I made the choice to pair the cherry rim with the Box Elder rounds for a few reasons. First I felt that the rounds were not as thick as I would have liked, I wanted a deeper bowl. By adding the cherry lip I was able to increase the depth w/o having to later cut the entire thickness.
Additionally I was digging the way the dark brown of the cherry contrasted with the white of the Box Elder.
For epoxy to glue the rim I was using Gorilla Glue brand five minute epoxy. I picked that over a yellow wood glue because I wanted the flexibility of bond epoxy provides. It took most of two tubes to attach the rim to both of the bowls. Unfortunately I got a bad batch. All of the stuff glued down with the first batch (tube) of epoxy came loose. It never hardened and remained gummy more than 36 hours after mixing despite baking the wood at 120 degrees for 14 hours. I have mixed a lot of epoxy in my day, trust me I mixed it properly, something was wrong with it. Luckily for me it waited until after the bowls had been cut to come lose. The entire rim of the first bowl had to be removed and thing pieced back together. It sucked.
Hogging out a majority of the wood prior to cutting on the table saw is a nice modification from the last time I did this. It sped up the process tremendously and lets face it, the press is safer so might as well use it as much as I can.
Pouring the epoxy in prior to cutting might seem like a waste, but it isn't. Because I had some punk and deep cracks and I wasn't sure how those areas would respond to the saw. Sealing the back of the cracks with tape, (I find the green FROG tape works well) I was able to fill those cracks and punky bits. Later when the saw is cutting down through it will expose the filled cracks and they will have epoxy flush with the surface. It looks cleaner. Also ANYTHING you can do to minimize moisture movement and warping at this stage... do it. The epoxy I was using was a counter top epoxy from Areo Marine. This really isn't what it was designed for but I find the very thin nature of the mix gives me superb penetration which is important if you are trying to soak into rot. The closer I can get to turning both bowls into blocks of plastic the better. It will help minimize wood movement due to humidity changes.
Building my little hot box helps dramatically speed the epoxy set time. It has a normal cure of 24 hours but I can cut that nearly in half with long periods of heat. In the past I have found that long set times means the water thin epoxy can just run out the bottom. I want it to soak in, not drip out. Heat helps with that by skimming the epoxy faster than it would normally happen.
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