Making Wood Bowls

I finally got a lathe, it's a Craftsman 15" benchtop with variable speed. I bought it from my neighbor who also turns bowls.


It all starts with a bowl blank. This is a piece of birch that is ready to be turned. Any hard wood and some soft woods will work.


After about 45 minutes, the bowl is roughed out like this. When roughing a bowl, you have to leave about 10% of the final bowl size to allow for drying. When drying it can warm and checker (crack).



Here are a few bowls that I have turned on my lathe so far. Next I want to make serving platters, cups and goblets.

Knife & Sheath Making

This is one of my many hobbies. So far these are the only knives I have made. The blades I bought already shaped and heat treated since I don't have the tools necessary to do this yet. The first knife I made was this skinning knife. The handle is made of black dymondwood that I shaped and mounted to the blade.

This is the knife and dymondwood handle material.

Finished knife. I also serrated the blade and added thumb grips on the spine.

The sheath is made of brown Kydex with a horizontal belt loop.

My second knife was this survival knife. I bought handle material called G5 but decided to go a different route with the handle.

Knife blank.

Wrapped the handle with 550 cord.

I also serrated the blade and made a black Kydex sheath.

Making a Kydex Holster

After buying my new conceal carry gun, Taurus PT709 "Slim", I needed a good holster. I decided to make my own since I couldn't find one I liked. The material is called Kydex, which is an acrylic-polyvinyl chloride alloy. I bought a 12"x24" sheet for $10 online and only used 1/3 of that. Here is the process and final product.

First thing I did was made a paper template. Then I transferred that to the kydex and cut it out using tin snips.

Then I heated up the kydex in the oven at 325 degrees for 5 minutes.

After the kydex became workable I wrapped it around my pistol and stuck it in my press. The press I made using foam, 3/4" plywood and 2 clamps.

After being in the press for 3 minutes this is what it looked like.

I then drilled the holes for the rivets and inserted those using my eyelet setters. Placement of the rivets is very important, because they determine how snug the holster fits the gun. I also folded the belt loop over using a heat gun.

Once the rivets were installed I used a heat gun to fine tune the fit and sanded the edges clean. This is the final shape of my holster.

It works really well and is very comfortable. It can be used inside or outside the belt and is virtually unnoticeable.