9 Mistakes Signing Wood Bowls

Signing wood bowls is pretty simple, right? Well, hold on there are many things to consider.

Overlooking the steps of signing wood bowls properly could cause a problem down the road if you don’t consider the details.

What’s the best way for signing wood bowls?

Your first instinct might be to think about grabbing a pen or pencil and just signing the bottom of the bowl. Done. Right?

Not so fast.

Let’s think about this a bit more in depth. You’ve just finished a beautifully turned wooden bowl and your going to add your personal mark that identifies you as the creator of this piece.

Below are several mistakes that can easily be avoided, if we take a moment to look at them in detail.

You’ve spent all that time making your fantastic bowl. Isn’t it worth a bit more effort to put the perfect finishing touches on the bowl bottom?

Mistake #1) Missing the Big Picture

Many times when we make a wooden bowl, it can seem like just another bowl. However, later when you gift or perhaps sell that bowl, someone will see that bowl in a completely different light.

A bowl you create might be used heavily and worn out in a few years, or it might be cherished, displayed and maintained and passed down through a family for centuries to come.

There is a chance your turned bowl can become a family heirloom that generations admire. Signing wood bowls now seems a bit more important, right?

Mistake #2) Who?

When people pick up your turning, they will want to know who made the piece. This means writing or signing your name in a way that can be easily read and identified.

This is a personal chose whether to add your full name, abbreviated name or perhaps even just initials. Remember, the person reading your bowl wants to know who you are.

Perhaps they would really like to find you and purchase more pieces. The more legible you make your name, the easier it will be for them to track you down.

Making a “one-of-a-kind” personal mark might look cool, but will anyone be able to identify you? I suppose if you turn hundreds or thousands of bowls and your unique mark becomes well known, then this can be a practical approach.

Mistake #3) What?

One of the most asked questions about any wood turned piece is “what kinda wood is this.” Everyone wants to know.

People want to know facts, and they want a story. They want to imagine where your bowl came from and learn about it more. Help them fill in the blanks by adding this information to the story.

Don’t overlook this simple fact and add it somewhere to the bottom of the bowl. Not only will this instantly answer the “what wood is this” question, but it will also save you tons of time explaining this simple question.

Mistake #4) Average Signing

Bowls will be washed, possibly refinished and handled in countless different ways. Regular pencil or pen signatures will wear off in a relatively short time and leave the bowl unidentifiable.

Besides wear, tannin and natural acids from some types of woods can also work to erode a pencil or pen signature.

I don’t recommend signing with a pencil.

If you’d like to sign the bottom of a bowl with a pen, use a high-quality permanent pen, like this one or an India ink pen like this one to sign the bowls.

Before signing any bowl, test the pen on a piece of similar wood and make sure it will not bleed or smear on the wood surface. If possible, sand the sample wood precisely like the bowl bottom before testing.

Mistake #5) Surface Prep

The area around the base of the bowl should be sanded and prepared to match the rest of the bowl. Depending on the design of the bowl foot this might mean hand sanding in tight spaces.

Take the time to sand these areas before signing the bowl. The final results will be worthwhile. After all, we are expecting people to look at our signature and information. It makes sense to prep the area properly first.

Mistake #6) What, Where, When?

There are many ways to finish the bottom or foot of a wood bowl. The important thing is to make your signature marks before the wood is sealed.

Sand and prepare the central area of the bowl bottom first, then sign the bowl and finally add the finish to the entire bowl. Or, if you’ve finished the whole bowl and only the base remains, then finish the base to match the rest of the bowl.

Whatever you do, don’t sign the bowl after applying a finish. It can be difficult signing over or through the finish coat, and the signature probably won’t last long.

Mistake #7) Too Much

One permanent way of signing a bowl is to use a custom designed wood burning iron or wood burning pen.

Burning the wood with a mark is a great way to leave a clear signature deeply ingrained in the wood surface for a very long time.

There’s only one problem.

The temperature at which you apply the hot metal iron or tip to the wood needs to be regulated precisely to get the best appearance.

If the metal is too cold a mark isn’t made, but if it’s too hot an ugly scorching mark appears all around the signature area.

Every wood is different, as you’ve probably heard me say before, and it really applies here. Even pieces of wood from the same tree can have different moisture contents and burn differently.

Try to find a similar scrap piece of wood to practice before making the final marks to the finished turned bowl. The initial cut off corners of the bowl’s blank can be ideal for this testing.

Adjust the wood burning tool until the mark made is burnt in but not so burnt in that it leaves a surrounding shadow or char. This is quickly done with a wood burning tool by dialing the temperature up or down.

A custom made iron branding tool is not as easy to control. When using the iron, make plenty of practice marks before approaching the finished bowl.

One trick I’ve discovered with using the branding iron is to let the iron rest for a moment. This is hard to explain, but there seems to be a point when the tool is heated but will make a mark too dark. Waiting just a few seconds lets the iron cool just a bit, and the resulting mark looks excellent.

Practice with using hot metal for signing and the results can be fantastic.

Mistake #8) “Pen” Tip

I know this one sounds counterintuitive, doesn’t it? However, the wood-burning tip designed to mimic a pen is a small tip of wire. Now, I will give the manufacturer credit, this tip does look like the tip of a ballpoint pen.

But there’s a problem.

The rounded pen tip doesn’t burn down into the grains of the wood very well. Again, this depends on the wood species. On some woods, especially dry smooth woods, this tip is fine, but on wood that has sharp grain lines this tip does poorly.

Honey locust, in particular, has distinct grain lines and the pen tip fails miserably when trying to sign on this surface. The tip will burn well in the valleys between grains, but then leave almost no burnt mark at all on the grain line itself.

I’m not sure if this is because the grain line is harder and requires more heat, but the results don’t look good. In fact, the effect is similar to a failing ball-point pen.

One of the best ways to sign your wood bowls is with a quality wood-burning tool, but instead of using a “pen” tip, try using a chisel point tip. The chisel tip makes a fine even line through almost any type of wood.

The ergonomic advantage of the pen tip is better than the chisel tip. You will need to maneuver around a bit awkwardly at times to get the chisel tip in the right spot, but the mark it leaves is crisp and very clear.

Mistake #9) When?

Dating the bowl bottom is a bit more of a controversial topic.

Some people believe that by adding the year to the bowl, people won’t want to buy it down the road. In other words, if you’re selling bowls at a craft show and a bowl is dated with 2016 on it, people might make some negative assumptions about the bowl.

On the other hand, as a bowl turner, I want to know when I turned a particular bowl. As a matter of fact, I want to know much more than just the year. I want to know the day I made the piece and how many others I finished that day.

The reason for wanting to know this information is for record keeping and organization. If you begin selling bowls at shows or online, many bowls can start to look alike. Having a unique identification number is critical for finding the exact bowl.

I used to add the year to my bowls, but now I use a code letter for the year. Here’s what I do. I create a unique number for each bowl based on the date it was made, for example, 0723 is July, 23.

Then I add the number bowl made that day, for example, 26 means the second bowl of six made that day, then I add a single letter to represent the year. So the bottom of one of my bowls might look like 072326C.

By using this unique numbering system, I have a serial number for every bowl, and I also have data about when that bowl was made and what else was made that day.

Signing Wood Bowls Conclusion

Taking a few extra moments to really button up the bottom of a bowl can make the difference between a bowl that gets lost in time and one that is identifiable for decades to come.

Personally, I’ve signed with pens, then I tried a branding iron. The mark I designed for my branding iron was interesting but too obscure and didn’t connect with me. And making a branding iron that could replicate my signature isn’t easy.

So now, I use a wood-burning pen with a chisel-tip for relatively moist or textured wood and a pen-tip for more dry smooth bowl surfaces.

What do you do when signing wood bowls? Leave me a comment below and share with us your unique technique for letting people know that you created the piece they are holding.

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• WOOD BOWL TENON REMOVAL – 3 EASY WAYS
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• 3 AMAZING TURQUOISE INLAY TECHNIQUES – ILLUSTRATED GUIDE
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Happy Turning,
Kent