Didn’t think plywood could do this…

this video is sponsored by squarespace in my last video i experimented with dyed wood  veneers and powdered plywood to add a little bit   more color and contrast and at the end of that  video i asked you guys what was your favorite   pattern and what would you like me to make out  of it your favorite pattern by far was this one   which is what you guys started calling the dragon  scale pattern plywood so that's what i'm using   this week and the most requested thing that i  could find was a turned wood bowl out of it which   at first i was like i don't  have a lathe in my shop but   i fell in love with the idea of this pattern  wrapping all the way around a bowl so i did   some more research i discovered something called  a stave bowl i also found some guides on how   to make a stave bowl which i'm going to share  with you and basically they're built by using   flat panels which is something that i can do in  my shop so that's what i'm doing this week i'm   making a 12-sided dragon scale pattern plywood  stave bowl because you asked for it all right so now if you're like me looking at this is  pretty intimidating it looks like homework   uh but it's really just a spreadsheet i'm gonna  link to all these down below and talk about them   in more detail later but basically what i'm  doing here is taking my old panel and tracing out   the angle that i want figuring out what sort of  pitch of the bowl i'm looking for that'll cut well   through the pattern i want to make sure that those  holes in the pattern aren't right along a cut   and i also need to calculate how many tiles are  in each individual pattern so that i know how   much pattern plywood to make 40 pieces per panel  i need five panels uh so that equals 520 pieces   12 inch stick one of these produces 20 half inch  pieces uh so 520 divided by 20 is 26 and then uh   i need to figure out how many of these veneers  i need to cover enough to produce 26 of these yeah that's it in my last video i went into quite  a bit of detail how to apply veneers for pattern   plywood to add more contrast to the design i'm  not gonna go into quite as much detail in this   video on that but i have learned a couple  things since then and i also got a lot of   questions so i'm gonna do my best to answer those  one of the number one questions that i get about   pattern plywood is what kind of plywood i use and  this is baltic birch plywood i really prefer it   but that's not to say that any plywood doesn't  work you can use whatever plywood you like   i just like the consistency of the veneers  and the fact that all the veneers are the   same type of wood i think it looks better in the  end but that's of course a personal opinion i also   got some really great recommendations in the  comments section of the last video suggesting   what i could do to prevent the cracking  i was getting on the edges of the veneers   it seems like the consensus is that my iron was  just too hot and that was causing the cracks   that seemed to solve it i just lowered it by by  a couple of notches and it was fine but you can   see that there's a couple of gaps in between  the the veneers and after thinking about it   for a while i think that's when i heat it up the  veneer shrinks a bit and even though i lined it   directly on the edge it shrunk but i'll show  you in a little bit how i corrected for that foreign i messed up i messed up really bad um so these are supposed to be cut at 45  degrees not 60 degrees so they're all wrong   and i can use them for other pattern plywood  but now the pattern that i've planned   and the other patterns not going to line up  for a bowl so fortunately i've got a little   bit of leftover but i'm completely out of  black veneer i used all of it up for this so   um all of these are are useless and i'm  gonna have to go out and buy more re-glue   it up i'm kind of out a whole day's work uh it  is what it is i'm gonna just go and do it again so after all that drama i might have bought myself  a drum sander to make me feel a little better   i'm not ashamed of it this thing's awesome i was also able to get myself  plenty of black veneer and   as you can see here i sort of  solved that shrinkage issue   all i did was overlay one piece of veneer over  the top of it just slightly so when it shrunk   down it was still overlaid and then i could sand  that down and you couldn't see the seam at all so now i'm setting the angle properly  which is 45 degrees i was confused the   60 degrees is for the hex pattern in the  last video i made both the hex pattern   and the mitered pattern the the alpine  pattern so uh i just had 60 degrees in   my head which was the last angle that i'd  cut before but no 45 is the correct angle   i also figured out that the all the pieces that  i cut before were not useless they were actually   totally usable i just could only get one side  out of them so i i switched uh the fence over a   little bit and i was able to cut so that i got  i got one complete side out of that that batch with that glue up done i can finally  go and open up my drum sander i'm so   excited to have this in the shop i've  been thinking about it for a long time   i talked to my buddy blake weber at the weber wood  shop he recommended this unit i've been wanting to   add a drum sander to the shop because it just  is going to make sanding up pattern plywood   so much easier and honestly i  can't see myself stopping making   pattern plywood anytime soon so i might as  well invest in the right tool for the job that's not gonna happen so uh yes when i was doing the mitered glue up  i saved a couple of the mitered pieces   and didn't glue them up i'm going to  be using these to fill in the blanks   so that i can get flat sides on all of my panels since consistency is really important on these  stave bowls i decided to kind of up my game when   it came to clamping uh previously i just been  using clamps to clamp these up but i've had the   idea for a while to use wedges instead wedges are  going to distribute the pressure more evenly and   they're also potentially can add a lot more  clamping pressure that's the hope at least so what i've done is i've made a  couple of bays and a couple of wedges   that fit into those bays i also have what  i'm going to call calls that will support   them when they get wedged down everything's  covered in wax everything's covered in   packing tape and then it's melamine on  the bottom so nothing's gonna stick to it the wedges seem to be working exactly as i'd  hoped one thing that i didn't account for is   that i needed some sort of bumper to keep the  wedge uh kind of in place while the other wedge   wedges in the other thing that was cool  about this is that i have complete access   to the panel i can see what's raised up if  this is covered in clamps i can't see it   but in this case i could just hammer  down anything that had lifted up so the stave bowl that i've planned is a 12   sided stave bowl which means i need at least 12  panels and so i made two bays on my first mold   and quickly realized that i needed  a second mold so i made a second one   the nice thing about this is that as one  was drying the other one can be glued up   although honestly it only takes about 20 minutes  per panel to glue them up and get them wedged   so i i want them to sit for at least four hours  before i pop them out of the clamps when they're   against that melamine they don't dry very fast  so in the meantime i just hung out with the dog you spin spin good boy spin winston spin  yeah good boy sit down good boy good boy this video is sponsored by squarespace from  websites and online stores to marketing tools   and analytics squarespace is the all-in-one  platform to build a beautiful online presence   and help run your business i've been using  squarespace ever since i started omfab and   i've been extremely happy with it squarespace  makes it super simple to open an online store   you can sell products services subscriptions  and digital content i currently use my store   on almfab.com to sell digital plans for my jigs  shop cabinets and furniture it's also easy to set   up galleries which is great when you're trying  to show off your work to potential new clients   all images hosted on squarespace can be edited  directly within your browser using squarespace's   built-in image editor you can crop resize rotate  adjust brightness and contrast and much more   so i actually have a second squarespace website  michaelholm.com which is basically just a series   of galleries that are designed to showcase my  sculpture i've literally gotten art gallery shows   from this website and it only took a couple  hours to set up so check out squarespace.com   for a free trial and when you're ready to  launch visit squarespace.commichaelom for 10   off your first purchase of a website or a  domain thanks squarespace now back to the build it took me a little while to figure  out how to pop the wedges out   um i tried just hammering it i tried slamming  a screwdriver into them and getting them to pop   which worked but uh the best way was to pry  them out uh which if i figured out eventually these panels came out super nice like these are  the best panels i've ever glued up of patterned   plywood i'm hands down using this method for all  the rest of my glue ups moving forward because   it just worked so well they're super flat  the joints don't have any gaps in them and   uh honestly this is a way better method  than the one that i was using before when it was all said and done all  those parts and pieces yielded 14   panels which was perfect all i needed was 12  and it's always good to have one or two extra it was at this point that i was ready to use the  drum sander but the drum sander wasn't ready to   be used so i ran out to the shop and grabbed  some casters so that i could roll it around   and then i also called in my neighbor corbin to  see if he'd help me lift the machine into place   all right so i have not lifted this yet obviously  so we'll just see i don't think it's crazy heavy   like it seems all right so far  we got it okay one two three yeah at all okay let's lift it up and twist  it that should be there let me put a couple of   bolts in you want me to  square up my side here sure thank you corbin for the help that was  so nice to have an extra set of hands   i was coming up with all sorts of rope  and pulley systems in my head to get it   lifted into place but it was way easier  just to have a another person in the shop   it took me a bit to get the machine tuned up i  went through the instruction manual which i don't   usually do but this thing i wanted to get it tuned  up correctly and i've been told by several people   taking the time to tune it up early is is  important but once it was tuned up it was just   so nice it's so nice the amount of time that  i've spent with a palm sander sanding pattern   plywood which is basically end grain wood  uh i just i don't want to have to do that   anymore so this is a great this is a great time  saver certainly uh pricey time saver but for me   considering how much of this stuff i sand  up it's uh it's amazing and just the fact   that it's all dimensionally the same is going to  help a lot when it comes to assembling this bowl the surface finish coming off the sander was great  i should also mention that i'm not sponsored by   this sanding company i'm just honestly impressed  with the tool it was uh it really saved me a ton   of time i touched it up a little bit with a palm  sander and then decided to square up the bottom   edges of each panel i'm going to be building  a jig for the individual staves and it needs   to be super accurate so i wanted to make sure  that all these panels were square on the bottom   sometimes in the glue up the parts can drift a  little bit i also cut out a bunch of pieces of mdf   exactly the same size so that i could use those  as kind of a dummy test bowl before i commit   to cutting these these pieces of patterned  plywood that i just spent days working on so fair warning there is a little bit of math  involved in making a stave bowl but it's made   a lot easier because i found a couple of charts  online one of them is by the great matthias wandel   who is an amazing youtuber if you haven't seen his  stuff i'm honestly shocked if you're watching mine   and haven't seen his another one is from malcolm  tibbett i found this through another youtubers   video which i will link down below and this one  is handy as well they just have different angles   but the math is essentially all the same because  the sides of the stave bowl are tipped they're   compound angles and both the miter and the blade  angle change as you get a wider and wider bowl   which is all to say that you just have to look up  the angle on these charts and when you find them   you figure out where to set your blade one thing  that you're gonna find is that some of the angles   the malcolm tibbett chart is is set to the  complementary angle of what matthias wandel   chart is so matthias's chart says 12.38 degrees  whereas malcolm tibbetts is going to say 77.85   degrees um that's all to say that uh they're the  same number they're just coming from a different   direction if you use the matthias chart like  i did uh you're just going to have to subtract   that angle from 90 and i ended up with 81.46  degrees which is what i set my table saw blade to all right now that all the  technical jargon is out of the way   uh let's get into building this jig i just  ran a sheet of three quarter inch plywood   through the table saw cutting off that edge at  that 81.4 degree angle and then i can set up   for the angle of the miter cut and for this i'm  using a digital protractor i just bought this   on amazon i'll post a link down below i think  it was 15 or 20 bucks and i was concerned about   the accuracy of it so this is gonna be its uh  its test to see how accurate it really is the   little digital readout got in the way of flipping  the protractor over to the other side so i just   grabbed a bevel gauge that worked great i set that  at the same angle and then i can mark out my lines it was at this point that i realized that i  can't cut the miter with it all the way out   to the edge because with that beveled angle it  would actually exceed the width of the panel   so in order to figure that out i just  laid a straight edge on there and sort of   scribed a line underneath the panel figured  out how far i needed to inset it so that   i wouldn't exceed the width of the panel and that  ended up being just about an eighth of an inch the next step is to build a fence around this  panel and and for that i'm just going to be   using a couple of scrap pieces of plywood and  setting them up 90 degrees at that angle that   i just established and i can actually use that  bevel gauge set up at the exact same angle to   double check everything so i'm not completely  reliant on that pencil line underneath the panel to make the jig a little bit more safe and  reliable i added in an armor tool hold down   these are auto adjusting which is super nice  i don't have to dial it in at all i just   basically screw it on and it'll hold down  whatever thickness material i put in there after a test cut in the mdf i double checked the  angle just to make sure that it was right which   it was still exactly where it was supposed to be  which is good and then i transferred my lines to   the other side i could then flip it over on the  jig clamp it down and build another set of fences the cool thing that i discovered on the second  set of fences is that i could use the offcut   from the mdf panel and since it already had  that beveled edge on it it registered perfectly the test piece looked good but i needed to make a  bunch of them in order to see if they're actually   going to make a bowl so i decided to just  cut six of them so i'd have about half a bowl   and then i could check from there so i didn't just  use up all of my mdf test pieces on this one go hey i think that's gonna work i think it's gonna work let's cut six more what i think this might work okay i didn't expect that to work so  well what the angles they look   good i don't want to jinx myself but if  the real ones like this that is so awesome so i really wanted the upper points to stay  intact but that upper corner it just was   not supported well enough by the jig there  wasn't enough glue service and it just kept   breaking the first two i cut broke and then i  started using a pencil and that that worked for   most of them but like i said i only had 14  panels and at least six of them broke loose ultimately i had to make a decision and  i really wanted to keep that pointy edge   uh but these top ones they just weren't  they're they weren't gonna hold so i ended   up actually cutting all of the remaining  ones off and then the areas that had   missing pieces of veneer i actually had extra  veneer with the glue on the backside of it so   all i had to do was iron them on fill in the  missing spaces and then cut off the excess after that i was ready to glue it up and as far   as i could figure the best way to clamp  this is just with a whole bunch of tape so so i might have just gotten lucky on this one i  honestly am shocked that this glued up as well   as it did and as smoothly as it did also i added  tape to the inside which i think was a really good   idea because it just saved me a lot of extra  clean up time i basically have these finished   sanded so i didn't want to put a lot of sanding  into them so just peeled the tape off when the   glue was still a little wet and then came back  with a chisel and trimmed off all the excess now here's something that i didn't really plan for   uh how to do the bottom i have seen other  people do uh like run a rabbiting bit around   the inside and then rabbit the panel in  which would work except for pattern plywood   in the past has exploded on me when i've run  router bits on it so um i just decided to   try and make a tapered bottom i didn't know  if this is going to be possible or if i could   get the angles right but assuming that the glue  up was good then all the angles should be the same i took a scrap piece of half inch plywood the same  plywood that the rest of the bowl is made out of   and i beveled all of the edges then  i used my rockler precision miter   gauge this took me a minute because the  angle is both 30 degrees and 60 degrees   both would work uh 30 felt a little bit safer  so i adjusted it a bit the nice thing about   this miter gauge is it has a positive stop at  30 degrees so it cut this at the perfect angle   i was hoping to be able to use the stop  and just place that and cut all the all   the parts exactly the same but i realized  that by the time i got to the fourth side   it was gone so i just ended up eyeballing it  and going up to the lines that i had drawn so the first test was good not great it it  was sitting up too high which means that   i started with too small of the panel and  then it was also uh sitting kind of weird   it was it was tight on four of the sides  i double checked this by rotating the bowl   so i just wanted to check to make sure that  the bowl wasn't different on all the angles   that what i was messing up was the the angles  on the on the panel which was the case and so   i knew what i had to do was cut a larger one  and try and get more precise with the angles after a quick search on what you call a 12-sided  shape which is a dodecagon and how to draw one i   found out exactly how to draw one i'll  post the link to the video down below it's   it's not that hard and i was able  to get a really accurate drawing   so that i could take it over to the  precision miter gauge and cut it out so those cuts got me in the ballpark  i was way closer than the first go   and there were just a couple spots that needed  trimming so i marked those out took them back   over to the miter sled and one more go and  that's all it took to get a nice tight fit in order to blend the base with the rest  of the bowl i'm going gonna be using   india ink to dye it black i covered this  in my finishes video i used india ink on   a bunch of things a bunch of furniture  projects and frames it's a great stain   it's not a finish so you will need  a top coat but with about three or   four coats you'll get a super dark black  finish that will last a really long time so after that i can just remove all the tape and give  it a final sand and polish this bowl is just i'm   just so shocked by it to be honest i'm  super excited to try more of these bowls   there's definitely a lot of work that goes  into them but i made this inside of a week   and learned a whole lot i think next time i'd  be a little more confident going in i also   love that people are calling this stuff dragon  scale even though it's the alpine pattern with   that kind of reversal for some reason it looks  like sort of dragon hide or something medieval   if you want to see more bowls like this or you  want me to see me experiment more patterned   plywood leave a comment because i literally  built this because of comments that people   left and i love the idea of collaborating  on these pieces and there's so much left   to explore with pattern plywood i say it every  time i barely scratch the surface but i mean it   and a lot of ideas come from people who are on  instagram i want to give a shout out to duncan   hooper who helped me through this entire process  his instagram handle is firewood creations and we   talked back and forth on how to make stave bowls  he makes these and he's also done pattern plywood   ones as well and he's an incredible maker thank  you duncan for all your help on this project now   it's time for me to stop talking and show you the  finished pattern plywood dragon scale stave bowl   so for those of you who stuck around at the end of  the video i got a surprise check this out this is   a second bowl made entirely out of the scraps from  the first bowl all of the offcuts are just glued   together they already have the correct angle cut  on them so i basically didn't have to do any work   to put this bowl together still need to sand it i  still need to glue it up i'll post it on instagram   the instant it's done but i thought that was  super cool this is basically a zero waste project   also i wanted to mention that this is a 35 degree  bowl on the malkin tibbett chart and a 55 degree   12 12-sided stave bowl on the matthias  chart if you want to replicate it you can   big thank you to squarespace for sponsoring this  video big thank you to my patreon supporters as   always you guys are the best and  i'll catch you on the next one   you

Channel: Michael Alm

Views: 615,596

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Id: shfRvaSZJ64

Length: 38min 3sec (2283 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 22 2021