Suprised by an Interesting Phenomenon

[Christopher K. Hartley]

The other day I had turned a couple of wet Holly bowls and intended to boil them the next morning. Well things didn't go as planned and so they sat out for another 24 hours. By the time I got to them the biggest one had four cracks in the rim and the small one had two cracks in the rim as well. Needless to say I was sick. By that time I had another four vessels to be boiled so into the hot soup they went cracked ones and all. Well you can imagine my surprise and hesitant delight when they came out of the brew with no visible cracks. I figured, "The wood is hot and wet so it probably expanded and closed them temporarily". I was pretty sure they would return as the wood dried. Early this morning after about a week of drying I decided to check them to see how bad the cracks were. Now, before the boil the cracks were wide enough to easily get a piece of dental floss into. Well much to my amazement when I checked there were no cracks visible. I looked very close and could not even find where they were. I put them back into the drying process (Paper Bags) and will continue to check on them from time to time. Hope for the best with me please.:confused: Pics will come a bit later when I see more final results.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Hopefully Chris they will stay that way. It is great that the cracks disappeared. It will be interesting to see if they stay that way. Bad part is if you can't see where the cracks were you can't even CA them. Hopefully they will hold.

[Steve Schlumpf]

I wish you the best on this but my experience has shown me that once something starts to check - it never goes away. Hope it works out differently for you!

[David E Keller]

Sounds like Mr. Hartley may be some kind of tree healer/crack whisperer!:D

[Greg Just]

I would be extremely cautious using that wood. Like leaks in plumbing, cracks just don't fix themselves (my opinion). Good luck and be careful - wear that faceshield!

[Tom Sherman]

Chris some time ago I turned a small form from Bradford Pear. An end grain turning it was, when I was almost finished I noticed a small crack in the very bottom could actually see light when held up. finished it just the same and the crack has closed up never appeared again. Strange stuff this.

[Reed Gray]

I doubt that the wood has grown back together. The boiling relaxed tension in the wood, so it went back to moving more uniformly. The cracks will remain, and if you turn it and give it a tap with your fingers, you will most likely get the dull thud of cracked wood, and not the ring of solid wood. Turn slowly.

robo hippy

[Christopher K. Hartley]

I have no expectations of a miracle but the result I am seeing is indeed somewhat unique to say the least, at least at this point. We'll see what happens in the days ahead.:)

[Jeff Nicol]

Chris, I have some Russian olive that was sitting out and all the ends of the logs were checking badly, but today after 2 days of rain and snow the cracks are all closed up, like Reed says they are still there and may not show again but could weaken the rim, so if you want to make sure put some CA on the rim before you finish turning them, if you use thin it will finde the cracks and capillary action will let the CA flow into the cracks and they will darken. You can do this with some laquer thinner or alcohol as it will flow into the cracks also.

No magic just Moisture,

Jeff