New to the site with a few questions

Hey guys, thought I'd start out by at least introducing myself. Name's Wes and I just signed up here not too long ago. I've been reading a lot of your posts and I'd like to say that I find what you guys all do here is very informative and much appreciated! Since I was a kid I've been working with wood in some way or another, whether it be building bike ramps or tree forts, and I'm now a 3rd year apprentice in carpentry. Working with wood in any way or shape has always sparked my interest, especially with turning. I recently received a lathe for my birthday. I've already turned one bowl on it although it was a bit of a journey. Back in high school a few years ago I played around on the lathe for a bit, but it was making things like baseball bats. Turning these bowls seems like a whole new world once you get to the inside. I have picked up a book to learn some techniques on bowl turning but I probably should have bought it and read through it before I started but I think I handle it fairly. A question I have for you guys is about drying the wood and finishing it...

During the fall, my brother in law and I cut down a very large Elm tree in our back yard. Needless to say I have lots of elm to turn into bowls. I would really like to get a nice set of bowls and plates going for use. Me, being completely oblivious to properly drying wood, started one bowl and it seemed to be a little difficult to cut because of how wet it was, so I took it inside at the end of the day and placed it in front of the register over night. Huge mistake! So, after watching some youtube videos and getting my gouges properly sharpened, I started another bowl and finished it last night. It turned out alright and I sanded it down to about 800 grit. My question would be how do I properly let this bowl dry out so it does not crack? I also picked up some Salad Bowl Finish to apply to the bowl once it dries. What would be an appropriate amount of time before I can apply that? I'm pretty new to this whole thing as far as turning "green" wood compared to dried wood. Any help you guys could offer would be greatly appreciated and I thank you in advance.

Also, I went to a local woodcraft store to pick up a few goodies for my new toy and decided to grab a blank piece about 5"x6" of Bloodwood. From what I've read about it, it is apparently a pretty dense wood. Does anyone have any experience with it? I thought it looked pretty neat with it's deep red color. I am hoping to start something on it tomorrow and I'm curious if it's going to be a difficult wood to turn.

Any advice is much appreciated! Thanks again guys!

Welcome to the Family Wes!

Hey, another turner

For green wood, what is the usual method is to turn the bowl to an unfinished size, this is called "Roughing it out" then you have to wait for the bowl blank to dry out, and there are many ways to do that. Once dry, you put the bowl back on the lathe, and finish turn it, then sand, and oil etc.

If I may recommend a very good DVD for you to learn from, called >> Turned Bowls Made Easy << by our very own Bill Grumbine, it is a very good DVD to get you started. The other thing I'd recommend is to join up a local turning club, you will learn a LOT more from watching an experienced turner turn in one hour, than you will reading books for one year, IMHO

Now to the whole processing of bowl blanks, here is a short version of what I do........

>> Processing Bowl Blanks the Dungeon Way <<

Once you have your bowl blanks processed and then roughed out, you will want to dry them, well go read >> This Article by David Smith << it is very informative.

If you choose to do the DNA soak for your roughed bowls, then you need to wrap them, here is how I do it..........

>> Wrapping Bowls the Dungeon Way <<

....... so will say that my way is a bit over the top (imagine that ) but I've yet to have a blank crack, so I'll keep doing what I do.

Again, welcome to the Family!

PS got any pics of your workshop etc, we like pics!

Hey Westley, welcome to the Abyss. I'll toss out a few answers to your questions, and I'm sure others will offer different approaches to get to the same end result...

Turning green wood is usually much easier than turning dry wood. (I suspect the trouble you had on that first elm bowl was due to your tools not being sharp.) Trouble is, as you discovered, green wood warps and sometimes cracks as it drys. For that reason, most folks - me included - turn green wood bowls to an approximate shape, then let the bowl dry slowly, then put it back on the lathe and re-turn it to the final thickness and form before applying a finish to it. There are some tricks and tips to help make this process work out...some science and some "seat of the pants" guesswork.

First is the issue of wall thickness. If you leave the walls too thick on a green bowl, it is more likely to crack than if it had thinner walls. If you make them too thin, though, it can warp so much that when you re-turn the bowl, there's not enough wood left to get it back into round shape. (Some folks intentionally turn to finished thickness while the wood is still green, then let it warp however it wants to. It can also be a cool effect, depending on the type of wood.) The general rule of thumb is to make the wall thickness about 10% of the bowl's diameter. For a 10" bowl, the rough-turned walls would be about 1" thick. Different woods react differently as they dry, so this is just a general guideline. Experience will help you refine it.

Next is drying the rough-turned bowl. There are about as many methods for drying a bowl as there are woodturners, but the two primary ways are to just let is air dry, or to speed up the process by first soaking the rough-turned bowl in denatured alcohol (DNA) for a day or so. An air-dried bowl can take up to 6 months per inch of thickness to dry. A similar DNA-soaked bowl will typically be dry in 3 to 4 weeks. (I use the DNA method, because I'm impatient.) In both cases, most turners take some sort of action to keep the bowl from drying too quickly. (The elm bowl and the furnace register showed you what can happen if wood dries too quickly.) In order to "regulate" the drying somewhat, a lot of folks wrap the bowl in paper (newspaper or brown paper bag material). Others put the bowl in a cardboard box surrounded by wood shavings from the lathe. There's a LOT of stuff you can read about drying bowls with DNA. This thread has some good links to articles and web pages about it.

For the bowl you turned and finish sanded, I'd suggest putting it in a relatively cool, dry place, wrapped in newspaper or a couple paper grocery bags. That'll help keep it from drying too quickly. How long it'll take to dry depends partly on how thick it is, and I'm not real familiar with elm, so I'm not sure how long it'll ultimately take. If you're in a real hurry to dry it, you could go buy a gallon or two of DNA at the hardware store (in the section with paint thinners and other solvents) and a 5-gallon bucket with a lid that seals. Even if you soak the bowl a few days after turning it, I'm pretty sure the DNA will speed things up.

It's great that you scored a bunch of elm to play with. That'll allow you to experiment with different thicknesses and drying methods, and see which combination works best for you. Also, I'm sure others will chime in with their preferred methods for doing this stuff.

Lastly, I highly recommend Bill Grumbine's Turned Bowls Made Easy video to anyone learning to turn bowls. He covers a lot of things to get you started in the right direction.

Dang it Stu, you type faster than me.

Welcome, Wes. Looking forward to seeing some pics of the bowls.

Welcome Wes
Try flat wood working, it is better, sell the lathe at a garage sale.



PS
The coffee pot is on

Hi Westley,

Welcome to Family WoodTurning . . . I mean Woodworking. Glad to have you. As you've already noticed, some of us who have danced close to the edge, but not begun the slide down the slippery slope of roundwork feel free to tease those of you that have. It is probably an effort to disguise a latent envy. ;-)

Westley, Welcome to the Family.

Congrats on the new lathe and the elm score. The best thing about it is that you have plenty of it to learn on. Have you looked into a local turning group? That can be a great source of knowlege from first hand experience as well. Good luck and please post some pics of your work.

Welcome to FWW! Don't let the flatlanders ride you too hard. "A well-rounded" woodworker does flat and round projects!

"I'm pretty new to this whole thing as far as turning "green" wood compared to dried wood. Any help you guys could offer would be greatly appreciated and I thank you in advance."

Westley,

It can all get pretty complicated for a production turner, or if you want matched sets, or if you want perfection. It can get a little daunting, and take a long time. The same is true in every field. A while back, there was this poet, name of Virgil. Wrote three lines a day. Three lines! Spent twenty years on one poem, and didn't even get it finished. It's a nice poem, but still...

As another, later, poet said: "But there is another method!" Thank goodness. It ain't high, valiant art, and it doesn't lead to perfection. But it does work. For the sake of argument, I'll call it the artisan method.

So you've got your fresh, green blank, however you get it. You screw it on to the face plate, and get it round. Turn a tenon or groove into the bottom... you need a way to hold it in the chuck. While it's still on the faceplate, sand it as much as you're going to. You won't get another chance! Then put some finish on it. Shellac works: anything that dries fast, that will keep the outside of the wood from losing moisture. Something that will soak right in and let you keep going.

Now, chuck it up and go after the inside with your bowl gouge. Leave 3/4" all around. Now start paring that away, about an 1/8" of an inch at a time, till you get below half an inch all around. Now keep going, as long as you dare. You'll know when to stop. Sand immediately. Waiting even a few minutes means a nightmare of hand sanding, cuz that wood's moving, drying as you watch. Before you blink, it won't be round anymore. Get it smooth, get some finish on it fast!

As soon as that first coat of finish goes on, you'll be amazed at what you find! To quote Virgil: "Then might you see the wild things of the wood..." (Eclogues, Book VI, line 35). After a couple more coats of finish, you will have a beautiful, unique, and absolutely unrepeatable object.

Two problems with this method: it will not be perfect. It won't be round. The edge will get wavy, both in width and height. So will the walls. Problem two: Once you start, you can't stop. It all must be done in one session. You can't walk away, you can't "finish it up in the morning." But you can turn out some fairly nice things this way...

Real turners don't do things this way. They rough out bowls, dry them one way or another, and produce things of great beauty and elegance. My things are far from elegant... but some people do like them... And I've never spent more than 15 minutes on a sonnet. I don't think Keats did either: I mean, have you ever read 'the grasshopper and the cricket'?

Thanks,

Bill

Hey thanks for all of the responses guys! You have been a GREAT help! I will definitely consider buying that DVD. The book I got is called Learn to Turn by Barry Gross. The other day I spent about 2 hours at the book store going through tons of woodworking books, and this one seemed to be pretty sufficient for a beginning on the lathe such as myself. I have thought about joining a local group, although haven't found one yet. At the Woodcraft store I went to, they offer a one day class that's coming up, but it's about $100. So for now I think I'll try some stuff out on my own, while looking for a group to join.

You guys have been a great help with the DNA posts. I read everything I could. I just found out about another local woodworking store too, so after I'm done posting this I think I'll be on my way for some DNA and maybe a few other toys ! I'm off of work this week (VERY slow w/carpentry around this area this winter), so hopefully I'll get some time to play around with a few things. I found the article by Dave Smith to be very helpful as well, along with all the other posts. Thanks!

As far as the bowl I turned, I took 2 pics. This is my first time attempting to post pictures so hopefully they turn out. You will notice that I don't have a chuck system to use for bowl so I have to work around that. Maybe one day I'll think about picking one up, but I'll have to do my homework and check into them to make a good decision. So for now, as you can see, I'll have to waste a little on the end so I don't interfere with those hinge screws I have going through the back!

Stuart, as far as pics of my "workshop," lol well let's just say I don't have much of one. I just turned 21 and still live at home. Trying to save up some money for a decent down payment on a house (while still buying a few tools here and there ). Also I work in the commercial field (building a lot of McDonald's unfortunately, or banks n such), and sometimes help my uncle building houses if needed and I am by no means shy of buying a bunch of tools to get that stuff done properly. So I would have to say that's where a lot of my money has gone. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to dip into the world of finish woodworking , I'd just say that I'm just beginning so my tools for this are limited for now. My grandpa lives downstairs (but stays in Florida for our 6 month winter!) and he has a pretty good selection of woodworking tools. He has a bench grinder, couple of bench sanders, drill press, and scroll saw, etc. so I have some options. The main thing I'm missing is a band saw, which I may have to invest in over the summer. But on top of all of that, my mom runs a day care here and my sister and brother in law have crammed all of there stuff in the basement because they are moving out of their current home, building a new one, and have no where to go in the meantime. So basically it's a little cramped and can get pretty hectic around here sometimes! I need to move out now So once their stuff gets out of here, my lathe will be headed to the basement (instead of extremely packed garage) and I will hopefully be looking at some band saws. So I wish I could show you a tour, but I don't have much of a workshop for now

Well, I think I talked your ears off enough but I think I'm going to head out and do some browsing. Thanks again for all of your help! You gave me all the answers I was looking for, plus more! And thanks for the warm welcomes! I hope I can make some progress and turn some things out in the next few weeks to show all of you. I hope the pics work. Thanks again and we'll talk to ya soon!

Looks like you're off to a good start, Westley. You mentioned using hinge screws to mount the blank onto the faceplate. If they are the brass screws that are commonly sold with door hinges, I'd recommend going with something else. The brass is relatively soft, and I wouldn't trust it. Also, on green wood, I'd suggest using sheet metal screws instead of wood screws. The taper of a wood screw doesn't hold as well in green wood as the uniform shape of a sheet metal screw.

Welcome to FWW Wes. Ditto what Vaughn and Stu said. Once in a while and you might try this I will take a bowl from start to finish all the way. When I have it sanded and the walls 3/16" to 1/4" thick I will soak with either Danish Oil or Antique Oil. I mean soak it till it won't soak anymore in. Let it sit for a few minutes then wipe of the excess. Wait 24 hrs and do it again. If the walls are thin it won't move much and I have did this with cherry, elm, ash, walnut, etc. I don't do this real often but it does work. Otherwise like Vaughn I turn to about 1" thick walls, soak in DNA for 24 to 72 hrs. 72 hrs is when I forget I have one soaking and it does not hurt it at all. Then wrap in brown grocery sack, cut opening in the bowl part like Stu's pictures, let dry for 2 ot 3 weeks and return to the lathe to finish turning. You got lots of free wood and lots of ideas give'em all a try.

Westley

Hi, it does my heart good to hear or see a younger person get into woodworking. I'm 63 years and have spent most of my life logging or carpenter work. I just bought my first lathe a few weeks ago and so am also new to turning. "they just love to see someone fall over the edge around here" I would give anything to be able to have started turning at your age, knowing what I know now. Hang in there and keep turning and asking questions. Everyone around here loves to help.
PS: you'll be surprised how quick that shop will come. Jack

Welcome to the family Westley!

Vaughn, the hinge screws I used are from a commercial door set. They are #3 phillips and a bit larger than the normal residential hinge screws. They are also not brass, I believe they're actually stainless. Anytime I do any finish work at the job I save every piece of door hardware I can get my hands on I think it's nice to always have the selection, and I definitely have a bunch of those n just thought they worked nice. But I will for sure take your advice on the sheet metal screws with green wood!

Bernie, out of curiosity I will also try that method of yours. When you say take the bowl from start to finish and soak it in Danish or Antique oil, are you talking about when it's green? And this also keeps it from cracking? Or is this just a way to keep a dried bowl from warping because of the thin walls? Also, could I apply Salad Bowl Finish after the oil and still get the same, safe finish with it that will allow me to eat from it? You are right about lots of wood, so I will try your method along with many others. Thanks!

And thanks for the inspiration Jack! Yup I love doing this stuff, always have, and it's in my blood! Hopefully by me starting at this age I can get a bunch of hours in and retire at, oh... 40? No, but I do hope to dip out a little earlier than usual. I'd love to have a nice shop set up and just do some nice woodworking on the side by the time I retire... man is that a long time away

Westley, don't let the "Salad Bowl Finish" name fool you. Pretty much all finishes are food safe after they have cured (generally 72 hours is enough). Salad Bowl Finish is really just another wipe-in varnish. It's a fine finish, but you do have other options for pieces that will come in contact with food.

Welcome to the family, Westley.
Hope you enjoy it here as much as I do.

Welcome, you've come to a great place. Lots of help here. I have to fight myself all the time because I love to turn, but, I can't afford to fall over the edge. It can get expensive, and there are an endless amout of tools and gadets that would be great to have. I keep trying to make a list, prioritize, and stay patient about what I need.

Keep us posted on your progress.

Well, I went out at got a bunch of DNA and some other things, and here's a pic of where the bowl sits actually that was last night, but I let it stay in there for about 24 hrs and took it out today and it's now drying. The walls remain crack free so far, although there is now a hair thin crack in the bottom of the bowl that you can JUST see light through, so I'll have to seal that up somehow. Any thoughts on how I could do that?

Then I went on to the Bloodwood... man on man did that take a long time to rough into a smooth cylinder (and much sharpening)! This stuff sure is tough (me being a rookie to this has somethin to do with it too ) but I was just wondering if you guys have ever played with it before? I'm having second thoughts on making a bowl out if it 'cause that sure is going to take awhile for me. Maybe I'll just do a nice candle holder or somethin? But anyway, I thought I'd take a pic for you guys to see the cool color. The second bloodwood pic also shows a cool yellowish area in the log. And as the last pic shows, this stuff sure leaves bright red dust all over the place!

Thanks again guys!

Westley