Segmented Bowl Designer — User Guide

What this app does

A segmented bowl is built from small pieces of wood. The pieces are glued into rings. The rings are stacked, then turned on a lathe.

You draw the shape you want. The app turns it into rings. It tells you how many pieces each ring needs, how long each piece is, and what angle to cut the ends.

You can also give each piece its own wood, add a lid, add a base, and see the finished bowl in 3D.

How to get in

In your browser

1. Go to the Bowl Designer page on The Drawing Store.
2. Type your email address. The store sends you a code.
3. Type the code. There's no password.

You will see the design screen. Designing is free. You pay only to unlock a cut list, and your first cut list is free.

On your own computer

1. Buy the desktop licence on the product page. You get a download link.
2. Run the installer.
3. Open the app. It asks for your email and your order number, once.
4. Type them in. The app now runs on that computer, with no internet.

How to open a finished design

This is the fastest way to see what the app does. Start here.

1. Click Plans.
2. Scroll past the top box to the list of ten finished bowls.
3. Click one.

You will see the bowl drawn on the left, the finished bowl in 3D on the right, and the list of rings along the bottom. Nothing's locked. Change anything you like.

How to start your own bowl

1. Click Plans.
2. In the top box, pick how the bowl is built: rings of segments, or staves. Staves are long pieces that stand upright, like a barrel.
3. Pick a lid: none, or a lift-off lid.
4. Pick a base: a segmented block, or a floating base. A floating base is a disc that sits inside the bottom ring.
5. Click Create.

You will see a plain starting shape, built the way you asked.

How to draw the shape

You draw one half of the bowl wall, from the base up to the rim. The app mirrors it for you.

1. Click in the left-hand panel to add a point.
2. Add more points, working up the wall.
3. Drag any point to move it.
4. Double-click a point to remove it.

The app draws a smooth curve through your points. Numbered boxes appear along the wall. Each one is a ring you will glue up.

Size, wall and rings

The boxes along the top change the whole bowl. Type a number in any of them.

The size of the bowl comes from the points you draw. Width and Height resize what you have drawn.

Golden guides

1. Click Golden.
2. Drag a point near a guide line. It snaps onto the line.
3. Click Golden again to hide the lines.

The lines show where the golden ratio falls across the bowl. A small box shows your own bowl's ratio beside 1.62 : 1. The lines never move a point on their own.

How to read the cut list

The list along the bottom has one row per ring. The rim is at the top. The base is at the bottom.

A patterned ring says blank in place of a strip length. You don't rip that ring from one board. You glue up a block first, then cut the pieces off it.

How to open the joints, or put a strip in them

1. Find Gap in the top bar for every ring, or the Gap column for one ring.
2. Pick Open to leave a gap, or pick a wood to put a strip of that wood in every joint.
3. Type how wide the gap or the strip is, in inches.

You cut an open gap and a strip the same way. The cut angle and the size of the ring stay the same, and each piece gets a little shorter to make room. The gap is the same width from the inside of the wall to the outside.

The app stops an open gap where a piece would no longer sit on the rings above and below. The Overlap column shows how much each piece still sits on. The printed cut list gives the strips to cut and how long.

How to choose the wood for each ring

1. Click Segment Map.
2. Find the Rings bar at the top of the map.
3. Click a wood in the palette.
4. Click the ring you want it on.

The 3D bowl repaints as you click. Every wood has a two-letter code, such as MA for Maple. The code is on the swatch, in the lists, and on every printed sheet. Many of the woods are shades of brown, and the code is how you tell them apart in black and white.

To use two or three woods in one ring, select the ring number. Then choose Wood 1, Wood 2 and Wood 3 in the Rings bar, and select Apply to ring. The segments go wood 1, wood 2, wood 3 round the ring. Three woods meet at the seam when the segment count divides by 3.

How to paint one piece at a time

This is how stepped patterns are made, the kind you can't describe as "one wood and a second wood."

1. Click Segment Map. You will see a grid. One column is one segment. One row is one ring.
2. Click a wood in the palette.
3. Click a square to paint it.
4. Drag across squares to paint several at once.

The 3D bowl changes as you paint.

How to fill the map with a motif

A motif is a ready-made design that fills the whole map. The list includes three samples.

1. Choose a motif in the motif list.
2. Choose Wood 1. In Band 1, type how many segments of it sit side by side.
3. Do the same for Wood 2 and Band 2. For a third wood, use Wood 3 and Band 3.
4. Select Fill map.

To fill only some rings, select them on the map first. The other rings keep their woods. With no rings selected, Fill map fills every ring.

After Fill map, the map and the 3D bowl change as you change a band, a wood, or Leans. Painting a segment by hand stops this, so your painting stays. Select Fill map to start again. One Undo takes back the fill and every change after it.

The bands repeat round the ring. For example, a barber pole of 2 walnut and 1 holly is Band 1 = 2 and Band 2 = 1. The design meets at the seam when the bands add up to a number that divides the segment count. When they don't, the bar lists band settings that fit. Select one to use it.

Band 3 counts only when you choose a Wood 3. If Wood 2 is blank, its band keeps the ring's own wood.

Diamond lattice and Checkerboard take two woods. On Checkerboard, Band 1 is the size of each square.

The three built-in designs are each 6 segments wide and 16 rings tall. It meets at the seam when the segment count divides by 6.

How to save your own motif

1. Paint a design on the map.
2. Select Save as motif.
3. Type a name, then select Save.

Your motif joins the motif list under Your motifs. You can use it on any bowl. The app saves one repeat of the design, so a design that goes round four times also fits other segment counts.

To remove a motif, choose it in the list. Then select Delete motif. Bowls you already painted keep their design.

How to swap two woods

1. Choose a wood from the map in the Swap list.
2. Choose the other wood in the with list.
3. Select Swap woods.

Every segment of the first wood changes to the second. If both woods are on the map, they trade places. The woods you set for whole rings stay as they are.

How to leave a gap

1. Click the dashed Open swatch at the end of the palette.
2. Click the squares you want to leave out.

Those squares turn hatched, and the 3D bowl shows a gap. A gap costs nothing. It's left out of the cut list, the wood list, and the price.

How to add a patterned ring

A patterned ring carries artwork: diamonds, chevrons, and the like. You draw the artwork on one segment face.

1. Open the pattern editor from the Pattern column in the ring list.
2. Drag a shape onto the grid, or click Poly and click out your own shape.
3. Click Fill, then click a piece to give it a wood.
4. Keep going until the status bar reads covered 100%.
5. Give the finished pattern to a ring in the Pattern column.

Grey isn't a wood. Grey is face that no piece covers yet. The status bar counts how much is covered as you work.

How to put one pattern on another ring

1. Open the pattern.
2. Click Fit to ring.
3. Pick the ring you want it on.

You get a copy, named after that ring. The first one is left alone. A band that runs right across in one wood keeps its exact thickness, because that's the strip you rip. Only the space between the bands changes.

How to put a lid on

1. Click Lid.
2. Turn the lid on.
3. Set how tall you want it.

The 3D shows the lid lifted clear of the bowl, so you can see the joint. The lid follows the shape you drew, so it sits as part of the same curve.

How to add a floating base

1. Click Floating base.
2. Turn it on and set its size.

The small drawing in the corner of the shape panel shows the base with its real numbers.

How to add a finial

1. Click Finial.
2. Pick a shape and set its height.

The finial appears on the lid in 3D.

How to look at the bowl in 3D

1. Drag inside the right-hand panel to spin the bowl.
2. Scroll to zoom in and out.
3. Click Grain to show real board photos in place of flat colour.

On a tablet, use one finger to spin and two fingers to zoom.

How to print the sheets you cut from

1. Click Save first. The sheets are named after your design.
2. Click Print all.
3. Choose the sheets you want.
4. In the print box, set the scale to 100%.

You get one PDF with a contents page. It holds the cut list, the ring templates, the glue-up chart, and a sheet for the lid, the staves and the base when your design uses them.

How to get cut files for a machine

1. Click Cut layout.
2. Check the boards it has laid the pieces out on.
3. Save the files to a folder.

How to cut it by hand on a sled

1. Click Strip & mitre.
2. Read the list of strips: the wood, how wide to rip it, and how long.
3. Set your saw to the angle shown.
4. Set your stop block to the length shown.
5. Cut the pieces.

One strip does one ring. The printed sheet carries the same numbers.

How to work out what the wood costs

1. Click Quote.
2. Type your price per board foot for each wood you used. You do this once.
3. Read the total.
4. Save the one-page PDF if you want it.

Your prices stay on your own computer. They're never saved inside a design you share.

How to save and open again

1. Click Save to store the design as a file.
2. Click Save as to store it under a new name.
3. Click Open to load one back.

A saved design carries its patterns with it. Open it on another computer and the patterned rings come too.

How to send it to a 3D printer or to Blender

1. Click Export STL for a plain 3D model. That file type is what a 3D printer reads.
2. Click Export Colour 3MF for a model that opens already coloured, one filament slot per wood.
3. Click Export to Blender to get every segment as its own named solid.

The last two need the desktop app.

Six things worth knowing

• Work from the bottom up. Changing the height of a ring moves the rings above it, never the ones below.
• Watch for amber. Amber text in the corner of the shape panel means the design can't do what you asked.
• Thin rings stay solid. A ring 1/4" or thinner stays one solid piece until you paint it or give it a second wood.
• Print at 100% on anything that says true size.
• Draw a pattern once, then use Fit to ring for each ring you want it on.
• Undo goes back a long way. It covers the shape, the settings, the woods, the lid, and the patterns.