AAW forum launches salad bowl challenge for turners

A salad bowl sounds straightforward until the brief asks it to do three jobs at once: serve multiple people, look good on the table, and sit steady on the base. That is exactly what the American Association of Woodturners put in front of forum members when it opened its April 2026 turning challenge on April 14.

The rules kept the field clean and the design choices honest. Each bowl has to be functional, attractive enough to stand as a centerpiece, and large enough to serve a crowd. It also needs a stable base, either a large foot or a flat bottom, and carved feet are off the table. Entrants have until 11:59 PM UTC on Wednesday, April 29, 2026, to post two photos in the thread, one showing the normal view and one showing the bottom of the bowl, along with the dimensions.

That combination makes the challenge more than a showpiece contest. It asks turners to think about the parts that matter most on a real bowl: the curve of the rim, the wall thickness, the footprint, and whether the form looks light in the hand without feeling flimsy on the table. It is the kind of project that exposes bad habits fast. A bowl can be beautiful in profile and still fail the brief if the base feels tippy or the proportions get clumsy when scaled up for serving.

The forum post also gave members a visual runway with examples from Dave Roberts, Robert Woodward, and James Seyfried. That matters because the challenge is open-ended enough to allow a wide range of interpretations, but specific enough to keep the entries in the same lane. A broad, shallow platter-like salad bowl will read differently from a deeper serving form, yet both can work if the finish, stance, and edge treatment are right.

The timing is tight, too. The challenge landed in the middle of a busy AAW calendar, with the 2026 International Woodturning Symposium set for June 4-7 in Raleigh, North Carolina, at the Raleigh Convention Center. AAW calls that symposium the biggest woodturning event in the world, so the salad bowl challenge offers a smaller, immediate shop goal before the larger June gathering.

The forum has already shown that its monthly challenges can pull real participation. In March, eight turners submitted eight pieces for an olla-themed challenge, and David Bartell won with a Southwestern-style olla. Ethan Hoff’s Basket Illusion Platter was named Turning of the Week for April 13, with its 11.5-inch diameter giving it the kind of strong presence that fits this month’s brief. For anyone looking for a spring project with a deadline and a clear finish line, this one is built for the lathe, not the comments section.