Not a good day to turn wet wood.

[John Beaver]

One of the few bad things about living near the ocean in Southern California is the humidity swings. The moisture off the ocean in the morning can get replaced with dry desert air during the day. I work in my garage with the garage door open every day so I am used to keeping everything in paper bags to help alleviate this problem. Today was a perfect example.

At 7am today the outside humidity was 91 percent.
At 1pm today the outside humidity was 11 percent.

You can almost hear the blanks cracking.

[Brian Kent]

I think I'll go check my blanks and the turning I did this morning!

[Mike Cruz]

John, do you mean to tell me there isn't a warning that reads something like this? "WARNING: Humidity fluctuation levels in SOCA are know to the State of California to cause severe cracking in freshly turned wood!!!!" Seems appropriate, don'tcha think? :D

[robert baccus]

Sounds like a personal wood problem to me.

[John Beaver]

John, do you mean to tell me there isn't a warning that reads something like this? "WARNING: Humidity fluctuation levels in SOCA are know to the State of California to cause severe cracking in freshly turned wood!!!!" Seems appropriate, don'tcha think? :D

They call it a Santa Ana wind warning. When we get a high pressure it brings the hot desert air into L.A. It's what spurs the big forest fires. It's bad for bowl blanks --- cut or still on the tree.

[Brian Kent]

And that 91% was cold air coming off the ocean early in the morning.

[Bill Wyko]

a little epoxy and some inlace, problem solved. Can't all be bad, you're having Santa ana winds, that means surfs up.

[John Beaver]

I like the optimism Bill

[Reed Gray]

Reminds me of a story I heard about Del Stubbs turning fresh cut olive when living in Chico, CA. The blanks were cracking, noisily as he was turning them. Having a kids pool to soak them in might have helped.

robo hippy

[Brian Kent]

So tell me about this inlace stuff :D

Turned yesterday morning, at 91%.

[robert baccus]

I keep a spray bottle on the lathe to keep the wood wet & bag it to go eat lunch.

[Mike Cruz]

EEK!, Brian! I'd call that firewood... Not sure you have enough wall thickness to save that one. Unless you cast that entire thing in resin, and then re-turn it. But still...

[Bill Wyko]

This is inlace, wood dye and 5 minute epoxy. Gravy. Put some masking tape on the back, clean it out a little and stuff it full of the epoxy inlace mix. Give it an hour & clean it up with sand paper as close as possible, then put it on the lathe & continue sanding. easy peasy. I might even exaggerate them a little to open it up a bit more, that's what I did on mine.