a few well-placed clamps sure helps.

Final Block Shaping

Once all the wedges are assembled and the glue is dry, flatten the faces of your knife block and bring its overall width down to 3-1/2″, either by sending it through your thickness planer or with a hand plane, as I did.

The narrow and wide ends of the block also probably will have small misalignments between the layers, but no worries. Just use a flexible batten or trammel points to draw two radii on the blank — one near the narrow end and one at the wide end.

I set the overall length of my knife block at 9-3/4″, using radii of 8-1/4″ and 18″ to create concentric curves. Trim off the excess ends of the block at the band saw, then smooth the cuts with a curved sanding block or on a spindle sander with a large-diameter spindle. I also eased all the sharp edges of the knife block with a 1/8″ roundover bit in a handheld router. I touched up these little details with some hand-sanding.

Adding Feet and a Renewable Finish

A couple of feet underneath your knife block will make it even more tip-resistant, lift it slightly up off the counter and add an attractive design element. Using a 3/4″-wide dado blade in your table saw, raised to 5/8″, plow a pair of dadoes across the bottom wedge.

I located these cuts 1-3/8″ in from each end of the block. The feet are simply 5″-long “sticks” of 3/4″ x 3/4″ wenge, with their top corners cut and sanded to 5/8″ radii.

Center the feet lengthwise in the dadoes so they extend out evenly on both sides. Attach each foot to the blank with a single #8 x 1-1/2″ flathead wood screw driven into a countersunk pilot hole.

Any oil/varnish blend would be a good choice for finishing this knife block because it will enhance the color of the wood while also adding a degree of protection from cooking spatters and spills. I wiped on three coats, allowing each coat to dry thoroughly before reapplying. Once the finish cures, this attractive kitchen accent is ready to display your cutlery in style!

Click Here to Download the Drawings and Materials List.

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However, in our home, making something practical is also very important. I try to live by the motto, “if it’s going to be in the kitchen, we better use it.” (Just don’t look at my drawer full of BBQ tools … Yes, I need all those turners and tongs!) But I think I’ve reached a happy medium here. This round cutting board with a multi-species laminated accent is both fun to make and practical as can be.

Let’s Get Rolling

I started by selecting a color scheme and decided to make most of the cutting board from walnut with a bold accent of maple, cherry, mahogany and padauk. These colors work great in our kitchen and really make the cutting board pop! But just about any close-grained hardwoods would be great choices for this board. There are no rules here; my picks were entirely subjective, and my wife really liked the colors. Which supports another motto worth remembering: “Happy wife, happy life!”

Ripping Along

This project really gave my table saw a workout. I got started by crosscutting my pieces of walnut into roughly 16″ lengths and then ripped them to 1-1/8″ wide. My goal for this board was to end up just a bit proud of 1″ in thickness, so giving myself that extra 1/8″ for flattening and sanding turned out to be helpful.

To glue up the accent strip, I put a thin coating of glue on the faces that would be touching. I grabbed a couple of 2x4s to use as clamping cauls to provide even pressure.

I reached for my bottle of Titebond III for this lamination. The “green” label is the right choice here, because it’s a waterproof formulation and is FDA-approved for indirect food contact.

Once it had time to fully cure, I scraped away the extra glue squeeze-out and headed to the miter saw to cut it into some angled pieces. I swiveled my saw table to 22.5 degrees and, using a piece of tape and a marker, scribed a registration line on the saw’s fence 1-1/8″ away from the blade.

I cut 10 pieces to this length with the lamination laying on the saw table so its glue lines were facing up. Now back to that sandwich!

As you can see in the Drawings, I captured the angled pieces between the two maple strips. To glue the maple and the angled accent pieces together, I applied glue to one face of each maple strip and to the angled ends of the multicolored pieces, then sandwiched them all together. I was concerned that too much clamping force would cause this multi-piece glue-up to shift around before the glue had time to tack up. So, spring clamps to the rescue! I used enough clamps to apply adequate pressure but not to ruin their alignment.

While the glue was drying, I started to prepare for gluing up the whole board. I did a dry-fit of all the pieces and was satisfied with the results — it was going to work fine. Then I got busy applying glue to the pieces. After I had assembled about two thirds of the walnut into a blank, I glued in the accent strip and then finished up with the remaining walnut on the opposite side of the accent.

I used a pair of Rockler’s Mini Deluxe Panel Clamps to provide the clamping pressure. They’re designed to both squeeze a panel together and also keep its laminations flush — perfect for this application!

Cutting and Shaping Comes Next

It’s always a good idea to give the glue on complicated laminations plenty of time to cure, so I let mine dry overnight. Removing the board from the clamps, I was pleased to find that it required minimal flattening. And that was good because I had more work to do.

I got started back at the table saw squaring up its ends. While this board would have worked well as a square, I want something different, so I settled on a circle!

Before I got too excited and cut it round, I wanted to use a new 4-in-1 Cutting Board Handle Routing Template from Rockler. The template has four different handle shapes and takes the effort out of forming cutouts.

Simply register the template and remove the material with a router, making use of a guide bushing and 3/8″ spiral bit. I decided on the square cutout to pay homage to all the other square cutting boards in the world, and I think the square hole in a round object makes the choice a bit comical, too.

Then it was time to cut the board round. There are many ways to do this, but let me show you my preferred method. I started with my router attached to a circle-cutting jig and made a very shallow cut along the bottom of the board so I could see where the circle was going to be.

I set the jig for a 14″ diameter. I made a few more passes, routing to about 3/8″ deep. Then I took the board over to the band saw and completed the circular cut I had started. My last step was to skim off the remaining band saw waste with a flush-trim router bit.

Wrapping Up Some Final Details

A round cutting board with sharp edges just seems incomplete to me. So, I eased the outer edges of the circle with a 3/8″-radius roundover bit in the router and switched to a 1/4″ roundover for softening the edges of the handle cutout. I think the combination of profiles adds a nice detail.

Even though my board was sufficiently flat, it still needed more final sanding So, I worked up through the grits to 320 to give all of its surfaces a silky smooth feel. A couple coats of food-safe Walrus Oil Cutting Board Oil made it even smoother, and the oil really highlights this project’s many wood colors.

My favorite little feet are some 3/8″ soft bumpers that install in drilled holes in the bottom face. I mounted eight of them to prevent any tipping when I’m slicing tomatoes for my next BLT. And with that, my new cutting board was ready for use.

If you make one of these boards too, be sure to only wash it by hand and not in the dishwasher. When the board eventually looks dull and dry, clean it thoroughly and then apply a fresh coat of oil. Simple as that! I’m off to make a sandwich.

Click Here to Download the Drawings and Materials List.

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Check out the video of the process.

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Every year, I make a batch of Christmas ornaments for Tallahassee’s Market Days Art Sale. One of the best sellers—and most fun to make—is a hollow sphere ornament. There are three basic parts to this ornament: the sphere and a bottom and top finial.

Turn and Hollow the Sphere

To turn the sphere, start with a small cube of wood about 2″ (5cm) on all sides. It can be a larger cube, as long as it can fit within the jaws of your chuck. Trap the block in a four-jaw scroll chuck, with the endgrain facing the tailstock, and bring up the tailstock with a live center for safety.

Using a small spindle gouge, rough the block to round about half-way to the chuck. When turning a sphere, it is helpful to know where the center of the block is, so use a caliper to measure the length of the block and draw a pencil line in the middle of the blank.

Start by rounding half the sphere, from the centerline toward the tailstock. At the start of the cut, the bevel of the gouge is facing straight up (open position), and the handle is down.

Then roll the gouge to the right and raise the handle while twisting the gouge clockwise, so that the flute ends up facing the live center (closed position). You are essentially turning the right side of a large bead.

It might take three to five passes to round off half the sphere. Don’t worry, the shape doesn’t have to be perfect. You’ll have the chance to clean up the sphere in later steps.

Next, drill a 1/2″- (13mm-) diameter hole all the way through the piece. It helps to make a small divot in the center of the end of the blank to guide the drill bit straight into the sphere.

The next step is to hollow the half sphere you just shaped. I use a small bent hollowing tool and put a piece of tape on the shaft as a depth gauge. This will tell me when I have reached the middle of the block.

When hollowing with a tool like this, position the toolrest far enough away from the workpiece so that the straight part of the shaft, not the bent part, is on the toolrest. If the bent part is on the toolrest, the tool may be more “grabby” and you could get a catch. The height of the toolrest should put the cutting edge at spindle height. Work the tool into the half sphere until it is hollowed to the middle. The cutting direction is from the drilled center hole toward the left side of the sphere.

After hollowing to the center, remove the blank from the chuck. The challenge now is how to hold the half-completed sphere to round off and hollow the other side. I do this using a shop-made cup chuck. The cup chuck is made from a blank of wood about 1″ (25mm) larger in diameter and an inch longer than the sphere you are making.

Orient the cup chuck blank so that its grain runs parallel to the lathe bed. To hollow the cup chuck, start by drilling a 1″-diameter hole with a Forstner bit, 1/2″ deeper than the diameter of the sphere. Then widen the hole with a spindle gouge so that the top edge is about 1/8″ (3mm) smaller than the diameter of the sphere and the sides are tapered toward the bottom.

To use the cup chuck, insert the side of the sphere you just completed and trap it in place with a cone center placed in the hole you had drilled. The centerline of the sphere should be just shy of the front edge of the cup chuck. Using a small spindle gouge, round off the second side of the sphere, just as you did the first.

Now you are ready to hollow the second half of the sphere. Obviously, you must remove the tailstock to do this. To ensure the workpiece stays securely held in the cup chuck, give it a tap with a deadblow hammer.

If the workpiece comes out of the chuck while you are hollowing, it will stay on the hollowing tool. Simply stop the lathe and re-set the sphere back into the cup chuck. One technique to get a more secure hold is to moisten the inside of the cup chuck with water before re-setting the sphere.

Hollow the second half the same way you hollowed the first. I use a wire gauge, easily made from a wire coat hanger, to judge the wall thickness of the sphere. Shape the wire gauge so it has a 1/2″ gap.

When the point inside is against the wall of the sphere, you can judge the thickness of the wall by looking at the gap between the edge of the sphere and the end of the wire gauge.

To remove the hollowed sphere from the cup chuck, use your lathe’s knock-out bar by inserting it through both sides of the sphere and pulling down.

Refine Sphere Shape

Now it’s time to refine the outer shape of the sphere. Make a tapered jam chuck and trap the sphere between the jam chuck and the live center. A square-end negative-rake scraper can remove any tool marks and round off any mis-matched areas.

Sand the sphere. I begin using 150-grit sandpaper and progress through the grits to 600. If you wish to apply a finish at the lathe, now is the time to do it. I typically apply a thin coat of cyanoacrylate (CA) glue as the finish.

Turn the Finials

I use a scroll chuck with spigot jaws to hold the blank for the finials. A pen blank 3/4″ (19mm) square and 6″ (15cm) long is sufficient for both the bottom and top finials.

Trap about 1″ of the pen blank in the spigot jaws, making sure they are securely tightened and all four jaws are touching the wood. Then use a spindle-roughing gouge to taper the blank from the headstock side toward the tailstock.

After tapering the spindle, I like to form a small teardrop shape near the end. I do this by cutting “downhill” back towards the chuck using a small skew chisel. Then use the skew, cutting toward the tailstock, to further reduce the finial above the teardrop.

I make the bottom finial about twice as long as the diameter of the sphere. In this case, the sphere is about 2″ in diameter, so the finial is 4″ (10cm) long. Mark the length on the tapered shaft with a pencil, then shape the upper end of the finial.

At the shoulder, where the finial will make contact with the sphere, you’ll want to undercut, rather than cut straight in. Undercutting will cause the outer edges of the shoulder to make good contact with the sphere, with no gaps. I undercut the shoulder using a small skew presented on its side.

Sand and apply a finish to the finial. Then use a parting tool to turn a 1/2″-diameter tenon that will fit into the hole in the sphere.

When parting off the finial, leave about 1/8″ of the tenon on the waste block, as this stub will become the tenon for the top finial. I cut the bottom finial off using a thin-kerf saw.

Undercut the shoulder of the top finial, just as you had done for the bottom finial, so it, too, will meet the surface of the sphere with no gaps. Then finish shaping the top finial.

Closing Thoughts

To assemble the ornament, I use the lathe as a clamping device. I drilled a small hole in my cone center, so it can fit over the end of the bottom finial without damaging it . With the top finial still mounted in the chuck, position the sphere on its short tenon, then add the bottom finial by inserting its tenon into the hole in the bottom of the sphere. With the pieces glued, use the lathe to apply gentle gluing pressure. After the glue dries, I buff the ornament and add a screw eye so it can be hung with pride.

With some practice, this project can be completed in less than an hour. If you are making multiple ornaments at the same time, an efficient approach is to perform each individual operation (like hollowing one half of the sphere) on multiple blocks before moving on to the next operation. This saves the time of having to change chucks back and forth for each step. I also find it easier to make a bunch of finials at one time and assemble them into the spheres later, again saving time with changing chucks.

Enjoy the season with your new hollow sphere ornaments.

Walt Wager, Professor Emeritus at Florida State University, has been turning for nineteen years and teaching for eight years at Camelot’s Woodworking Studio in Tallahassee, Florida. Walt can be contacted through his website, waltwager.com.

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