George’s Epoxy Bullet Bowl

Here’s one of the weirdest projects that our instructor George has ever done: he filled a mold with brass casings, poured epoxy over the top of them, let it cure and turned the whole thing into a bowl. The result; a bullet bowl. OK, they’re not bullets, but it makes for a cool name. You may never do an identical project, but you can get some good ideas from this video.

Getting Ready

• – The mold for this project is an inexpensive plastic bowl. The epoxy does release from the bowl, so it can be used over and over.
• – Be sure you’re using the right epoxy. It needs to be an epoxy that’s suitable for deep pours.
• – Clean the casings if you want them shiny. George tumbled his with a brass cleaning product.
• – A pressure pot will eliminate bubbles from the casting.

Pour and Wait

Most epoxies need a lot of cure time before you can put them on the lathe (five to seven days). Read the epoxy instructions, and don’t push it.

Turning

George toggled between high speed steel and carbide tools to do the turning. The casings really slowed the process down, and their shavings came off so hot he had to put a glove on his left hand. But in the end, the process was similar to any bowl turning project. Just slower. Epoxy projects typically don’t get finish, they get buffed. That was the final step of this project.