Making a Wood Turned Segmented Bowl with Inlaid Letters

I recently finished what is probably my last major wood turning project in high school. As this is my last semester at Lick-Wilmerding, I anticipated the need to end my high school career in the shops on a strong note. For that reason, I decided on an ambitious project: building a segmented bowl with my nickname, "KHou," inlaid on the side of it in a different type of wood.

I had come across a video on YouTube of someone who used the scroll saw to inlay letters of a different type of wood.

The Plan and Concept

For this project, the goal was a deep, warm contrast that would catch the eye while spinning on the lathe. I chose walnut for the main body of the bowl, and hard maple for the inlaid "KHou" lettering. The light, bright tones of maple against the chocolate hues of walnut would make the text instantly legible.

Designing a segmented bowl requires precision. Instead of carving from a single block of wood, segmented turning involves gluing together concentric rings made of small trapezoidal segments. Each ring requires calculating precise miter angles (e.g., 12 segments per ring need 15° cuts on each side) to form a perfect circle without gaps.

Inlaying the Letters via Scroll Saw

The tricky part of this project was executing the inlay on a curved segmented ring. To accomplish this, I followed a classic scroll saw inlay technique before gluing the specific ring together:

1. Patterning: I printed the letters "KHou" reversed on paper and transferred them to the walnut segment.
2. Bevel Cutting: Setting the scroll saw table to a tiny angle (roughly 2 to 3 degrees), I cut out the letter shapes. Cutting at a bevel ensures that when the contrasting wood (maple) is inserted from the wider face, it creates a tight friction fit, acting like a wedge and eliminating gaps.
3. Fitting and Gluing: After tracing the walnut cutouts onto the maple blanks, I made matching cuts, tapped the maple letters home, glued them, and let the piece dry before sanding flush.

Turning and Finishing

Once the ring containing the inlaid letters was built, it was glued up with the other five concentric walnut rings into a single bowl blank.

Mounting the stack to the lathe, the challenge shifted to tool control. Segmented bowls consist of alternating end grains and face grains, meaning a dull gouge or a catch could easily rip a segment off or break the inlay.

I took very light passes with a bowl gouge to refine the exterior profile, paying extra attention when the tool crossed the maple letters. After turning down the interior wall thickness to about 1/4", I stepped through the sanding process from 80 grit up to 400 grit.

For the final finish, I chose a high-speed friction polish consisting of shellac and boiled linseed oil. The heat generated while holding a rag against the spinning bowl cured the coat immediately, creating a glossy, tactile surface that brought both woods to life.

Reflecting on my time in Lick-Wilmerding's shops, this bowl serves as an enduring reminder of precision, technical craft, and the creative freedom fostered over four memorable years.