It’s been a few months since I posted about this project and the bowls have been delivered to my son. He has since used them to great success and the approval during the local game night.
Their use is not the purpose of the update. It’s to discuss the cracks in the small oak bowl that showed up in the June 24th post #9 Adding the Turquoise Band to the Oak Bowls when I turned the blank down to near its final diameter. One crack was near the bottom that might get cut away when the bowl got turned to shape. However, the other one ended up right near the top edge and looked deep enough to go completely through to the bowl’s inside. With the crack being so close to the top and possibly going all the way through that made me think the top edge could be really fragile which is why I set this blank aside and made a new one. In the photo below the top red arrow points to where the rim would have been while the bottom arrow identifies the crack. 
The blank had been setting on the workbench waiting for me to decide whether to turn it into what turners call “designer firewood” or to try and salvage it. Rather than give the blank to my sister to be used as firewood I decided to try and salvage it. This started out by turning the blank down to a similar form as the rest of the bowls to see if the top crack would go all the way through the bowl which it did. In the photos below the inside shot clearly shows that the crack goes all the way through the bowl.
The other concern was with how fragile the top edge would end up being. I avoided this by not cutting the top down to match the small bowl’s size. This added about 3/8” to the top of the bowl. The additional height required some adjustment to the shape and adding about 1/8” to the bottom to keep the bowl from looking top heavy and the proportions similar. Sort of like a tall cousin rather than a sibling to the original profile.
The next step is to fill the crack with some wood filler from both sides until it’s full. I used a water based one that will accept stains and dyes. It took a couple of rounds of filling and sanding between them to get a flush surface. The first coat shrank a little when drying so it wasn’t flush requiring the second coat. Here is what the filled crack looks like. When sanding the filler smooth 320 or 400 grit sandpaper is used so any scratch lines in the filler are minimized. 
To make the crack filler blend in I decided to dye the whole bowl black. In the past using India Ink has given me great results. The Cord Seat project is a good example of using India Ink as a dye and then spraying it with lacquer for a durable finish.
This is what the bowl looks like with two coats of Inda Ink applied. It did require a light sanding between the coats since it raised the grain a bit. You can see the crack on the left side of the bowl. When I took the photo the bowl and the lights were set to highlight the crack. In reality it’s less noticeable than in the picture and a deep flat black. 
Spraying with lacquer is next. My usual lacquer spraying setup is shown here with the top photo showing the gallon can of lacquer at the top left with the thinner next to it along with my vapor mask on the right. The smaller bottles in front make measuring the lacquer and thinner easier than using the gallon containers. Also, the green line on the gallon lacquer shows how much is left in the can. The bottom photo shows the airbrush setup with the lazy susan and a riser to raise the bowl up to provide an open space below the rim of the bowl. Without it when the lacquer is sprayed where the rim meets the cardboard would get glued together.
I applied three coats of lacquer wet sanding between coats with a 2,400 grit pad and with a 12,000 grit pad after the final coat had cured for about a week. The end result looks like this and I am happy with the way the patch in the bowl looks although I like the original four feature accents.
