Wood and Acrylic Resin Segmented Bowl

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My first attempt at a multi-segment bowl with acrylic resin between the individual pieces.

A curve-sided RM bowl requires two blanks.  Here's 1 minute YouTube video showing how they were made.

 

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This was my first attempt to combine wood and acrylic resin – the resin used instead of a thin layer of wood between the colorful layers.  The resin saves a ton of sawing thin strips and gluing them into place.  But the bowl is far from perfect for a few reasons.

1.       The main reason is bubbles.  In a pour like this with lots of skinny spaces and corridors throughout the wood, a gazillion little bubbles will form in the freshly poured resin.  The only way to get rid of them is to place the piece in a pressure pot right after the pour and get the ambient pressure up to near 80 psi for a day or two.  This will compress the bubbles deep in the pour, making them magically disappear.  I can see numerous bubbles in the cured resin in this bowl.

2.       I didn’t put enough coloring in the resin.  It looked pretty dark when I mixed it, but I was looking 6” of resin in the mixing pot.  In the finish bowl, I’m looking through – at the most – a ¼” and it’s like looking through dull glass.  It needs a bunch more color…!

3.       In a segmented bowl like this, the resin doesn’t stick perfectly everywhere.  I had a small piece of wood pop out during sanding, and the repair is noticeable.

Ah well, it was a good learning process – hopefully, I’ll have this sorted out for the next one.