Have you ever started a project and somewhere along the line realized it wasn’t going well, or the way you had planned? Unfortunately, I have, more than a few times in my lifetime. It took me a few of those times before I came to the conclusion that I either needed to change direction or even discard what I had done and start over. On occasion, I went so far as to abandon the project altogether and moved on to something else.

Then there was last week. I grabbed a knobby misshapen bowl blank I had been given and decided to see what I could make of it with my lathe. On Monday I struggled with shaping the outside of what was supposed to be a bowl, but decided not to give up too easily. On Tuesday I spent another couple of hours on it before I thought, maybe it wasn’t worth the effort. But oh no. On Wednesday I continued and finally decided I had a decent shape, so I called it a day. 

On Thursday I turned the piece around and chucked it up to hollow it into a bowl. That’s when I realized I hadn’t made the tenon deep enough to securely hold it in the chuck and it flew out and rolled across the shop floor. But I wasn’t about to give up that easily. After the second time I had to retrieve it, I said a bad word and called it a day.

In the middle of the night I woke up with an idea. Maybe I could use some strong, double-sided tape to add enough grip to hold the piece in the chuck. On Friday I tried this idea and eureka! It held while I gingerly hollowed the bowl. Then I examined it closely and saw the hollowing had opened a porous punky spot in the bottom, and a hole that went clear through. 

No problem. I mixed a batch of two-part epoxy and some aniline die powder and left it for the night. The next day I anxiously went to work finishing turning the bowl bottom, and sanded it as well as I could. Then I realized some of the epoxy had dripped through the bowl bottom and glued the bowl to the chuck. Damn!

By this time I was determined it was not going to defeat me. After an hour of working with a small knife and an awl, I was able to pry the epoxy from the chuck and go back to finishing the bowl.

After removing it from the chuck and setting it on a table, I realized it was rather ugly. After all that stubborn, don’t-give-up attitude, I had something I didn’t know what to do with.  Should I go ahead and apply finish and see if it improved? Or was it destined for the firewood box? No, I decided maybe I should experiment with the finish and see if that improved it. After all, how could it get any worse. 

I decided to dye it red on the outside. The next day it looked like a funny-shaped large clown nose. Still, I didn’t give up. I mounted it back on the lathe and sanded a lot of the red off. Surprisingly, that made it look rather unique. Did I somehow save it? I’m not sure, but I decided to see what it would look like lacquered, polished, and waxed.

Now, I’m still not sure this odyssey was worth the continuing effort. But I think I am calling it good and moving on.

This, however, is the first thing I have actually given a name to. I’m calling it Barbie’s Chamber Pot.

Ken Kaiyala
8-26-2026

Note: To see a collection of bowls that I have made and that turned out rather nice—and that can be purchased—visit my online store at thedesignfactory.online.