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Wood Shells – A New Art Form

Steve Garrison
Copyright 2009
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Copyright Notice
This publication is protected under the US Copyright Act of 1976 and all other applicable
international, federal, state and local laws, and all rights are reserved, including resale rights: you are
not allowed to give or sell this guide to anyone else in any form. You may print a copy for your own
use. If you received this publication from anyone other than stevengarrison.com, you've received a
pirated copy. Please email me at [email protected] and notify me of the situation. The
original ebook was released for sale to the public in November of 2009.

Legal Disclaimer
You must be 18 years or older to purchase or use this material. Use this information at your own
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agree to hold the author of them harmless from any damages that may result from its use. Be careful,
you will be working with dangerous shop equipment that can injure or kill in an accident.
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Introduction

I have enjoyed working with wood since the time I was a kid watching my father building our home.
Being the youngest of three kids, I was too young at the time to really help him very much so I spent
my time making things from scraps of wood such as swords, spears, bats, then a little bit later -
boomerangs and birdhouses. Luckily I became more creative than destructive. Later on after the
house was built, dad built a three-story building next to the house. The basement was for storage,
the middle level was a woodworking shop, and the top floor is an art studio for my mother who
paints in watercolor. The woodworking shop got some more machinery for woodworking beyond
rough carpentry – jointer, planer, band saw, lathe, drill press, and I bought my own scroll saw a few
years later as my first woodworking machine.

Somehow I ended up with a copy of a magazine in the early 90’s that had an article about Bob
Stocksdale turning his bark rimmed bowls. I was fascinated and wanted to try it myself. I made
several out-of-round bowls from chunks of firewood. After replacing the spindle bearings in that old
Craftsman lathe and welding part of the tool rest back together I decided to try segmented turning
because then I could potentially make a larger vessel and have it balanced better from the start. That
was fun for a while, but I finally got tired of everything having a circular cross-section. I had some
ideas from the back of my math textbooks from college apparently talking to me while I slept at
night. It seems as if my invertebrate palaeontology textbook also did the same.

The shells are obviously inspired by nature. The most obvious look-alike is the nautilus – a so-
called living fossil. Nautilus is the only survivor of what was once a wide variety of mollusks called
ammonites - which supposedly died out at the end of the Cretaceous with the dinosaurs. Some fossil
ammonites have been found that are quite large reaching several feet in diameter, but nautilus shells
found in the ocean today only grow up to around ten inches or so in diameter. Collectors prize
nautilus shells, and they are endangered because of the beauty of their shells. Perhaps we can do a
good enough job copying them to take some of the pressure off the little creature?

Unlike segmented woodturning, making segmented wood shells does not require a great deal of
precision in cutting angles. There are no closed rings of segments whose ends must align perfectly
to make a joint without gaps. You will need to know how to make tight joints and I will show you
the techniques that work good for me. Using segmented construction, making shells is an efficient
use of wood with little waste. My most recent shell measures fourteen inches maximum diameter by
just over five inches wide at the widest point on the lip, but it was all made from a single board of
four quarter curly maple measuring six inches wide and five feet long. Everything within the wood
will be exposed, so it is important to use wood that is free of defects such as cracks, loose knots,
voids, holes, or other defects. Unless you are willing to make repairs, these things will most likely
ruin your work piece if they are ignored.

In this ebook I have attempted to share my techniques that have worked for me. I know better than
to say that these methods are the only way to make a shell because there are other ways that I am
still finding to this day. Maybe you will think of something I have overlooked that will work better
for you than what I am showing. The segmented construction process lets you create forms that
would be impossible from a single chunk of wood, it also lets you create patterns with lines and
coloration in the wood grain that are a reflection of the shape of the shell by rotating along with the
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segments in the construction process. You are only limited by your imagination. There’s a huge
variety of different kinds of wood that are suitable for making shells from. You should practice first
in something inexpensive before moving up to the kinds of wood with more interesting figure,
texture, and colors. I often test new ideas in ordinary spruce, pine, or fir building lumber scraps.
Once I confirm that my idea does what I am expecting I will stop and do the same thing in curly
maple, figured walnut, or other hardwood.

Tools Needed
With the proper tools you can make shell forms with ease. For starters you will need the following:
1. Scroll saw – capable of sawing on a bevel. It is important that the feed direction is parallel to
the tilt axis of the table. The wood pieces you will be cutting are wedge-shaped, so use
blades that will saw through both thick and thin wood without chipping or burning. I prefer a
skip-tooth blade.
2. Band saw – Used for cutting stock into wedges and taking over the cutting when the
segments become too thick for a scroll saw. Without a good band saw you will be limited to
smaller shells and needing some other way to make wood into wedges.
3. Flattening Plate – This can simply be a piece of thick (at least ¼”) plate glass with coarse grit
sandpaper glued on with spray adhesive or contact cement. This is used to make butt joint
surfaces perfectly flat before gluing them together. This item should NOT be replaced with a
belt or disc sander – those are too aggressive.
4. Reversible power carving tool – used for rounding and smoothing interior space. I use ¼”
shank structured carbide tooth spheres or round-nose bits for most interior shaping and
thinning. Larger radius bits make smoother surface with less grooves than smaller bits to be
further smoothed with ball sanders. Use the largest ball-shaped bit that fits in the opening
without damaging other parts of the shell. As an intermediate step between heavy shaping
and sanding I use “Monster Burrs” – solid carbide burrs with machine ground teeth that are
brazed onto a ¼” steel shank. Depending on your choice of wood, grain orientation, and
other factors the structured carbide tooth cutters can leave a sometimes rather rough surface.
The solid carbide burrs leave a smoother finish much like a finish left by a knife to make
final sanding easier.
5. Drill press mounted flex-shaft tool – to power ball sander at lower speeds than those
associated with the power carving tools. Sanding should be done at only a few thousand
r.p.m. at the most. The power carving motor does not provide enough torque for sanding at
this lower speed
6. Microplane rasp – either the large round rasp or the 12” hacksaw frame mounted rasp for
shaping the exterior rounding off the corners. This is a much better choice than heavy
sanding because this “rasp” actually makes very small shavings like a plane instead of
abrading and tearing the wood. This is a lot easier on your lungs and gives you more control
over the shaping. If you do the shaping by power sanding you are a lot more likely to create
dips and bumps in what is supposed to be a smooth and gently curving surface. These
imperfections are sure to rear their ugly head if you choose a glossy finish – I know.
7. Hot glue gun for attaching temporary blocks for clamping.
8. Heat gun to remove temporary clamp blocks.
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Clamps and Gluing

With all the hardwoods I have dealt with I have been able to use original Titebond to get a good
strong joint. As long as I can get away with it I use rub joints to join the smaller segments together
without needing clamps. Only enough glue to produce a uniform line of beads along the entire joint
when pressed together is needed. If you have it running down the sides you will just make more of a
mess to clean up later. Deep interior shaping and sanding is not my idea of fun. The area to watch
while gluing is the thin edge of the wedge-shaped segments. If the angle of the wedge is small you
will have the thin edge try to warp apart from the moisture in the glue. Wetting the dry face with
water to help equalize the forces within the wood that cause the warping can reduce this. Nothing is
more frustrating than thinking the joint is set and walking away from it only to come back and see
that the thin edge has separated and formed a gap in part of the joint. Clamping is awkward on
rounded forms and you will need to do some creative clamping to prevent warping from ruining a
joint. I use more hot-melt glue than I do wood glue to attach temporary blocks that provide a place
for small bar clamps to hold on to. Joint surfaces must dry-fit perfectly – clamps should not have to
bend the wood to make a tight joint.

The Basic Concept

If you have ever done very much bowl turning on a lathe you might be familiar with the “Bowl From
A Board” technique to make a deep bowl from a much thinner board. You make circular rings cut at
a bevel angle on a band saw – or some turners use a thin parting tool very carefully. These rings are
cut at a certain bevel angle so that the outside diameter of the smaller face of a ring is equal to the
outside diameter of the large face of the next smaller ring and they are stacked up and glued together
to form a bowl that is much deeper than the thickness of the board that the rings were made from. It
is a very efficient use of material. The bevel angles used will depend on several factors including
the thickness of the board, the profile of the vessel being made, the width of the cut made to separate
the rings, and the desired wall thickness of the vessel being made. That is simple enough right?
Now lets use a piece of wood that is thicker on one side than the other so that if you cross-cut it you
will have a wedge shape as the thickness goes from thick to thin. Both sides of the board are flat,
but they are not parallel. Cut out the bevel edge rings starting with the smallest one in the center and
use the wider bottom of that piece as the pattern for the smaller diameter top side of the next larger
ring. Draw crosshair lines in the same position on both the top and bottom sides of the wedge to
help keep the rings aligned in their original horizontal position within the board as you progress
through each ring. After each ring is cut, draw a small mark on the bevel at each point where the
lines cross so you can see where the lines are at while gluing. Now when these rings are stacked and
glued with their lines aligned in position you will end up with a shape like a curved horn instead of a
straight cone.
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This curved cone is not quite a shell, but is a step in the right direction in learning how they can be
made. When I first got the idea for a wood shell I made a horn much like this one. I imagined that if
continued that it would make a complete loop with the small end poking into the large open end. My
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own curiosity made me try it and after seeing the form grow into this shape I used some reasoning to
figure out what I needed to do to make it look more like what I had in mind.

1. A shape like a nautilus shell would need to include the radius point where all the joint
surfaces would meet if they were extended towards the center.
2. If the wedge angle is increased then it would cause the form to make a full turn with fewer
segments.
3. The bevel angle would have to be enough to make the wall thick enough to avoid cutting
through while sanding off the corners rounding the shape. If the bevel angle is too much then
the shell would grow too fast, and cause more thinning of the wall thickness at the joints as
the corners are rounded off during shaping
4. If the segments were cut from a wedge that tapered to a sharp edge then the bevel angle
would not cause enough growth along the axis and the form would be thinner in this area – so
I decided to just taper the wedge to a thin edge but not like a sharp knife edge. This would
cause the form to have a hole through the center. I figured that the hole could be covered
some other way if it looked bad.

Here is how it turned out:

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This was a lot closer to what I had in mind. It actually looks somewhat like part of a seashell of
some kind. It took right at seven wedges to make a half circle, so the wedge angle was around 25 or
26°. In the side view of the shell, each of the segments appear to be right triangles, so that would
mean that the bevel angle at which the segments were cut is about the same as the wedge angle – or
it’s complementary angle of 64 or 65° depending on whether you prefer to measure the angle relative
to horizontal or vertical. I think most people would use the reading on the scale on the scroll saw -
which was 26° from vertical.

I tried a few other combinations of various wedge angles and bevel angles in an attempt to make the
growth of the shell slower, but still have a reasonable amount of thickness to keep the shell from
being too fragile. There was another factor I needed to take into account – the thickness of the saw
blade. I was using saw blades that were probably too thin to cut very well on the thick side of the
wedge. The shell pictured above was made from Spanish Cedar and this soft wood was easy to cut.
I couldn’t imagine that a blade twice as thick as what I was using would really make much of a
difference. If the wall thickness is around 1/8 inch then a scroll saw blade .012” thick would only be
about 10% of the thickness. As it turns out, as the shell grows larger the wall thickness becomes
greater in the areas farther away from the axis of the shell – or farther away from the thin edge of the
wedge. When the segments are very small the thickness of the saw blade has more significance. It
would be difficult if not impossible to make the first few segments with a band saw, the wider cut
would make the edge of the segments too thin. It became clear that there simply is not enough wood
in the wedge to make the shell grow at the rate I wanted it to and also have enough wall thickness.
That was when a really good idea hit me – use more than one wedge!
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So I picked up a short piece of a 2x4 and drew a line on the end from one corner of the board to the
opposite corner leaving a little bit of thickness on the thin edge and cut it on my band saw into two
wedges about two feet long each. I cut these up into six inch long wedges for a total of eight wedges
to work with instead of just one. I would sand the faces flat removing the marks from the band saw
and then numbered them from one to eight and would cut segments from them in rotation. I started
off with a semi-circle traced around a dime centered on the thin edge of wedge number one as a
pattern. I used a much smaller bevel angle and cut in the direction that would make the bottom side
of the bevel wider than the top side - which is counter clockwise if the saw table is tilted to the left.
There wasn’t very much difference in size comparing the top face to the bottom face of the segment
I had just cut out. That was okay because I would repeat this seven more times before using wedge
number one again. Since all of the wedges were the same size I could use wedge number one as a
pattern to trace the outline of the segment onto wedge number two by lining up the sides of the
wedges. I continued doing this with all eight wedges and then traced the segment outline from
number eight onto wedge number one. Now there was plenty of wall thickness that had
accumulated. Now the blade thickness became more important because I multiplied .012” x 8 cuts =
.096”. Imagine how much this value would be if you were adding up the width of this many band
saw cuts. The amount of growth from cutting a single segment must exceed the width of the cut.
And because the amount of growth varies depending on its distance from the shell axis, it still causes
problems along the thin edge. This is why you should leave a little bit of thickness on the thin edge.

Here is a drawing that shows the outline of each segment from a shell that used four wedges:

You can see that the lines are closer together where the segments are smaller. If all these segments
were cut from a single wedge, the segments would be very thin and fragile, but if four segments are
used in rotation the wall thickness would be much thicker and stronger. You can use as many
segments as needed to make a shell whose wall thickness is however much you want. The thicker
portion of each segment might become too thick while you are trying to get enough thickness in the
area closer to the axis. This extra wood can be cut off using the saw, or cut off using a rotary
carving tool.
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Here are a few photos of a simple shell made with multiple wedges:
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This shell has plenty of thickness and the shape grows at a much lower radial growth rate as more
segments are added. The wood this small shell is made from is spruce. I like to experiment with
various angles in cheap softwood and getting the shape I like before making a shell out of more
expensive hardwood. When you are only modeling and not concerned about smoothing the shell,
they tend to take shape and grow pretty rapidly when they are small and slow down as the segments
start getting larger (not the radial growth rate of the shell, but the actual time spent cutting the
segments and putting them together). Most of the older shells I have made make up to three turns or
a little more before I run out of room on my wedges and stop. Compared to a nautilus shell, this is
closer as far as the radial growth goes, but it is not quite as narrow as the real thing. The majority of
my older shells were made in this way before I moved on adding more improvements to the
technique.

Here are some more pictures of some shells that I have made over the years using this basic
technique:
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“Exclamation” 5.5” diameter by 5” wide

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Lacewood shell. About 6” both dimensions

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“Stripes” Maple and bloodwood 5.5” diameter by 6” wide

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Curly maple shell. About 7.5 inches diameter and 6 inches wide.

Two of the shells pictured above, “Exclamation” and “Lacewood Shell” are both made of Lacewood
from the same board except that they have a ninety degree difference in their grain orientations. I
had fouled up one of the segments in “Exclamation” and tried to make another one of the same size
from a different part of the board in an attempt to try to save it. I didn’t get the grain oriented the
same and the anomaly is very obvious. The difference in grain orientations made a big difference in
the color.

The shell “Stripes” is made of a combination of maple and bloodwood. The bloodwood stripes in
the wood are the result of bloodwood squares within a maple lattice. The wood for the wedges was
first laminated into a block and then sliced into wedges using a band saw before being made into a
shell.

“Curly maple shell” is a little larger in diameter than it is wide because I allowed the hole to be
larger. My next objective is to make another shell without a hole through the center.

Cross Section Geometry

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If you were to take any of the shells from above and slice it in two with a band saw, you would see a
logarithmic spiral as the cross section. There are two kinds of spirals – logarithmic and
Archimedean. An Archimedean spiral grows by a constant distance added per turn of the spiral.
Each whorl is a constant distance away from the spiral at a point 360° away. As this type of spiral
grows larger it begins to look more and more like a circle. An example of this kind of spiral would
be a roll of thick carpet. Each wrap of carpet makes the roll thicker by the thickness of the carpet.
Archimedean spirals are defined by their radial gain per turn. We will not be using Archimedean
spirals, I am just showing the difference between the two types.

A logarithmic spiral always has the same proportions no matter how large it grows. If you draw a
radial line from the center of the spiral, it will intersect any line tangent to a point on the spiral at a
constant angle. Different logarithmic spirals are defined by this angle. An interesting mathematical
fact is that as a logarithmic spirals inward, it will never reach the center point. A nautilus shell is
also a close to perfect example of a logarithmic spiral. Other examples of logarithmic spirals include
spiral galaxies and hurricanes.
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This un-smoothed logarithmic spiral was drawn from the outside in and forms a right triangle where
it touches each radial line. There are twenty segments per turn, so there
are 360/20 = 18 degrees between adjacent radial lines (wedge angle), and this is also the amount that
the line segments deflect at each corner of the un-smoothed spiral. Dividing this deflection angle by
two segments gives the angle of the spiral 9°. Setting the bevel angle of your scroll saw equal to the
wedge angle will produce segments that are right triangles in the profile view of your shell. Of
course it is possible with a little bit more math to make a shell with a bevel angle that is not equal to
the wedge angle, but it becomes a little bit more work to draw. The angle of a logarithmic spiral is
one half of the wedge angle for right angle segments. For a bevel cut that does not make a right
triangle then the number of degrees out of being square would be added or subtracted from half of
the wedge angle. To check the squareness of a segment, place it on a flat surface with the smaller
face down and place a machinists square against the thickest part of the segment at the midpoint of
the curve. The next few pages are pictures of spirals of various angles.
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Parts of a Shell

Shell axis – a line that goes through the center of a shell where all of the radial joints intersect.

Perimeter Area – the outer part of a shell that is farthest away from the shell axis and also is oriented
parallel to the shell axis. It is also located at the thickest part of a segment.

Segment – a wedge shaped piece of wood whose radial joint surfaces extend towards the shell axis.
When viewed along the profile view - which is along the shell axis, the segment has a wedge angle
between the adjacent radial joint surfaces.

Side – The two areas between the shell axis and the perimeter area.

Lip – The termination of the shell on the last segment.

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Starting Your First Shell

Now you have a basic understanding of how a shell is made, it is time to make your first one. Here
is an outline of the steps to make a simple shell:

1. Pick out a spiral angle that you like. We are going to make the segments with right angles,
so the angle of the spiral is going to determine the bevel and wedge angle. Remember that
the shell is going to maintain the same profile as it becomes larger
2. Pick out a soft wood that is easy to work with such as pine, spruce, or cedar. It needs to be
free of defects such as loose knots, voids, splits. Any defect is going to show up on the
surface of the shell. There are a few places where small defects can occur and not make it
into the shell, if the wedges are planned so the defect ends up in a corner of the wedge it will
not become part of the shell. The wood should be a kind that cuts smoothly without burning
or requiring excessive pressure to cut.
3. Plan the grain orientation. If you are re-sawing a 2x4 at a bevel to make wedges then it will
work out easiest to have the endgrain exposed on the triangular ends of the wedges. This
would make the endgrain show on the sides of the shell surrounding the central hole. If the
grain lines run from the thin edge to the thick edge, the endgrain will show up in the
perimeter area. Finally there is the option to have the endgrain exposed on the large faces of
the wedges, this is an option that will only expose the endgrain on the edge of the lip. Gluing
endgrain to endgrain does not make as strong of a joint as the other options, but woodturners
do it all the time in segmented turnings. The shells are not functional except maybe for use
as a catch-all for keys and pocket change, so endgrain glue joints should not be a problem.
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4. Decide how big you want the shell to be. Six or seven inches diameter is pretty typical of my
shells constructed in this manner. The wedges should be at least this long, and half this wide
from thin to thick edges at least. It would be a good idea to plan on making at least eight
wedges or so. Later on after you make your first shell you will have a much better idea for
what you want to do for a nicer one made of pretty hardwood. You might glue up a thick
block to saw wedges from. Some people do not like small slivers of wood showing up within
individual segments and would prefer to only have joints where segments are glued together.
It is all up to you on how you want them to look. All your wedges need to be the same size
and wedge angle. Leave the thin edge about 1/8 inch thick or a little thicker.
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5. After you cut your wedges, organize them so the growth rings are aligned the same way if it
will be exposed in the finished shell on the sides or perimeter. Number the shells in one of
the thick corners on the top face to help you keep them organized and oriented the same way
all the time. The right angle corner needs to be on the side facing upwards. The faces of the
wedges that become glue joint surfaces on the segments do not have to be perfectly flat and
smooth at this time, they will all be flattened by sanding on a flattening plate before
assembly. Excessive sanding causes distortion of the segments by removing wood un-
evenly.
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6. Put a fresh blade on your scroll saw, I use skip-tooth blades to go through the thick side of
the wedge without burning. Reverse tooth blades are not needed because we will be sanding
both joint surfaces flat later. Tilt the table into position where the blade is parallel to the
thick edge as shown in the photo below. You will be sawing segments so that the side
against the table is the wider side – so if the table is tilted to the left then you will saw
segments out starting on the left cutting into the thin edge first and going counter-clockwise
around.
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7. If the wood being used splinters easily, you can spread a thin layer of wood glue along the
thin edge on all three sides and let it dry to reinforce the edge and help reduce splintering on
entry and especially the exit.
8. Draw a small semi-circle as the starter. I use a dime centered on the edge and trace around it
with a 0.5mm mechanical pencil. Make sure the side you are marking is the top side with the
number 1 in a thick corner. Carefully saw following the line as closely as possible. The top
of the segment you are cutting will be the small side if you are going the right direction.

9. After the first segment is cut, place the number one wedge on top of number 2 wedge and
line up the sides of the wedges together. Carefully trace the curve onto the next wedge in the
series. After the segment is cut out, set it next to the previous wedge in a line so you can see
the progression.
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10. Continue this process with the rest of the wedges until you have the first segment cut out
from each wedge. Now place the last wedge in the series back over the first one, there
should be plenty of growth in wall thickness. In fact, you might check to see the progression
of the thickness before getting to the last segment in the series. If the next segment has too
much wall thickness then you can use fewer wedges than originally planned, the shell being
made in these photos only used four of the eight wedges. Continue cutting out segments
until you have several of them.
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11. Now the cut segments are ready to be assembled after surfacing the joint faces flat with a
glass plate and sandpaper. Use a pencil to draw lines all over the two faces that are going to
be joined. The band-sawn faces should only be surfaced flat just before being glued together.
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12. Applying light and even pressure to the segment, push the segment across the sandpaper with
long strokes to remove all of the pencil marks. On the small segments this should only take a
few strokes at the most. Do not remove any more wood than necessary. If there is a
persistent low spot, you will have to continue with even pressure until all the wood is cut
down to the bottom of the lowest point. Do not shift the pressure unless you are evening up a
crooked segment. If you shift the pressure you should also re-draw the lines. Do not sand
back and forth, sand in one direction only otherwise the joint could become curved from
rocking.

13. Repeat the surfacing with the other half of the joint.
14. Apply just enough glue to coat both surfaces without dripping. A line of small beads should
appear when the two pieces are squeezed together all along the joint. Hold pressure on the
joint until it sticks together very firmly on its’ own. The smallest parts probably will not
need clamps. Watch for warping caused by the moisture in the glue in the thin edge. A drop
or two of water applied to the other side of the thin edge of the segments can help balance the
warping forces. Clamp if necessary with suitable sized spring clamps. Keep the edges of the
segments aligned before the glue grabs.
Buyer: Richard Rice ([email protected])
Transaction ID: st-ch_1GN4BBHMHav4SHjJlZU3y7Ky

15. Repeat the surfacing, gluing, and clamping of the next pair of segments. Glue the remaining
segments together in pairs, and then pair up the pairs and so forth. If you do not intend to
smooth the interior you can continue putting more segments together. If you do plan on
smoothing the inside, it is much easier without so many segments glued together. Stop
gluing when the segments are glued together in clusters of four or however many you find
that you are comfortable with shaping and sanding the interior. Remember that the joint on
the small end will also need to be smoothed after it is glued to the next smaller group of
segments.
Buyer: Richard Rice ([email protected])
Transaction ID: st-ch_1GN4BBHMHav4SHjJlZU3y7Ky

16. Most of the smaller segments will be hidden from view when the shell is completed, but you
will want to give more attention to the areas that are open enough to feel. Fingers can
usually get farther in than eyesight and you wouldn’t want to dissapoint them with any rough
spots. This is the first thing a gallery owner will do when you are showing your shells to
them.
17. While you are making progress on the shell make sure to keep edges aligned, especially in
the axis area. Be careful not to mar any joint surfaces while smoothing and sanding.
18. As the shell becomes larger you might want to use a micro-plane rasp for shaping the convex
parts of the exterior. It produces shavings that fall to the floor instead of irritating dust.
Continue building and smoothing covering all areas before they become inaccessible.
Finally you will get to the point where you run out of room on your wedges to make more
segments from. Chances are also that the thick side of the wedges was getting to be a little
much for a scroll saw to cut – so this is a good place to stop adding segments and to shape
the lip of the shell and pick out a finish. There’s really not all that much to this basic
technique.

Two Ways To Eliminate The Central Hole

The central hole in the shells can be filled in with a couple of different methods. The most obvious
solution is to make a wood plug to fill the hole. That sounds easy enough, but in order to get a good
fit without any gaps the edge of the hole needs to be smooth, round, straight-sided, and of consistent
size. Then a plug would need to be made to match perfectly. If the shell was stronger in this area I
might be tempted to use a drill press, but since this area has the thinnest wood and one false move
would surely spell disaster I decided not to try that.

Another idea I had would be like a router with a flush trim bit, template guide, and a template to
make the cut. The problem here is that the shell is too wide for the bit to reach all the way or at least
halfway through the shell. Chipping of the edge could still happen which would ruin the shell. I
needed something that would gently make the cut in a more controlled way – speed and power is not
the name of this game.

Finally I thought of a better idea – a spindle sander. A spindle sander is configured like a router
table but it uses long sanding drums oscillating up and down at low speeds as it spins much slower
than a router. This seems like it would be a much more controlled removal of material than other
methods. My spindle sander has a shaft that only sticks up about four inches, so I made my own
wooden drum to support a longer sleeve by drilling a hole part of the way through the end of a
square section piece of wood about nine inches long. I knew that it would be very difficult at least
on my lathe to turn down the shaft so it would be concentric with the axis of the hole I drilled down
the center of the stick. The hole that I drilled was a good snug fit on the spindle sander shaft and I
was able to size the shaft with an angle grinder equipped with a carbide shaping wheel as the wood
shaft spun on the spindle sander. Jury-rigging at it’s best! Now I had a spindle sander with a nine-
inch high shaft that made a nice friction fit with a one inch diameter sanding sleeve. The hole
through the shell was just big enough to let the sleeve through with a little bit of clearance.
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Using the extra steel washers that take up the gap between the sanding drum and the plate
surrounding it and a hot glue gun, I made them into a bushing that would stand up over the table
enough to use like a guide bushing on a router. The size of the finished hole would be equal to the
diameter of the sanding sleeve plus the difference in diameter between the washer bushing and the
hole cut into the plywood template that would support the shell. I then sat the template down over
the sanding sleeve and put the shell on the shaft on top of the template. I made a few wood blocks to
slide between the shell and the template with one end cut at an angle to get more contact with the
shell and glued them to the shell with my hot glue gun – but not to the plywood template yet. The
other ends of the blocks would sit flat against the template. Once I had three or four blocks in place
glued to the shell and cool I lifted the shell off of the template and centered the hole around the
bushing. I then lowered the shell back down onto the template and placed a bead of hot glue around
the blocks to attach them to the template. Centering the template on the bushing would ensure that
the spindle sander would remove enough wood all around the hole so the entire surface cleaned up
with the sanding. All I had left to do now was to turn on the spindle sander and gently sand the hole
to size by sanding until the template touched the bushing all the way around. It is important not to
rotate the template as you are sanding. If the shaft is not perfectly square to the table then that would
taper the hole. And if the center of the bushing is not perfectly concentric with the spindle sander
shaft then the hole might become out of round. Make sure also that you blow or vacuum out any
dust that gets between the template and bushing.

Now that the hole is made you will need to measure the exact diameter. Use a piece of metal shim
such as a soda can that has been cut apart and roll it up into a cylinder that is smaller than the hole
and insert it through the shell allowing it to expand once it is through and exposed on both ends.
Measure the diameter on both sides of the shell to get the diameter of the plug needed and check for
taper. Make the plug on a lathe.

My first shell I made with a plug in the center I made knowing that I would need to take it back apart
to rebuild around the plug and carving the plug to blend in as it went back together. Every one
fourth of a turn of the shell I glued a piece of paper in the joint to form a temporary joint. The joint
will hold together tight and strong enough to keep the shell from falling apart during construction.
The joint can come back apart by prying gently with a thin blade until it pops open. Gently sand the
paper off of the joint surfaces before re-gluing with the plug in place. This method of covering the
hole is very time consuming but will look good when you are finished and will make the shell much
stronger.

The other method of covering the hole involves making narrow wedges that attach to the thin edge
of the wedges with a small tongue and groove joint and form a knife-like edge. The narrow wedge is
cut at an angle that continues the wedge angle, but it is not glued in place until the segments are cut
out. After cutting a segment through both the regular wedge and the narrow wedge you slide each
side of the narrow wedge in to add wall thickness to this area. Apply a thin layer of glue to the sharp
edge to help prevent chipping. Make the narrow wedges a little bit thick to ensure that it does not
become a low spot while surfacing the joint faces for gluing. I strongly recommend that these thin
parts are made with the grain running along the length. Make the tongue on the narrow wedge, and
the matching groove into the main wedge using either a narrow router bit or a table saw blade that
makes a clean flat bottom groove.
Buyer: Richard Rice ([email protected])
Transaction ID: st-ch_1GN4BBHMHav4SHjJlZU3y7Ky

“Eclipse” 2008. This shell uses a plug center. Eastern red cedar, 9 inches diameter, 6 inches wide.
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“Fiddleback Nautiloid” 2004. About 7.5 inches diameter and 7 inches wide. Curly maple. This
shell has an add-on wedge that extends into the center. It also has an interior finished with oxidized
copper leaf.

Using the techniques described so far here, most of the shells tend to be about as wide as their
maximum diameter. They do look nice, but in order to resemble a nautilus shell they would need to
be narrower. I want to make a shell that has a large diameter whose width is only maybe one-third
of the diameter – shaped like a round couch cushion instead of a beach ball. Realizing that whatever
pattern was in the end of the narrow wedge would be repeatedly exposed in each segment, I could
use that effect to create repeating patterns in other parts of the shell too rather than just keeping it
limited to the central area. Using this method gives you the ability to make repeating patterns and
the ability to add thickness where it is needed. And this would all be done from only one wedge in
order to have the same pattern repeating every segment. Segmented segments – sounds complicated
but it’s not that bad.

Going From Short And Fat To Tall And Thin

You might have noticed in the picture of “Eclipse” that this shell is significantly larger than the ones
before it. It uses this zoned wedge technique and has a smaller bevel angle on the sides than it does
in the perimeter area. How do you cut a segment that has a different bevel angle on the sides than it
does in the middle? I thought about that for a while and did some experimenting. Don’t try tilting
the table as you saw, that’s not it. I was thinking of using a spiral blade and changing the bevel
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while sawing by changing the feed direction with the table tilted at the largest bevel angle needed in
the cut. That might actually work, but it sure would be awfully confusing knowing at all times
exactly which way to push in the feed direction and what angle the wedge needs to be rotated. What
I came up with for this trick is actually very simple – really.

I use a secondary wedge underneath the primary wedge to elevate the thin edge. Raising the thin
edge a certain angle does not have any significant effect on the bevel angle at which the sides are
cut, but the angle that the secondary wedge raises the primary wedge is added to the bevel of the
perimeter area. The portion of the curve between the perimeter area and the sides will be some
intermediate bevel angle between the bevel angle of the perimeter and the sides. Rather than using a
solid wedge of wood, the secondary wedge is a piece of thin plywood with a pair of triangles cut at
the secondary wedge angle glued on to the plywood with hot glue. The primary wedge is held in
place with small spring clamps and a strip of wood attached to the top of the secondary wedge that
the thick edge of the primary wedge butts up to. This is the key to making shells that are tall and
thin instead of short and fat.

Using the angles from the above drawing would result in a 15° spiral. If the sum of the secondary
angle and table bevel angle was equal to the primary angle, then the resulting segments would be
right triangle segments and the resulting spiral would be half of the primary angle of 14.25 = 7.125°.
But the sum of the table bevel (4°) and the secondary angle(18.125°) minus the primary angle
(14.25°) is equal to 7.875° - the angle over 90° which will be added to the spiral angle with right
angle segments (7.125°) to give the resulting spiral angle of 15°. The table bevel should only be set
to match the angle of the sides of the shell while the secondary angle plus the table bevel determine
the spiral angle.
Buyer: Richard Rice ([email protected])
Transaction ID: st-ch_1GN4BBHMHav4SHjJlZU3y7Ky
Buyer: Richard Rice ([email protected])
Transaction ID: st-ch_1GN4BBHMHav4SHjJlZU3y7Ky

A shell with a high radial growth rate made by cutting segments at a variable angle. Notice the
patterns repeating in the side-exposed end grain. This is made possible by using a single zoned
wedge. Each of four zones can be seen in the lower picture. With this shell I used a ¼ inch down-
cut spiral bit to cut the finger joints on the router table. An upcut or straight flute bit may cause a
burr to form on the surface that will mess up the depth setting. I have also cut this kind of joint with
a dado set on a table saw, but have found that the router table is more accurate.

The finger-jointed zones take a little bit of planning to get them to work just right. As far as strength
goes they probably aren’t really necessary and a simple butt joint would suffice. They do help a lot
in keeping the parts aligned while gluing and prevent slipping – they can also cause headaches if not
made perfectly. I taught myself how to make such joints while working on another project – finger-
jointed tiles and I just like to use them. A gallery owner asked me why they were there and stated
that all of his other artists would just use butt joints. They are not difficult to make with a router
table that has a sturdy fence and a dial indicator to measure the movement of the fence. Follow these
steps to learn how to make them:

1. Make sure that the collet on the router is perfectly clean without any particles on any part of
the collet, shank, or the mating end of the router shaft. Anything caught in here will cause
run-out.
2. Install a ¼” diameter down spiral straight bit. This kind of bit pushes shavings towards the
tip of the bit and leaves a clean edge on the surface of the wood. Adjust height to desired
depth. Only a very shallow depth is needed to keep parts aligned during gluing. If you have
the grain oriented so that it runs in a radial direction to be exposed in the perimeter area of
the shell, you will improve joint strength by going deeper
3. Place the tip of the indicator squarely on the face of the fence and observe how much
movement can be caused by putting pressure on the fence. Back the fence up on the opposite
side with your magnetic base indicator if your router table has a magnetic top – or a big
strong magnet or clamp to minimize fence deflection while cutting.
4. Make a test cut in a scrap piece of wood of the same species and measure the width of the
groove with a machinists caliper, plan on making the fingers of the joint 4 or 5 thousandths
narrower than the grooves to get a good fit without scraping the glue off while assembling
the joint. Find the optimum finger width that is a smooth fit that does not require excessive
force to put together or pull back apart. Add the width of the groove to the width of a finger
after the optimum finger width has been found, this is the wavelength of the joint
5. The wavelength of the joint is the distance you will move the fence to cut the next groove. If
you have to change the setup and then set back up again later you should check to be sure
that the fit of a test piece is still the same as before. Dirty collets or shanks are usually the
culprit when joints made with the new setup do not fit the same as the old setup. Worn
collets can also cause frustration.

While making the zones for a shell, it is very convenient to have the length of the finger-jointed
sides be in increments that match up with the joint wavelength. This will be determined by primary
wedge angle, wood thickness, and joint depth. The primary wedge angle should cause each side to
taper by half the wavelength per side as shown below. In this example, 0.500 is the wavelength.
Buyer: Richard Rice ([email protected])
Transaction ID: st-ch_1GN4BBHMHav4SHjJlZU3y7Ky

If you would like to have the end-grain showing on the sides of the shell, you would make the finger
joint grooves down the length of a thick board flipping it end-over-end to make the grooves in both
faces symetrical. After cutting the joints for one zone, rip saw it from the board using a band or
table saw with a rip fence. The rough sawn faces will be made smooth in the next step using a router
with a large mortising bit as a surface planer.

The angle at which the zones will be finally cut is not critical at the time when the zones are cut off
from the board from which they are made. Leave a little bit of extra wood along the sides for the
planning operation to true up the angle. Make the length of each zone part consistent, perhaps a foot
long or so. If these are too long then the length will interfere with the band saw frame depending on
what size band saw you will be using for cutting the segments. After cutting a zone off from the
board, move the router table fence into a position where the next groove cut will be on the narrower
face and a small amount of wood is between the groove and the edge of the board the entire length.
After this distance is set, lock down the fence and back it up with a strong magnet as the grooves for
the next zone are cut. You will want to make plenty of zone parts to pick from as the shell grows
and takes shape. As the size of the segments increase and cross into the next larger zone, you will
use more wood in the perimeter area until you reach the other side of the zone – then all you will use
of that zone are smaller pieces that are not much wider than the wall thickness. Choose your zone
parts wisely according to the pattern you want exposed in the sides. After cutting through a zone
you will want to start a new pair of zones to be sure that the pattern it exposes continues until the
shell reaches its’ final size. Cut the zones from a board at least four or five feet long and keep the
Buyer: Richard Rice ([email protected])
Transaction ID: st-ch_1GN4BBHMHav4SHjJlZU3y7Ky

parts in order after you cut them to length so the pattern on the end of a zone will match the next
part. Start the shell using parts from the middle of the length of the board and each side of the shell
will work its way towards the ends

To true up the faces of the zones that make up the top and bottom joint surfaces I use a pair of finger
jointed rails that fit onto the zone and hold them in position as it is slid over a large flat bottom
cutting bit such as a mortising bit. It will probably just take two passes per side to surface the faces
of each zone. Be sure that the cutting edge of the bit contacts the edge of the zone and cuts inwards
on the leading edge instead of outwards to avoid splintering and tearout. With the bit set to cut at the
correct height you can surface all the faces of all the zones and they will line up flat when
assembled. After surfacing one face of a zone simply un-clamp it and flip the zone end over end to
surface the other face. If there is a small step where zones fit together you will have the opportunity
later to sand it flat on a flattening plate after it is made into a segment.

Here is the end view of what the planning rails will look like. The fingers fit together with those cut
into the zones and the excess wood from each zone will be trimmed away in the plane area. The rail
that fits onto the wider edge of a zone will only have one finger to hold the zone with, the extra bit of
wood that gets planed off would interfere if there was more than one finger. The other rail that
attaches to the narrow edge has two regular sized fingers and a smaller finger (a pinky?) that engages
the smaller groove in the nose of the thinnest zone to support it. The distance between the centerline
of the small finger and the bottom edge is the same as the distance between the bottom edge and the
centerline of the groove between the two regular size fingers – and the small finger must also be
within a groove between fingers of the zones when a wider zone is placed inside the rails as shown
above. Because of the symmetry, the zone can be removed from the rail and turned end-over-end
back into the rails to trim the other face to size.

The rails need holes drilled through to allow a carriage bolt to go through both sides and provide
clamping force to hold the rails on the zone as it is being trimmed. Wing-nuts should be used to
tighten it down. The holes will need to be spaced far enough apart so a zone will fit between them,
and the bolts should be placed near the middle of the end of the smallest zone as shown below (and
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be clear of the router bit). Another bolt through the top to help keep the rails parallel would also be a
good idea on the thinner zones. Use jam-nuts to lock down the spacing between rails. The rail on
the thicker side should be the one to move along the fence. Do not plane any closer to the edges than
what is necessary to plane the zone faces.

It is a lot of extra work to make the finger-jointed zones and the set of rails used for planing as
described above, but once those parts are completed it will make the rest go a lot more smoothly.

Sawing Segments Out of a Zoned Wedge

Cutting segments out of one multi-zoned wedge will require using the previous segment as a pattern
to draw the outline of the next segment. If this segment is larger and made up of pieces cut from
several zones then you will want to glue them together before using it as a pattern so it will hold it’s
shape while being handled. Make the wall thickness thick enough so that it becomes easier to tell
when the finger joints are joined together squarely. You can feel this by flexing a pair of un-glued
pieces back and forth while pushing them together. After gluing all the pieces of a segment together,
set it on a flat surface to prevent any warping caused by its own weight. An alternative to using a
glued up segment for a pattern is to place a very thin piece of plywood or even poster-board between
the primary and secondary wedge so that it will be cut the same as the bottom side of the primary
wedge and can be used as a pattern for the next segment. It should be cut to size to fit against the
strip that supports the thick edge as the segment is cut and have alignment marks so it is put back in
the same position for each cut.

Make the secondary wedge with a thin plywood top surface and a pair of notched triangles that are
glued to the bottom with a hot glue gun. The two triangles should be spaced far enough apart so
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they are not cut away while cutting the larger segments. It may be necessary to go with a solid
secondary wedge if your band saw has a table that is too small to keep both triangles on at all times
during cutting. It can be made from any soft wood or material such as Styrofoam that will hold its
shape and rigidly support the primary wedge. The purpose of the notches is to ensure that opposite
ends of the wedge are the same height over the table, otherwise the shell might grow to be a little
crooked. After cutting out a segment, remove the poster board and lay it on top of the primary
wedge and move each of the zones inward as needed for the desired wall thickness. The thickest
zone in the last segment that is not cut through yet may need to be switched out with another zone
piece to obtain enough wall thickness. As the shell becomes larger, the growth from one segment to
the next might be enough to provide enough wall thickness using the same zone piece as the segment
before. The larger a shell gets the faster it grows in diameter. Replace the poster board before
making the next cut and prevent the zones from moving around during the cutting with masking tape
and small spring clamps if needed.

Shaping and Sanding The Exterior

If a shell is being made that will have a plug for the center, then final shaping of the exterior should
wait until the shell is being re-assembled with the plug in place. My favorite tool for knocking down
the corners is a Micro-plane rasp. This tool makes small shavings instead of dust so it is a lot easier
on the lungs and does not require wearing a dust mask to use. I use this tool for rough shaping to get
the curve down to the point where it can be smoothed further with strips of sandpaper.

I have in the past used a hook and loop disc sander mounted in a drill press. This works good, but it
is easy to put dips in the surface if you are not careful – and obviously makes a lot of dust. Run a
hose from a dust collector to the area where the sanding dust is coming from to remove the majority
of the dust. Keep the shell in motion at all times to help prevent dips, bumps, and flat spots. Even
Buyer: Richard Rice ([email protected])
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with finer grits of sandpaper this is very aggressive material removal. Use a yellow rubber block
now and then to unclog the sanding discs to extend their useful life.

My preferred method of final shaping and sanding uses strips of cloth backed sandpaper perhaps an
inch or two wide and roughly eighteen inches long or so. Hold the shell in your lap while sitting and
hold one end of the sandpaper strip in one hand and use your other hand to gently press the sanding
strip against the shell and pull the strip through. This sanding action is aggressive enough to remove
wood fairly rapidly, it is much like a belt sander but uses your hand as a soft pad to provide pressure
instead of a flat rigid plate that would make a flat spot. For tighter spaces or removing a high spot
just use your thumb to provide light pressure and don’t pull the strip too fast. This is what works for
me. I think it is more efficient and less tiring than sanding back and forth. Use whatever method
you are most comfortable with, you should already know how to sand. I just mentioned my method
because it might be new to some people.

Shaping and Sanding The Interior

This part of making a shell can be difficult if you allow a shell to get big too fast. Trying to smooth
an interior compound curve when you can barely reach it is nearly impossible. It is much easier to
add just a few segments at a time and then smooth the inside curve to match the rest of the shell.
The hardest part of this is the joint made where the new segments were just added on, it is the
deepest area to smooth. This can be easier if you leave the wall thicker at the joint to be made so
that it will protrude slightly over the interior curvature, then it is just a matter of sanding it down
flush and this will also remove any glue squeezed out without making a dip at the joint. After you
add more segments and get the new joint sanded flush remember to leave the new edge sticking up
the same way so it gets sanded flush only when you add the next segments.

Shells with a higher radial growth rate have a larger opening to work in than those with a slower
growth rate. The tools you use for the interior obviously need to be smaller than the gap in the
opening between the lip and the smaller part of the shell that curls in. It is up to you how much
attention to give to the areas that will not be accessible when the shell is completed. If you decide to
leave the central hole you should at least finish the edge of the hole in the interior because it will still
be visible looking through the hole. The main concern is the area that will still be visible or can be
reached by someone with small hands when the shell is finished.

Pictured below are some of the tools I use for shaping:

A – Inflatable ball-nose sander
B – Home-made foam ball sander
C – Micro-plane rasp for hacksaw frame
D – Micro-plane large round rasp
E – Dremel “Mushroom” shaping tool 1/8” shank
F – Structured carbide tooth 1” sphere fine
G – Structured carbide tooth “flame” coarse
H – Dremel structured carbide tooth “roto-saw” 1/8” shank
I – Dremel structured carbide tooth ¼” sphere
J – Solid Carbide ¾” sphere
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If you do not have a rotary power-carving tool that accepts ¼” shank bits then I do highly
recommend Items E and H for rough shaping with a Dremel tool. The mushroom shaping wheel is
very impressive with its performance in shaping hardwood by using the face of the wheel. The
“roto-saw” sold by Dremel and others is also an excellent choice for interior shaping particularly in
situations where you would need to carve with the rim of the cutter.

Item G the flame profile coarse tooth cutter is the best rotary tool for “hogging” larger quantities of
wood for a job like thinning down a wall area. The large fine tooth sphere F is a good cutter to use
after hogging, it leaves a groove that is not as deep and can be cleaned up more easily with a ball
sander. Cutters F,G,H, and I are all reversible – a useful feature that can allow the cutter to leave
less tear-out depending on grain orientation. Reversing the direction also makes these cutters safer
near an edge – make the cutter spin as if it was trying to roll away from the edge to prevent it from
catching. Cutter J leaves a smoother finish than the structured carbide tooth cutters and I like to use
it to cut glue joints down to nearly flush with it.

Items C and D are Micro-plane “rasps”. These tools are made of stainless steel that has been photo-
chemically etched to have hundreds of small sharp plane-like edges that cut wood instead of tearing
it like some other similar tools. These are made in my hometown of Russellville, Arkansas and are
very reasonably priced. “C” is designed to be used in a hacksaw frame
Buyer: Richard Rice ([email protected])
Transaction ID: st-ch_1GN4BBHMHav4SHjJlZU3y7Ky