Finishing green bowls?

[Kevin J Lalonde]

I've turned several green bowls now and would like to put finish on a bowl. I dont have any dry wood to turn so. Is it possible to put a finish (sand, oil, wipe on poly) any or all of above on a green bowl same day it is turned? Is there a thickness the bowl should be that finishes better when it is green? I enjoy the natural edge bowls and would like to finish one soon, depending on what you all say. Mostly trying to get some gifts for christmas made. Anyways, thanks ahead of time for the answers, you guys really are helpful on here. I've been reading on here a couple of years and there has never been a question that has gone unanswered.

[tom martin]

Kevin,
It is possible to turn and finish green wood the same day. It is more difficult to sand green wood and the finished piece will have a higher probability of checking or cracking and it will probably warp out of the shape you turn ie. a round bowl will turn into an oval.
You can minimize these problems by turning a consistent wall thickness (thinner is usually better), wet sanding, and letting it dry slowly out of direct sunlight and away from direct heat source.
When I started turning I was very impatient and the thought of going from a chunk of firewood to a finished piece in an hour made me ecstatic!( used to do flat work and it was always a few day to completion) I usually used wax for a finish and sometimes oil and wax. I still have some of those pieces and they turned out well. The ones that didn't, ended up were they were destined when I started with them-warming up my shop. Sometimes the warping adds to the character of the piece and there are turners that turn green an deliberately warp a piece in a microwave or oven to get unusual effects!
Your success will depend on the type of wood, how wet it is, how consistent your wall thickness is, and the environment it dries in.
95% of what I turn now is anchor sealed after rough turning and allowed to dry before finishing. I got into the habit of roughing a few pieces whenever I finished one and now have an ample supply of available blanks.
Good luck
Tom

[Reed Gray]

How thick you make them can depend a lot on the wood, but less than 1/4 inch is a bit thin, and up to or thicker than 1/2 inch is too much. I did a few where I would turn them, then blow dry them, and sand and finish. Just too much work. Sanding green/wet wood is messy and time consuming. Sanding dry wood makes dust, but it takes a lot less time. While waiting for the wood to dry, you can turn other bowls. If you put an furniture type oil on green wood, you will not get a good build up, and if it is a surface type finish, it will turn milky. If I am doing a green burl type turning that will warp to the extent that you can't sand it out without losing what looks best about the piece, a penetrating furniture oil, wet sanded in works fine, but you will need more coats after the piece is dry. I use walnut oil for food bowls, and Deftoil for 'art' pieces.

To dry them, I will wrap the outside of the bowls with a layer or two of newspaper, secure it to the rim with some 6 inch stretch plastic film (like you wrap around boxes on a pallet), and cut out the paper on the inside of the bowl. Do round over your rims, and overlap the edges a bit with the plastic. You may not want to overlap if you are doing natural edge with the bark on as this may break off the bark. Masking tape will do.

robo hippy

[Hilel Salomon]

There are several ways to speed up the process of drying. The fastest is using a microwave oven (without letting it get too hot each time you put it on). The problem with this is that you don't want to use a microwave oven that you use for food. With this method, you heat a bowl/whatever for about two minutes at medium strength, wait until it cools down and keep doing this until it is reasonably dry.
The other method many creekers use is the denatured alcohol. You soak the piece for a day and wrap it up (leaving the inside partially open) and keep it for about two weeks.
There are also some woods which do not warp or crack much upon drying.
Lastly, there is the bowl that you don't mind warping because it adds character to the piece.
I'm with you on being impatient, but the cracking finally got me cracking.
Good luck, Hilel.

[Dave Schell]

Another option to speed up drying is to find wood/logs that were cut some time ago (like a year or so) and still sitting around. It will likely have taken on some good character during that time while also losing some of it's moisture. It's still a good idea to rough turn first, let dry a bit, and then come back and final turn the piece. But the drying time will be significantly reduced.

[Rick Hutcheson]

I know you are suppose to let it dry first. But I am the same as Kevin and I want it now. Right now I am doing mostly walnut, some cut within the last 2 weeks other about 5 months ago. I turn the main bowl from the log blank and then I core 2 more out of it.
As soon as I have turned them to about 1/2" wall or less the sanding begins. I start with about 80 grit at 1200-1400RPM. Going this fast the wood seems to clog the sandpaper fast for a little bit. As the surface starts leveling out it seems to dry also. From there I can go on up to 400 about like sanding dry wood.
I the use the finish Arm-R-Seal on the bowl. Seems to dry enough in about 3-4 hours that I can vaccum chuck the bowl and finish the bottom.
There is some warp on a few that is noticable, but over 80% you really don't see the warp with it on the table. I may have 1-2% crack, and many are turned with the pith in the top edge of the bowl. I fact I seem to have less cracks truning green like this that when I rough turn and soak for 4 days in the soap water mixture and then let dry.
Others I have talked to don't seem to have my luck. Maybe it has to do with the humidity in Iowa, but I have been doing it this way year around. By the way I am turning on the average of 6 bowls a day, so this is not just a sometime it works thing. My guess now is it has worked for me on close to 400 bowls to arrive at these figures I used. Here are pictures of 2 days of turning.
http://www.scrollsaws.com/images/Lathe/DeltaLathe/Day331.jpg
http://www.scrollsaws.com/images/Lathe/DeltaLathe/Day329.jpg