Will Alcohol Drying Work on Oily Exotic Woods?

[Philip Morris]

Question:
Does anyone have any experience with alcohol drying of oily woods such as Cocobolo, African Blackwood or any of the various Rosewoods?

Background:
Recently took advantage of WoodCraft’s 25% discount on peppermill blanks (3”x3”x12”), which I plan to turn into lidded boxes. Many of the blanks purchased were varieties of Rosewood and were totally sealed with wax. I assume they are wet inside and will take years to dry thoroughly if left as is.

I have been very successful using Dave Smith’s alcohol drying method on many different species of domestic hardwoods. Was wondering how the oily exotics would respond to this technique.

[Gary Max]

Short answer----No it won't.
Wood is to dense

[Dave Smith]

It seems you have woke me from the dead. I haven't been on any forums for so long that I was treated as a woodturning terrorist. Took awhile to remember who I was let alone my password. Good thing you emailed me or I might still be asleep.

I have not documented drying oily tropical hardwoods. The density of the wood has nothing to do with the alcohol process. When a piece of wood is placed in alcohol the water in the wood will exchange with alcohol in solution until the concentration is equal.

I did document drying a rough turned box. You can find it here. http://alcoholsoaking.blogspot.com/2006/11/yew-box.html

For the box stock you will need to remove the wax before soaking. Cut the stock into box lengths. Soak in fresh alcohol. Coat the ends and about 1/2" up the sides the sides. Stand the pieces on end for drying.

If you try drying the wood using the above method please share your results. With your permission I will post the results on the Alcohol Soaking blog.

Good luck.

Dave Smith
Longview, WA

[Philip Morris]

Dave,
Thanks for the quick response. I actually read your blog on the roughed out Yew box several years ago. I used that technique with what I consider great success (only +/- 5% loss) when roughing out close to 150 box blanks. Just for information, the species I roughed out were Osage Orange, Dogwood, Crape Myrtle, Red Top Photinia, Bradford Pear and Yew. All were green, many of which were limbwood with the pith. Most of my losses were with the Dogwood, but everything else dried with minimal warpage and virtually no losses. BTW, I followed the method of soaking, wrapping and drying outlined in your article exactly.

Couple of follow-up questions:

1. Do I understand that you don't recommend roughing the box out, then soaking, wrapping and drying?

2. When you say coat end and 1/2" up. Do you mean coat with something like wax or Anchorseal after alcohol soaking (so no wrapping with paper)?

Thanks again,
Philip

[Dave Smith]

Since you have already dried rough turned boxes there is no reason not to do it with the tropical wood. Try one you might like it.

Yes coat the ends with an end grain sealer.

Thank you for the feedback on drying rough turned boxes.

Dave Smith
Longview, WA