Coconut Bowls

Coconut Bowls.

We have gone to the local Kava bar a few times, and they have these awesome coconut bowls that they use. They are natural, and simple, and slightly wobbly. I love them! There are a lot of coconuts around and I figured it would be fun to try my hand at making some bowls. It seemed simple enough when I googled it.

• Open coconut. Check
• Remove coconut water. Check
• remove coconut meat. Check
• TADA you have a bowl.

NOT SO MY FRIENDS! Let me be the first to tell you, that if you want a nice natural finish without the fibers like above... your work is only just beginning! To open, empty, and remove (as listed above) I used a handy tool called my husband, who then handed the resulting shell to me. I thought I was clever giving him the hard part, but I am still not done with my bowls!

Here is the first step, getting them open. I used HUSBAND! Super effective! 

This is a good shot of the side, you can see all the fibers still on there.

The meat is removed and the bowls are almost there right? WRONG!

The finish. The finishing of the bowls has turned out to be the most time consuming part of this project. Because this is my first set I decided to try two approaches: for one I used just sandpaper, for the second I soaked the outside first to see if that helped peel the husk remnants. The result of this informal "experiment" was that the soak did not appreciably help. Therefore, I have decided dry + sand paper is the best bet. I started with a 80 grit and then a 120 grit. I also have a 180 grit that I have yet to use, but I will later tonight. 

This is after a run with the 80 and 120 grit sand paper

That is my progress so far! I am still working on them and have not decided exactly how to go about finishing the outside and inside. Oil? Varnish? Any thoughts?

Also any tips on (faster, easier, less annoying...) ways to remove the fibers would be AMAZING!

~Pohaku (means rock in Hawaiian)