Rainbow Rock Bowl

Always on the lookout for a new material to use, one day Peter noticed how vibrant aquarium rocks are and picked up several bags of varying colors. While several years passed before inspiration finally struck, he wasn’t about to take the opportunity for granite and knew what he must do.  He would embed them in a turned redwood bowl! 

Starting with a slab of dried redwood, Peter inscribed a circle and began to cut the shape on his trusty bandsaw. 

Doing this is a great way to quickly reduce the blank down to a more manageable size and cuts down on unnecessary wear and tear on his wood-turning tool set. 

Peter then utilized his drill press to bore a shallow hole that can be used to securely mount the wood to his lathe.

After mounting it to his Nova lathe, Peter began to shape the wood down to a desired form using his Easy Wood Tools rougher.

More precise cuts were done along the top lip of the bowl with tools such as his Easy Wood Tools Finisher.

This groovy groove was where the rainbow rock wood reside.

However, before the rocks were laid in, the channel was painted with a bit of black to provide a nice contrast to the vibrant pebbles.

Leaning on his many years of experience sorting project materials into heaps of hues, Peter quickly organized the rainbow rubble randomness into concisely color coordinated cobble. Cool!

Carefully, Peter laid in the rocks down into a repeating pattern around the bowl, eventually locking in the design by pouring in some Total Boat High Performance Epoxy Resin in several coats.

One unexpectedly awesome bonus feature of the rainbow rocks is that they fluoresce under black light!

While not your typical redwood bowl accent material, the clever use of aquarium accoutrement totally rocks!