Dough bowls are expensive. Dough bowl candles even more so. I decided it was time to try a DIY dough bowl to see if I could make a gorgeous, rustic candle.
I have had a huge chuck of wood in my garage for a few years now. It was about 3′ long, 8″ wide, and 4″ thick – a beast, but not long enough to make a full project from.
It’s been on my mind to try my hand at making a dough bowl from it, but I held off until I could get an angle grinder at auction – the tool I’d read you’d need to make a dough bowl.
I finally scored one for $30, complete with super-power sanding discs so the time was now.
While it might have been fun to carve the outside and inside of the bowl with my new (to me) angle grinder – I only had one sanding disc; so not enough to take on the entire thing.
Instead, I set the bevel on my table saw to a 32º angle and ran the sides and both ends of an 18″ board over it.
That’s only the second time I’ve ever used the bevel on my table saw! I was nervous, but when I’m nervous I take extra special care to watch all my digits and their placement.
With the bottom of my DIY dough bowl roughly shaped, I flipped it over and drew lines to create the boundaries of where I’d be carving; 4″ in from either end and 1″ in from the sides.
With the angle grinder and a sanding disc, I got to work trying to create a hollow inside the lines I’d drawn on the wood.
I won’t lie, it wasn’t as easy as I’d expected…. it wasn’t difficult, but it was certainly time consuming as you’ll see in the video.
Part way through sanding through 4″ of wood, I decided to bring out my little circular saw and cut in parallel lines that I could chisel out more easily and quickly than sanding.
You can see a few small cuts on the sides of the DIY dough bowl where my circular saw went a skinch past the line – user error – but dough bowls are supposed to be aged and rustic, so I’m going to lie and tell people it was intentional. The big slices are actually from a crack in the wood and not the circular saw, so it all flows together for that aged patina. 😂
After I’d chiseled out chunks, I went at it again with the angle grinder to smooth everything out.
Just a note, in case you are more die-hard than I am – measure the outside depth of your piece of wood and then drop your tape measure into the bowl every now and then to make sure you are leaving enough of a base for your dough bowl.
I think the outside of the DIY dough bowl would have looked better if I did carve the outside into a more ‘bowl-like’ shape – but without a bandsaw I wasn’t sure how to do that. Instead, and to make it look less like a boring slab of wood, I sanded it down and then dabbed at it with my angle grinder to make a random pattern.
I like it! I think it’s kind of neat!
Looks even better once you add a bit of stain too:
I lightly sanded over the stain to remove a bit from the high points and then sealed the entire bowl with Varathane Triple-thick.
Over the summer I’d seen a giant dough bowl that someone had turned into a large candle and I thought it was beautiful. $120… but beautiful. That was the end game for this big boy.
I had leftover wicks from my teacup candles I made a few months ago, and I ordered a 5 lb bag of soy candle wax from Amazon and tried my luck…
the wicks were stuck in place with little glue dots so they didn’t move around when I poured the hot wax into the bowl.
Then I wrapped elastic bands around the bowl to keep the wicks upright and (roughly) in place while the wax set.
Wanna see how it turned out?! Be prepared for lots of show-and-tell shots because I’m absolutely THRILLED!
My DIY dough bowl – made by little ole me and then taken up a notch with a warm, cozy, rustic and SO CHRISTMAS vibe with candle wax!
I have the second piece of that same thick board, so I might make a second one to give as a gift.
For now, this one is mine (all mine muah-ha-ha!)
and the beginning of all things Christmas (YAY!)
I’m going to have to come up with more angle grinder projects – it was fun to use!
In case you don’t want to make it yourself (Amazon affiliate links. For full Amazon affiliate disclosure please see sidebar or bottom of the page.)
Have a great one!
