My little ceramic dish was OK for supported spindle spinning, but most of the support bowls I’ve seen (yes, on web searches and YouTube videos), are nice little round concave weighty things. Some are quite pretty! But I did notice that the bottom of an aluminum can is about the same size and shape.

I cut off the bottom of two aluminum cans with a utility knife, then neatened the edge of one with a scissors. (My kitchen scissors actually have a tiny serration, which makes the edge of the aluminum not so sharp.

Using pliers and a half-twist motion, I crimped the edge of one can bottom. This helps it fit inside the other can bottom nicely. I learned this technique from a video where they used aluminum can bottoms to make toy car wheels. Cool. This is also how I made my first whorl.

I then filled the crimped side with used play dough, and pressed the two halves together. My play dough is an off brand and quite sticky, so I didn’t do anything else to get the two sides to stick together.

The cleaned up the print on the bottom of the can with some fine steel wool and now my support bowl is ready for use!