Roughing Turning Blanks?

[Kevin Gerstenecker]

I have a pretty substantial stash of wood for turning, and more trees down at the farm due to a storm that blew thru last Friday. I have cut my log sections "ala Bill Grumbine" style that he shows on his Website. My question is what is the best way to rough these out for future turning blanks? Should I just rough them into flat "Discs" of a thickness I desire, and let them dry with the end grain sealed? I want to get some prepared for turning down the road, and being a Greenhorn, I need some advice on how to do so. Thanks in advance for any and all help.
(By the way, I am not sure of what type of trees are down, but there are maybe 6 to 8 good sized ones. Sent my Son to check it out, and when I asked him what type of trees they are, he said "The ones with Leaves"!) :D

[Jason Roehl]

I have cut my log sections "ala Bill Grumbine" style that he shows on his Website. My question is what is the best way to rough these out for future turning blanks?

Kevin, for roughing out, Mr. Grumbine explained to me that you should turn the outside to pretty much the shape you want (you may have to true it up a little when it's dry, then you want to hog out the inside so that you are left with a bowl (or other piece) that has a thickness 10% of the overall diameter of the piece. Thus, if you rough-turn a 10" bowl, you need to make it 1" thick until it is dry and ready to be finished. Then, there are multitude of ways to prepare it for drying, from coating the endgrain with Anchorseal or similar, to putting it in a brown bag, the dish detergent thing, boiling, etc. for 6 months to a year. (I'm by no means an expert on any of this, I'm just relaying what others have told me).

[Steven Wilson]

If you don't know what you want to make out of a piece of wood then leave it alone but seal the ends. Some wood will age nicely, some will start to rot so keep an eye on it. If you know what forms you want to turn out of the piece then you can prep it with a chainsaw and/or bandsaw then rough turn it as mentioned above. My preference is to rough turn it while wet and leave it 10% thick, sometimes with glue blocks attached. Then I mark the piece with the date, pack it full of shavings and stuff it into a brown bag. After 6 months I pull the blank out and leave it on the shelf or turn the final form. Packing with shavings usually prevents the piece from further cracking, but not always (depends on the wood); expect some firewood (10%). I am interested in the boiling method one of these days.

[Bill Grumbine]

Hi Kevin

When I prepare my blanks for storage, I do it in a couple of different ways. If I slab the wood, I anchorseal it on the ends and about two inches down on either end wherever there is cut wood. If I cut it round, I rough it as soon as possible. I don't like to leave the wood in flat disc form, as it always seems to crack and turn into firewood or a much smaller bowl.

Good luck with it.

Bill

[Kevin Gerstenecker]

Thanks Jason, Steven and Bill. I appreciate the advice and suggestions. I have slabbed most of the wood I cut, and sealed the end grain. I think I will just leave it as it is to dry. I have some Elm that was standing dead for about 1 1/2 years, and it is already pretty dry. There is still enough moisture in the wood for the turnings to distort a little, but there has been no cracking, the bowls just get a little out of round. Most folks don't even notice, but I can see it. I would imagine after a couple of months it will be dry enough to eliminate that distortion thing. I haven't done the LDD soaking technique yet, and I have read both pro's and con's about it, so I am not sure whether to try it or not. Anyway, thanks again for the suggestions.............I think I will just be more patient and let the wood dry a little more..........which is at times hard to do! :D