Prosessing Wood oh what fun

[Harry Robinette]

Took down tree Sat. and cut into 3 1/2 foot sections,Today cut one sections to rough pieces with chain saw and split with chain saw.Took to shop and cut to bowl blanks, just put last coat of Anchor Seal on.Now there ready for class on Sat..I love teaching beginners Green Bowl class, but man I hate the prep why is it ya gota work to have funnnn.:eek:
Didn't get pic's of tree cutting but had to happen to get wood .I Think!!!
192204

[Greg Just]

It seems that the prep work is the worst part of most jobs, but if done right, it really pays off. Have fun with your class. Maybe you can post some pictures of the results.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Yup - that's a lot of work for folks who can't truly appreciate it until they prep their own blanks! Nice work - time for a break!

What kind of wood is it?

[Jim Sebring]

I hear you, Harry. I've spent about 4 hours over the last two days working on a treasure trove of Apple I got a couple of months ago. Unfortunately, my band saw isn't big enough for a lot of it so I have to saw 'em roundish with the Stihl. Still gotta do more Anchorseal painting tomorrow.

Nice bunch of blanks there. They look a lot like my Apple stuff.

[Chip Sutherland]

I'm looking for what other folks do....Who seals the face grain?

When I saw the pictures, I noticed that the blanks were anchorsealed on the faces. So when I look at these blanks, I'm thinking they will not dry evenly; they are basically only going to dry through the outer bark side only. I would not expect the bark to stay on at all either.

I generally only seal the end grain and about an inch onto the face. I rarely seal the face grain so drying can occur. My reasoning is that I want to retard not stop the drying process so sealing the end fibers is where the moisture leaves first....hence one of the reasons for checking. To my knowledge anchor seal doesn't prevent splitting from natural ring tension release. I don't seem to have major problems that way I do it. So What say ye?

[Dick Wilson]

Dang Harry, you sure treat the beginners right:) Primo wood.....it must make better turners out of them fast. What you might do ( I do ) is take a log to the class and spend 15 minutes showing them how you get it to that point. I don't spend much time talking about grain orientation when it is the first time they have picked up a gouge. My intermediate classes take care of that. Have fun:D:D

[Bill Bolen]

Great idea Dick. I've found a lot of new turners just can't "see" how you get to the bowl blank point until they have seen it done. I onlly seal the end grain on blanks.

[Harry Robinette]

I completely seal them so all the water stays in.Flying water and Curlys really get the new turners going. I started teaching this class 10 years ago with much dryer wood .I was getting maybe 2 come backs to another class. I started using very wet wood 6 years ago I now get 4 to 5 come backs.This works for me.
My wood for myself is coated only on the end grain sides so it drys more evenly .
The wood is Maple
I take one that is a whole log 8", split in half,one half has bowl blank that comes out they can see everything.