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Ben Deutschle

Tried to save a badly cracked and warped cherry bowl… it did not go as planned.

I found this cherry bowl that someone rough turned about 4 years ago when it was still wet. After sitting around forever, it had massive cracks, crazy warping, and the wood had gone pretty punky.

I decided to see if I could save it anyway — filled the cracks with abalone shell and resin, made some custom seagull-shaped bow tie inlays, and tried to turn it into something presentable.

Long story short: a lot went wrong. 😅 Would love any advice or thoughts — especially if you’ve had projects go sideways like this!
Making silk purses from sows ears and spinning straw into gold are long shots everyone should try from time to time.

I seldom spend time on the broken pieces because I can make two or three new good ones in the time I would spend fixing the broken one which most likely still looks broken when I try fixing it.
 
I would use tapered bowtie pewa instead of the seagull patches to get a snug fit without gaps. Cracked and warped bowls are good "what if" projects since there's no concern about things going south on you. There's a woodturner's axiom: "It was firewood before turning it, and it can still be firewood".
 

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