Wood Sealer

[Wally Dickerman]

Every woodturner should have a supply of of woodsealer in his/her shop. The most well known brand is Anchorseal. Some woodstores have it under their own brand name. It is much better than subsitute products such as latex paint, shellac, etc.

Anchorseal is designed to seal the wood to slow the drying process. This is necessary to help avoid cracking. I have a problem understanding turners who go to the trouble to bring wood into their shop and then make little or no effort to protect the wood to keep it from cracking.

I spend part of my summers in the Northwest where I'm originally from. I usually buy a 400 or 500 lb. pallet of burl and figured maple and madrone. There are lots of suppliers there. As soon as I receive it in my shop in hot, dry Arizona I get busy and cut some of it into blanks. I immediately seal all of it with Anchorseal. I seldom have cracking problems. If I have wood that is prone to cracking, such as fruit woods, I seal it and put it in brown paper bags for a few weeks to further slow the drying process.

With woods that are partially dry, or woods that are not very prone to cracking, just sealing the endgrain is all that's really necessary.

Wally

[Steve Schlumpf]

Every woodturner should have a supply of of woodsealer in his/her shop. The most well known brand is Anchorseal. Some woodstores have it under their own brand name. It is much better than subsitute products such as latex paint, shellac, etc.

Anchorseal is designed to seal the wood to slow the drying process. This is necessary to help avoid cracking. I have a problem understanding turners who go to the trouble to bring wood into their shop and then make little or no effort to protect the wood to keep it from cracking.

Good advice Wally!

Just my opinion but the turners that do not have anchorseal in their shop are all very new at this and have never had to worry about green wood before. Hopefully, with all the questions on this subject lately - folks will understand the necessity of having a good woodsealer in their shop!

[Bernie Weishapl]

Wally I have to agree with you and the great advice. I attended a demo given by Mike Mahoney awhile back. He talked about using anchorseal on logs, cut blanks and he anchorseals his bowls completely. I have about 20 bowls that I started doing with the same process. I weigh them every now and then. So far with locust, walnut, maple, elm, cherry, ash and crab apple wood not one bowl has cracked and all are losing weight in a pretty uniform manner. I also store them as he says on the floor not more than 3 ft high off the floor. If this method works as it has so far then I will continue with it. Yes it does take a little longer to dry but if you have a stash of bowls who cares and besides I don't do production turning anyway. Most of the wood I get in log form as soon as it is cut or as I cut each blank the ends are anchorsealed. I agree with Steve that starting out and having never dealt with green blanks can be daunting. Hopefully all the questions will help.

[Dolan Brown]

Bernie why shouldn't the blanks be stored higher than 3' off the floor?

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Dolan....I suspect because heat rises. It's cooler nearer the floor and it slows down the drying process that way....same reason for painting them with wood sealer.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Ken is correct. Mike said that the air is cooler which also slows down drying. Also he said nearer the floor there is less air flow.

[Donny Lawson]

I have a 4" limb from a plum tree about 4ft long that I want to make pen blanks from and one end is sealed with anchorseal. I have tried to cut some off the other end to see what it would do and within 2 hours it cracks all over.Is this normal or is it just way too wet? I wanted to saw it into strips but if it cracks like that I will loose it all to cracking.It was cut about 2 months ago so it is still very green.Should I just seal it up and forget about it until summer?
Donny

[Wally Dickerman]

I have a 4" limb from a plum tree about 4ft long that I want to make pen blanks from and one end is sealed with anchorseal. I have tried to cut some off the other end to see what it would do and within 2 hours it cracks all over.Is this normal or is it just way too wet? I wanted to saw it into strips but if it cracks like that I will loose it all to cracking.It was cut about 2 months ago so it is still very green.Should I just seal it up and forget about it until summer?
Donny

Why seal just one end? Any cracking there? Cut off the unsealed end beyond the cracks and get some sealer on it. Actually, fruit wood is very bad for cracking and plum is one of the worst....good luck.

Wally

[Greg Just]

I always keep a gallon around for that unexpected find of green wood. The woodturning club I belong to buys it by the 55 gallon drum and sells it for $10 a gallon - a really good deal. I always seal both ends.

[Leo Van Der Loo]

I have a 4" limb from a plum tree about 4ft long that I want to make pen blanks from and one end is sealed with anchorseal. I have tried to cut some off the other end to see what it would do and within 2 hours it cracks all over.Is this normal or is it just way too wet? I wanted to saw it into strips but if it cracks like that I will loose it all to cracking.It was cut about 2 months ago so it is still very green.Should I just seal it up and forget about it until summer?
Donny

Donna if you let it sit in round wood it will all split, maybe not in the next few weeks, but it will split.
Best is to cut that branch into oversized pen blank size pieces and then seal at least the ends of every piece and sticker them and let dry, since it is plum it likes to split more so than say Ash or Maple, so it might be a good idea to seal the pen-blanks totally, it will still dry, just slower and with less degrade.

[Mark P. Brown]

Last time I was in woodcraft I looked at some of their wood blanks. There blanks are fully coated except for a small diamond on all four sides of the blank.
Mark

[Curt Fuller]

Another thing I've found that makes sealing easier is to store your sealer in something like a 1 gallon ice cream bucket. Then instead of trying to paint the ends you can just dip them in about 1-2". If you want to seal the entire piece you can roll it around in it. Just remember to put he lid back on so it doesn't get too thick.