bowl problem

Donald Wood

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18
I wood like to turn a bowl out of green wood, but it seems that the more research I do the more confused I get:doh: . Seems that there is as many ways to do it than there are turners. Some use alcohol and some use anchor seal and other things. My ? is what kind of alcohol (rubbing ,denatured or jack daniels just kidding) Is there a ''bowlturning for dummys''?

Thanks for any help because this is my first time.:wave:
 
I prefer glenfiddich...:thumb:

Now that that is said and I'm not a green stock turner nor did I stay in a holiday inn but I will say that from what I have read use denatured alcohol. turn the green piece to close (3/8"??) of the finished thickness, soak in DNA for 24 hrs, remove from the bath, wrap in paper for 3-4 weeks, finish turning. Now that I've said what I think is the correct answer I await the experts to chime in.
 
Don, there are lots of ways to turn a bowl, and lots of ways to dry one. You only need one or two though, to accomplish your desires. I have tried all the ways of drying wood faster. I have soaked in soap, boiled, and soaked in alcohol. I built a kiln. While all of these methods have their advocates and evidence of their efficacy, nothing works are reliably or as inexpensively as time.

When I turn a piece of wet wood, I throw it in the barn and let it sit. Sometimes they sit for the bare minimum of time needed, and sometimes they sit for years. Last year (2005 to be exact) I finished a bowl which was roughed out in 1999. It was a special piece of wood, and was just waiting for that special customer to come along and appreciate it.

Many new turners complain that they do not want to wait for that bowl to dry. The want to finish it as quickly as possible. My answer to that is to go turn more wet bowls and put them aside! Before you know it, you will have a pile of dry bowls to finish at your leisure, with more wet ones to feed the pile of those drying.

I do a few things to help me make sure the bowl is going to dry evenly with a minimum of cracking. Even so, there are those which feed the fire to keep us warm in the winter. When I turn wet wood, if it is real wet, I will seal the end grain with wax - Anchorseal to be specific. I will bag the bowl in paper (never plastic!) to buffer the free water coming out and help the bound water come out more evenly, which prevents cracking. I will make the rim thicker and the bottom thinner to help that water leave the wood evenly, again preventing cracking. I will center the bowl on the pith, to regularize the grain pattern and again prevent cracking.

None of this even begins to address turning them thin from the beginning and letting them warp!

Can you see there is a lot to learn? It helps to get involved with a local club if you can, and there are always videos to help you along. Some are better than others. :thumb: There are a lot of helpful folks on this board as well. The main thing to realize is, it is only wood, and it groes on trees. It almost doesn't matter where you are, there is wood to be had for not a lot of money if you look. Good luck with it, and keep on posting questions.
 
Let me give you guys some info on me and why I'm in kind of a hurry. I am a capenter, cabinetmaker, custom furniture maker and jack of all trades, but I've had four disks in my back rupture and had the operations with the steel plates. I had to downsize in my woodworking, but got burnt out on birdhouses fast. I pulled out my very first woodworking tool which is a shopsmith(that was a waste of money) and started playing with the lathe, then got a mini lathe. While I'm waiting for bowl blanks to dry I can be working on clocks and jewelery boxes. With all this time on my hands I can't stay in the house and watch tv.

Thanks for your info and may all your boards come out long enough.
 
Don, I know a turner who turns green wood (not sopping wet, but still wet) quite thin. He has not told me of a cracking problem and says that if you turn the object thin enough, the act of sanding it supplies enough heat to dry the object. I've yet to try it, but his reults are beautiful. I do what Bill advised; rough turn and wait until the blank is dry and finish turn. It works for me, but I have enough other things to keep me occupied while waiting.
 
I gave my usual tongue-in-cheek (AKA smart-a**) answer, but there really is an alternative: turn dry wood.

It costs more in material (you're not scrounging logs from the neighbors) and it's a little harder (no pun intended), but the "instant gratification" factor is there in full force.
 
I'll also recommend Bill's DVD, it is really good!

I use the DNA method, and it has worked very well for me, I've not lost one blank.

I soak 48 hours, then I let it dry for an hour or two, and finally wrap it in paper and tape it, and cut out a hole in the top of the bowl.

dna_soak1.JPG
Soaking

dna_unwrapped.jpg
An hour or two of air drying

dna_wrapped.jpg
Wrapped up and ready to set aside.

It takes anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks to dry (checking with my moisture meter).

I put the date on the bottom they came out of the DNA, and the wood type.

Works for me.

Cheers!
 
I'll also recommend Bill's DVD, it is really good!

I use the DNA method, and it has worked very well for me, I've not lost one blank.

I soak 48 hours, then I let it dry for an hour or two, and finally wrap it in paper and tape it, and cut out a hole in the top of the bowl.

Works for me.

Cheers!

Same as Stuart, except I soak overnight only. (I think that is long enough) No failures yet. I also Weigh the piece after I wrap it up and mark the dat & weight on the paper. You will see a tramendous drop in weight in the first couple of days then it slows down. When the weight drop stops, wait a couple of days and it is ready. Usually takes 2-3 weeks with the blanks stored in my basement "dust bowl".
 
Jim King is an advocate of boiling. Maybe he will pitch in with tips on his technique.
I'm one of those who doesn't like waiting. Plus, the supply of dry wood is much larger than wet.
The soaking in DNA strikes me as potentially problematic. e.g. once you soak the wet wood, your alcohol is (largely) no longer water free. And that means replacing. And that means disposing of and repurchasing large quanties of DNA. I don't even know where to go to purchase in anything larger than one quart cans (expensive).
 
Well Frank, if I can get my hands on a large container, delivered to my door here in Japan, then you should be able to find it there :D

For me, the green wood is the only way to go, the thought of BUYING dry wood....... well, I'd have to sell my lathe to afford it :eek:

If you have an outdoor space where you can light a fire under a big pot (cauldron?) then I would look at the boiling method, but for me, that is not possible, and the DNA has worked fine.

Cheers!
 
I haven't had the need to turn green yet since it seems I have more free dry wood then I have time to turn. I'f I get any green by the time I am ready to turn it it's dry, one advantage of living in the desert. I have looked into DNA and have found that one local wookworking supplier has 5 gal containiers of it for $25 each, just never needed it.
 
Well Frank, if I can get my hands on a large container, delivered to my door here in Japan, then you should be able to find it there :D

For me, the green wood is the only way to go, the thought of BUYING dry wood....... well, I'd have to sell my lathe to afford it :eek:

If you have an outdoor space where you can light a fire under a big pot (cauldron?) then I would look at the boiling method, but for me, that is not possible, and the DNA has worked fine.

Cheers!

Most of my wood comes free. Either I cut or it is given to me. Much sets waiting for me to use and gets dry. As for fresh cut, most available around here is oak and hickory, neither are my favorites for turning. Other choice is red cedar which one day I like turning, the next I hate.
 
Well this morning I started with a 12 inch blank for a bowl and ended the day with a 4 inch ashtray, but had a good time doing it. Tomrrow I will see what it turnout to be after it warps or what ever (Stu is already there ,mabe he can tell me how it turned out). I'm interested in boiling wood. How do you know when it is done?

Thanks for the help, and remember that reversesanding is not just sanding from the other side of the lathe:rofl:
 
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Not really Frank. You can soak a good number of times before the Alcohol is diluted enough to reduce the effectiveness. A fresh batch of Alky only needs a couple of hours soaking to accomplish the desicant tranferance, the more times you soak the solution takes a little longer so I generally go for overnight to CYA the difference.

Actually it does not trade places with the water but breaks the structural bond within the cells and allows the water to evaporate at a much higher rate along with the Alcohol. So, more Alcohol is lost in the soak than water is gained.

As for disposal, I use the weakened Alcohol as a cleaning agent on my hands and other things, then replace the soak batch as it depletes.

Try it a few times and you too will be convienced. It is so much easier and reliable than Boiling and Nuking, And far less messy than Soap soaking. Given the option, I prefer to gnaw up a chunk of Dry Timber, but when The need is there to hasten the project I turn to Alcohol (both for Drying the Wood and for Quinching the Thirst :p But only after the tools are bedded down for the evening ;) ) DNA for the wood and Bourbon for the wood butcher

Also Frank.... You mentioned Red Cedar, are you speaking of Aeromatic Red Cedar (Cedar Chest material)? I have a Log out back about 14" dia 8' long... Thought of having it sawn into planks but don't really want/need that, also thought of cutting out bowl blanks but how many of those do you need? My question is the drying of this log. Cedar being such an oily wood, does it need as long to dry as other woods? This thing was on the Ground for two year before I aquired it, I've had it a year sitting atop concrete blocks (that 3 years) Got any opinions?
 
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...I'm interested in boiling wood. How do you know when it is done?...
From what I've read, you simply boil for 3 or 4 hours, then remove from the water and let dry for a few weeks. I tried it on a few eucalyptus pen blanks, but only one of them didn't crack afterwards. (This particular piece of eucalyptus seemed to want to crack, regardless of the blank size, shape, or treatment, so I'm not sure anything could have kept those pen blanks from cracking.)

Like others here, I use the DNA method, and so far I've had no problems except when I knowingly left pith in the finished bowl. Even then, a bit of epoxy/instant coffee crack filler and I was good to go.
 
Bill, yes it is the aromatic red cedar I referred to. It is very soft but, at the same time, very brittle. When it turns nice it turns beautifully. But when it is bad, it is real bad. There can be small knots that catch and will blow up a project on the lathe, real tempremental stuff. It is hard to dry a log without cracks. I tried selling it at one time and still sell pen blanks but the larger pieces often cracked enroute and made customers unhappy. I don't know where you live, but here, in the Ozarks, cedar is pretty much a weed. It is widely used for things like chests, clothes hangers and smellyies to put in closets. The aroma is a natural insect repellant. Thanks for the offer but unless you live across the street, going after or shipping would outweigh it's value. As for finishing, it takes almost any kind of finish nicely. That said, some will argue that some finishes turn white after a while. I haven't had that problem though.
 
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