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| $ 1,800.00 |
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| This Flying Bowl was filmed for an HGTV show called That's Clever. |
One bright and sunny day, I was making a bowl with a center spindle. The inside came out good, and I
flipped the bowl over and started turning the outside.
My neighbor was working on his beautiful green ¼ size, four cylinders, Indy style race car, which he
took to the track in College Station and competed. He’s a car guy as I’m a wood guy.
While turning, the bowl support lost its grip and hit the back
wall of the garage with a CRASH, ricocheted and BLAM into some other things and ROLLED, rolled, rolled down the driveway.
My neighbor, Rusty, hearing all of this, came over half expecting to see me out cold on the floor. Somehow my body was not
part of the action. We joked about that and went back to our garages to play with our weekend toys.
At a much slower speed, I continued turning and after awhile, the piece came off the lath again but
with much less drama. Rusty came over again and said something like, “Well, I see that you’re still working on
that flying bowl.” I thought to myself “A Flying Bowl, that name has some sticking power.”
There was a little damage to this project. It looked nice and everything, but I wondered what it would
look like if it was cut in half. So, I took it to the band saw, cut it down the middle and glued the halves together. This was interesting. I made some concept and design changes. A few days later,
on another bright and sunny day, I was in the garage (The Toy Box) with a new plan.
I had taken it to the woodworking club for show-and-tell. It was displayed at high-end tool stores and
then shown at the Wood Turners Club. At all of these showings, one constant comment was that nobody had ever seen anything
like it before. That is a wonderful compliment because woodworking has been around for a very long time. There was
an older gentleman who said that he saw somehing like it many years ago. I and others have looked all over the Web, and at turning and wood
shows, and have yet to see this design.
That is the story of The Flying Bowl, almost.
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| $3,500.00 |
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| The Flying Bowl is part of a turning exibit at The Houston Center for Comtempory Craft |
I have been asked several times about the price of some of my work. So I'm adding that to the comment about the work.
I will always acept more. Realy it takes from 25 to 80 hours to make a Flying Bowl.
Naturally, the guys also wanted the plans to make one.
That’s how guys are. We won’t follow directions, but we can’t do anything without a plan.
I was drawing the plans, then something interesting, mysterious
or just odd was happening. It was mathematics, geometry, trigonometry, fluid shapes and maybe an ancient mystery.
The opening of the bowl is a figure "8" shape. In mathematics,
that is a symbol for infinity. That same symbol is a sign of good fortune, prosperity and other positive things in many ancient
civilizations. Often, when these ancient societies discovered an interesting concept, it was known to only the most powerful
of people and only a shadow of it became known to others, and sometimes these shapes went into darker areas. The best know
is the Pentagon. It is a perfect shape like a circle into a ball, a square to a cube and the triangle to a pyramid, the pentagon
becomes a geodesic dome. Intersect the points of a pentagon and there is a five-point star. The figure "8" in the Flying Bowl
was only the first of many surprises to come.
With just one dimension, say 12” for the diameter
divided by the first four prime numbers (1, 2, 3 & 5), the base pattern is set. Then take the first number that
can be squared (4) to get the internal radiuses. That gets the wall and center thicknesses. Using some simple math, numbers
found from a 12” diameter start are 1”, 2”, 3”, 4”, 5” and 6”. The ‘S-curve’
uses the Pythagorean theorem.
Then there is Fibonacci Theorem (used as a base for many
architectural designs), also known as the Golden Ratio when view from the side. Making this Flying Bowl from cubes and other
combinations and types of wood, complex Nautilus shell and other patterns emerge with different bases. I would
not be surprised if many of these patterns had a math or geometric form.
All of this I found to be a bit more than mere coincidence.
Could this be some sort of sacred vessel of some ancient secret society kept hidden for eons? Is this a shadow of secret knowledge
that has taken shape or just my imagination?
| $ 1,000.00 |
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| This is what the Flying Bowl looks like before it is taken to the band saw |
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