Making an Aspis - Ring Method (Visual Aids)

[Chris B]

Okay. Here is the first set of photos. My saw broke tonight so I will have to buy a new one on the way home from work and pick up where I left off tonight. I would normally already have the bowl and rim glued together in two pieces drying. No big deal.

I usually use two 1/2" sheets of Birch plywood to make my ring method shields. You can do it with one, but I would rather keep my rings solid and have extra in case. For $30 additional dollars it is worth it to me.

First I mark off where I will place each ring. Using Matthew's measurements, I combine the following rings inside one another: 10/4, 7/1, 9/3, and 8/2. That leaves layers 6 and 5 as separate rings on each sheet with scrap inside themselves.

Lets just start with one ring, #10. I measure 35" leaving 1/2 on the edges and mark off 35" of the plywood measuring from the width end. Then I cut that measurement in half and mark my center line at 17 1/2". Then I measure 24" up the center line to give me the center of this marked area.

I take a metal yard stick that has a hole at the 1" mark and nail it to the center mark. I add 1" to the radius for ring 10 (17" = 1 = 18") and hold a pencil at that mark on the yard stick as I pull the yard stick around the full 360 degrees. Basically I just make a bar compass. I have a pretty steady hand so this works well for me. I then repeat this for all 10 rings.

Next, I cut each of the six sections into rectangles with a skill saw to make them a more manageable size for cuting the rings with a jig saw. Then I slowly cut out all 10 rings with the jig saw. Next, I lightly sand the edges of all the rings so I do not get splinters when gluing them up.

I glue rings 10 and 9 together and weight them to dry for the rim and leave them separate as it is easier to sand the rim separate from the bowl. I glue the rim to the bowl after the outside is sanded for the whole shield, but before the inside is touched at all.

I usually lay one ring on top of the next layer and slowly adjust its center by measuring every few inches with a ruler around the circumference until there is equal spacing. Then I trace the smaller ring on to the larger ring, glue the inside of the area where the smaller ring will rest, place the smaller ring back on to the larger ring, and weight them with whatever I have lying around with significant weight. I do that for rings 1-8 to get the bowl. I usually glue 1/2, 3/4, 5/6, 7/8, then combine 1/2/3/4 and 5/6/7/8 and then combine all 8 to cut down on the time I have to wait for the next step. It usually takes me 48 hours to get a bowl and rim ready for sanding.

Since I am behind, I will wait and post a few videos and pics of sanding in a few days next to show some tricks I found for sanding extremely quickly and efficiently. I finish the WHOLE shield with a Porter Cable variable speed belt sander. You CAN get all the angles on the inside with a few tricks. I'll show them once I start sanding.

Here are three progress picks of what I just described.