David DeCristoforo
04-06-2013, 5:12 PM
A while back, I stopped by Brad Adams' shop and he gave me a couple of chunks of madrone burl. I knew the instant I saw them what I wanted to do with them. Only thing is, they were sopping wet. I know there are many who have some distain for accelerated drying processes but I really wanted to try some of them. Thing is, I'm not a young man and I have never been known for extraordinary patience. Time is precious and I am not thrilled by spending it on things like watching wood dry. I am also aware of the fact that madrone is very prone to warping and cracking as it dries and that is not something I am thrilled with either. So I thought I would take a shot at a couple of things with these small pieces.
To begin with, I used Brad's boiling method to stabilize the roughed out pieces. Brad air dries his rough outs after the boiling process. But Brad has mountains of roughouts that have been in various stages of drying for a long time so he pretty much has pieces ready to finish turn at any time. Being somewhat late to the game, I do not have this "luxury". Nor do I have a "stash" of dry wood to work with. So I put my now even more sopping wet madrone through the microwave drying process using the protocol spelled out in Marshall Gorrow's article on the subject. The only thing I bypassed was the weighing, relying instead, on my moisture meter. I know these pin type meters are not hailed for accuracy. But I have found that wood measuring around 12% is "just right" for turning, dry enough to finish turn without cracking or distorting but not so dry as to through off dust instead of shavings.
During the first few cycles in the microwave, the water just pored out of these pieces of wood. There were puddles in the oven and water was dripping from the top. So I dried out the oven after each cycle. I did not record any specific data about times or numbers of cycles but the total time babysitting the process was probably a total of a few hours over several days and in that time this wood came nicely down to an acceptable MC level with no checking and very little distortion.
259215
To begin with, I used Brad's boiling method to stabilize the roughed out pieces. Brad air dries his rough outs after the boiling process. But Brad has mountains of roughouts that have been in various stages of drying for a long time so he pretty much has pieces ready to finish turn at any time. Being somewhat late to the game, I do not have this "luxury". Nor do I have a "stash" of dry wood to work with. So I put my now even more sopping wet madrone through the microwave drying process using the protocol spelled out in Marshall Gorrow's article on the subject. The only thing I bypassed was the weighing, relying instead, on my moisture meter. I know these pin type meters are not hailed for accuracy. But I have found that wood measuring around 12% is "just right" for turning, dry enough to finish turn without cracking or distorting but not so dry as to through off dust instead of shavings.
During the first few cycles in the microwave, the water just pored out of these pieces of wood. There were puddles in the oven and water was dripping from the top. So I dried out the oven after each cycle. I did not record any specific data about times or numbers of cycles but the total time babysitting the process was probably a total of a few hours over several days and in that time this wood came nicely down to an acceptable MC level with no checking and very little distortion.
259215