As I am working on more and more guitars, I keep finding that I need a good place to put small screws and parts so they don’t get lost. I think I need to make some small wooden bowls to hold small parts.
I scoured the shop to find some suitable scraps. I may want to be able to make more of these in the future, so first I’d like to make a set of templates to make this repeatable. I drew up a basic template on my computer before making any cuts. If you’d like this template, its available here. I just used some 1/2″ Birch plywood for these templates. It took a little time to get them cut out and sanded to shape, but once they’re done, it will make a huge difference later on. Its worth spending the time on them now.
To make the actual bowls, I used my templates to trace out where the hollowed out portion will be. Then, using a forstner bit, I removed the bulk of the material to make the routing easier. speaking of routing, I chucked a bowl and tray bit into my plunge base router, attached my template to the stock and routed out the inside. The bearing on the router bit followed my template nicely, and the rounded profile of the bit gave it a nice rounded bottom. It worked great. Now, I could just cut out the outer shape on the bandsaw. I did this last because I wanted to leave as much wood as I could to support the router. With it all cut out, I just sanded it to shape.
I wanted one of these bowls to have a magnetic bottom. This way it could hold on to small parts. I decided to slice off the bottom and embed some computer hard drive magnets into it. After slicing off a thin piece of the bottom, I used my trim router to rout out a shallow cavity, just deep enough to hold the hard drive magnets. Then I just glued the bottom back on. After sanding it to shape, the seam is all but invisible.
After a bit of final sanding, I finished them with some guitar finishing oil. This is a formulation made by Crimson Guitars, in the UK. Its some kind of oil blend that is easy to apply and looks great. I’m happy to have these done, and my small parts now in order. Hopefully now I won’t be spilling them all over the place. These could be used for many different applications. You could very easily use them in the kitchen as prep bowls, or in the office to hold office supplies. The size, shape and use is completely up to you. You can check out the build video below. Thanks for stopping by.
— Affilliate Links —
Bowl and Tray Router Bit – https://amzn.to/2GEqp3f
Bosch Router with Plunge Base – https://amzn.to/2Bw1RGg
Ridgid Cordless Router
12″ Handscrew Clamps – https://amzn.to/2UTOyac
Gator Sandpaper – https://amzn.to/2TPgHPC
