What constitutes "Green" wood?

[Bob Borzelleri]

My initial take is that green wood is green because it has a higher moisture content than dried or aged wood. But that view doesn't necessarily answer the question of how long to keep green wood that has been purchased for later turning.

Where I have wood in my shop that is older than a lot of stuff I can think of, and that is a good thing, I'm not sure how to think of storing wood for turning. Is it simply a matter of breaking out the moisture meter or is there something else I'm missing?

[Steve Schlumpf]

Bob - the best way to store green wood for turning is to seal the ends and leave it in log form with as much length as possible. When you want to rough out a piece - cut just the blank off the log and reseal the fresh-cut end. The whole idea here is to slow down the loss of moisture so that the wood does not check (crack) on you. Once you have roughed out your turning there are a number of different ways to dry it - DNA, paper bag with shavings, microwave, refrigerator kiln - you name it but again the idea is to control the loss of moisture to prevent the wood from cracking.

Does that answer any of your questions?

[Jim King]

I am assuming you are fairly new to turning. My experience says that just about every blank out there should be considered green and handeled as if it were green. In the wood business generally speaking anything over 8 to 14 % moisture content would be considered green.

Green simply means it is going to dry more and probably crack. This is the reason that blanks are waxed to keep the moisture in and release it slowly. Drying blanks thicker than 2" thick needs patience. Most people don´t have patience so they rough turn a bowl to a wall thickness of 3/4 to 1" thick and then dry it down to an acceptable level of moisture content.

Drying a rough turned bowl can take many forms, as Steve said paper bags, shavings, microwaves, witchcraft etc.. My personal favorite is boiling the rough turned blanks for a few hours and taking them out of the water the next day to dry. They dry quite fast in a refrigerator kiln or simply in front of a fan without cracking. This is about a 30 day process and is easy to do. If you boil to many hours it doesn´t hurt anything, if you dry in the kiln or in front of the fans to long it doesn´t hurt anything.

The only way to screw up is be in a hurry. PATIENCE is the key. All that said know can someone tell me why limbs dont crack in the forest when they are drying ?¿

After processing and shipping over half a million turning blanks over the years this is the best advise I have to give.

Here is a good link.

http://www.woodturners.org/tech_tips/misc-pages/boiling.pdf

[Rick Hutcheson]

All that said know can someone tell me why limbs dont crack in the forest when they are drying ?¿



My guess is that there are no cut off ends on the wood so the only way for it to dry is slowly through the bark.

[Bob Borzelleri]

Steve and Jim...

Thanks for the helpful replies. Yes, I'm new enough at this to be able to admit that I am now five days into ownership and have yet to touch wood to the lathe.

Most of the delay has been in deciding to read and gather sufficient information to understand the physics and safety issues associated with turning. I've read Rowley's book twice and that's where I started thinking about the differences involved in turning green vs. seasoned wood.

It had appeared that the conventional wisdom held that turning green wood was the thing to do as it was easier to work and easier and cheaper to obtain. While that made some sense with blanks for bowls where a lot of material has to be removed, it didn't seem logical to shape spindles from wood stock that has a lot of movement left in it so I started looking for more seasoned wood to experiment with.

A local exotic wood supplier gave me some 3x3 walnut stock to work with. It is a few years into seasoning. He also showed me a 16" walnut bowl that had been turned to about 3/4" and was drying prior to being finished. It has been "resting" for about 8 months.

A lot of new found knowledge over the past 5 days...

Thanks again.

...Bob

[Steve Schlumpf]

Bob - if you want to start playing with spindle turning - just grab a short piece of 2x4 and rip it in half lengthwise making a 2x2. The pine is a cheap wood to experiment all the different cuts on. Personally - I would put the Walnut away until I knew a little more about turning and then use it for something really nice!

Have fun with it!

[Bob Borzelleri]

Bob - if you want to start playing with spindle turning - just grab a short piece of 2x4 and rip it in half lengthwise making a 2x2. The pine is a cheap wood to experiment all the different cuts on. Personally - I would put the Walnut away until I knew a little more about turning and then use it for something really nice!

Have fun with it!

Steve...

I guess great minds work along similar channels. After I got home with the walnut, my wife said, "are you sure you want to practice on those?"

I'm convinced. Time to rip some 2x4s.

...Bob