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Weighing your wood until dry?

Tom Baugues

Tom Baugues

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Lafayette, Indiana
Reading Mr Bradley's post about his upcoming project made me do some thinking. I've read that if you turn wet wood you should just rough it to shape then place in a bag until it drys out. Along the way it should be weighed to check for weight loss. Most projects would be fairly light so for those of you who weigh your bowls what do you weigh them on? I'm guessing I need to get a postal type scale?
 
If was was to weigh my rough-turned pieces, I'd use the digital postal scale I have. (It reads in grams or ounces, up to about 40 pounds.)

That said, I don't weigh my drying pieces. Weighing is a very accurate and precise way to know when the wood has reached equilibrium, but I'm too lazy to get the scale out of the drawer. Instead, I just use the "cheek test". I hold the wood against my cheek (no, not THAT cheek) and if it feels cool to the touch, especially compared to a known dry piece of similar wood, it's still wet. Pretty non-scientific, but it works for me.
 
Tom I bought a postal scale that I use to weigh my blanks. I don't bag anything. I anchorseal all my roughed out blanks. I weigh them once a week. When they stop losing weight I give them another 2 weeks to a month. Never had one move on me since I started following this regime.
 
Vaughn McMillan said:
If was was to weigh my rough-turned pieces, I'd use the digital postal scale I have. (It reads in grams or ounces, up to about 40 pounds.)

That said, I don't weigh my drying pieces. Weighing is a very accurate and precise way to know when the wood has reached equilibrium, but I'm too lazy to get the scale out of the drawer. Instead, I just use the "cheek test". I hold the wood against my cheek (no, not THAT cheek) and if it feels cool to the touch, especially compared to a known dry piece of similar wood, it's still wet. Pretty non-scientific, but it works for me.
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I have a little postal scale and can weigh my woods in ounces until dry, but I rarely weight wood... If I need to dry a piece of wood, I have an old MonkeyWard's microwave that will take a bowl up to 13" diameter and about 7 or 8 inches high.... I'll microwave the wood until it feels sorta dry.... I use the same check (or is that cheek) method as Vaughn...
 
When I weigh (not often) I use a digital kitchen scale. My rough outs get DNA'd, anchor sealed/newspaper wrapped and put in the attic on wire shelves where they are forgotten for months.
 
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Tom i do weigh my wood on one of them digital scales. I had two many of them warp in the early days, after i brought them in the house.I also, like Chuck have a microwave in the shop. After they have dried i'll put them in there for a few mins at a time just to be real sure.Has been working for me, so that's what i've been doing.:) As you can tell i don't like warpage in the things i do any more. I know some folks don't mind them warping a littlle,or even a lot. But i don't like it.
 
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