moisture meter or ?

[Mike Newell]

Just wondering how everyone judges when wet wood is ready to turn. I am new to turning and have been purchasing bowl blanks at woodworking stores and online but they are wet and wax coated usually.

I just had a bowl crack due to high moisture when I turned it.

How do you tell if a blank is ready to turn and do you use a meter?

Thanks for any advise,

Mike

[Dan Forman]

It's ready to turn as soon as it can be attached to the lathe. :)

The thing you really want to know is how to keep it from cracking between roughing out, and final turning once it's dry.

People have different strategies for this, I've had good luck just putting the green roughout in a paper grocery bag, sealing it, and setting it aside to dry for 3 to 4 weeks. Then I take it out of the bag, and let it sit for another couple of months before truing it up and turneing to final shape. Most of the cracking that takes place is due to the rapid water loss of the first few weeks. The paper bag slows this rapid stage down. Remainder of the loss happens slowly enough that it doesn't cause cracking. Usually. I learned this method for Earnie Conover's book on bowl turning. Haven't had a failure yet, but I've only done about 10 bowls since adopting the method.

Some woods like cherry or other fruit woods are notorious for cracking, and these might be better with the end grain coated with anchor seal prior to being bagged. That might extend the drying time to something more like 6 months though.

Some folks use denatured alcohol (DNA) soaks to cut down on the drying time, I'll let them explain that process. I had more cracking with that method, so I don't do it anymore.

If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend Bill Grumbine's DVD Turned Bowls Made Easy. He covers all the steps from harvesting wood to finishing the bowl.

Dan

[Mike Minto]

Mike, as many will tell you here, turning green wood is kind of a crap shoot - to some extent, anyway. I've only been doing it about 2 years, with mixed success.l I've turned maple recently that slung water at me while on the lathe, but I'm guessing that because I turned it so thin (for me - about 1/4") that it dried and warped while still on the lathe, all without cracking. I have cherry blanks that have cracked after being soaked in DNA, finished and sitting on a shelf for a couple of months. I've heard good things about boiling a rough turned blank - never tried it, though. The best luck I've had is turning an even wall thickness, based on the 1/10" for every 1" of diameter, and waiting a good, long time - months. Good luck, and show us pictures of your work, as you progress thru the vortex!

[Mike Newell]

Thanks very much for the comments. I'm definitely buying the video.

Mike

[Jim Kountz]

I went the hard router and built a small kiln to dry bowl blanks. The main downside is you need (or should) have a lot of blanks to dry at one time. The more the merrier. What I did was bought two 8' maple logs about 16-20" in diameter and rough turned and cored both logs. Then I loaded the roughed out bowls in the kiln and dried them in there for about 30 days using a schedule I developed myself after reading hundreds of articles on the subject. The blanks were dry after 30 days and I only lost about 3 to cracking. I did however lose a couple more to mildew and moldy stains that woudnt turn out of them. This came about after stacking the roughed out blanks and leaving them for too long before spreading them out in the kiln. You need to be able to get the blanks in the kiln as soon as possible. My kiln will hold about 100 bowls so its way oversized in reality. I just dont have the time to rough out that many bowls quickly enough to get them in the kiln so I think Im going to modify the kiln with "chambers" so I can do less at one time.