Drying green blanks?

[David Tiell]

OK, I know many of you turners prefer partially turning green wood, then drying it and finish turning. I have a question on the process.

I've got some nice green oak burl. Some will be used for a couple bowls. But, I want to send some of it out to be "stabilized" for knife handles. For the stabilization process, it has to be no more than 10% MC. I need to cut it oversize and dry it out before sending it in.

How would you all recommend doing that? I've heard about the shavings in a paper bag thing, but have understood you pack a green bowl in it's own shavings to dry out. If I'm starting with blocks 1 1/4" x 1 1/4" x 6", I don't have all those green shavings. I have LOTS of planer shaving I can pack it with, BUT, should I wet the shavings first, or will they be OK dry, or do you all have entirely different ideas?

Thanks,

DAve

[Scott Conners]

The idea with shavings, paper wrapping or wax coating is to slow the moisture loss down, so the wood dries more uniformly. Cracks happen when one part of the wood dries and shrinks faster than other parts, causing stresses that make cracks. Wood loses moisture much mroe quickly form the end grain, so typically you'd wax coat the ends and sticker the wood to dry. Since burl doesn't really have a uniform end grain, you can't just wax the ends and dry. A thin coat of wax emulsion like anchorseal on all sides, and then leaving to dry in a nice cool place with some air circulation will work, but will probably take more than a year. You could also wrap in paper for a similar effect. To speed it up you might consider soaking the wood in denatured alcohol for 24 hours then paper wrapping or wax coating. This should speed the process up considerably, as the alcohol replaces much of the water and dries much more quickly.

[Barbara Gill]

OK, I know many of you turners prefer partially turning green wood, then drying it and finish turning. I have a question on the process.

I've got some nice green oak burl. Some will be used for a couple bowls. But, I want to send some of it out to be "stabilized" for knife handles. For the stabilization process, it has to be no more than 10% MC. I need to cut it oversize and dry it out before sending it in.

How would you all recommend doing that? I've heard about the shavings in a paper bag thing, but have understood you pack a green bowl in it's own shavings to dry out. If I'm starting with blocks 1 1/4" x 1 1/4" x 6", I don't have all those green shavings. I have LOTS of planer shaving I can pack it with, BUT, should I wet the shavings first, or will they be OK dry, or do you all have entirely different ideas?

Thanks,

DAve

To get wood dried to 10% or less in MD will require more than air drying. You will either need to make a small kiln, have someone dry it in a kiln or dry it in a drier than outside area of the house.

[Sherwood Smith]

I am new to this also. I just turned a small bowl from a block of osage orange that was a bit wet still. The bowl turned out really nice and I left the walls about 1/2 inch thick. Went ahead and sanded it, put a coat of Willaimsburg Wax (lemon oil and beeswax mix) inside and out, then placed in a paper grocery bag packed in claro walnut shavings. I am hoping that between the light waxing, shavings (very dry shavings) and bag it will dry at a proper rate to keep it from cracking at least. If not, well I hopefully will learn from it and do better next time.

[Chris Burgess]

One option could also be boiling them. DONT USE THE GOOD POTS!!!!! From what I read it is 1 hour for every inch. I have never boiled Burl so maybe someone that has can stop me if it is a bad idea. I have boiled many many bowls with great success in a cheap stock pot I picked up. Once it boils let it cool then you can throw it in the paper bag, wrap it in paper, Paper bag and savings, or Anchorseal. When you boil it you cookout the natural sugars and replace w/ water which evaporates more quickly. If you are not in a hurry you could just ancorseal and store it in your shop or even your house until it reaches the right moisture content but like was said it could take up to a year. I have never done the DNA thing but I read a lot of folks having success with that and if you are just doing small blanks it should not take that much. Best of luck.

[Prashun Patel]

I'm new to this, but have turned about 40 green blanks in the past year. I've not had a single crack by rough turning, then coating in a wax emulsion.

[Dan Hintz]

I would go for the alcohol solution here... the pieces you're talking about are thin, so maybe the microwave method would be the fastest (and driest). Haven't tried boiling yet...