Shou Sugi Ban Bowl

Peter’s latest adventure involves turning a relatively unknown substance: wood. Dried wood. The kind of stuff usually found in other people’s shops and/or on other people’s lathes.

So after turning a somewhat conventional bowl, Peter paints it black. Fans of wood grain are already having heart attacks. But then Peter gets… well, really weird. Out comes the hot glue gun, and hot glue proceeds to drip all over the bowl. Seriously ALL OVER THE BOWL. It’s a mess.

Then there’s more paint, this time red. Let the paint dry, peel off the glue, and… that’s kind of a cool effect! The hot glue acts as a mask, giving the bowl a two-color random sort of finish. A little spray lacquer and it’s done.

Or not.

Peter decides he’s not quite happy with the bowl, so he gives his viewers the options: keep it or give it to Mrs. Brown so she can burn it. Anyone who has seen even one of Peter’s videos knows how that’s going to go, so here comes Mrs. Brown with the torch!

If you hang around in woodworking circles you have probably heard of shou sugi ban. It’s a Japanese wood preservation technique and it involves fire. There’s slightly more to it than that, but: yeah. Fire.

So after a nice burn session with Mrs. Brown, the bowl has ceased to be black and red and is now just black. Also noteworthy: the paint used on the giant propane torch can’t stand up to the heat from the giant propane torch, which is kinda silly. Brushing away the soot, the bowl takes a few coats of spray lacquer and actually looks kind of cool.

That was a fire joke. Cool. Get it?

I’ll see myself out.

Bill Livolsi

Bill is the owner of One Car Workshop, where he makes videos about optimizing a small work space for maximum effectiveness. He lives in Las Vegas, NV with his wife, their dog, and two guinea pigs.