HELP!! Quick before it cracks

[Brian Brown]

I got some poplar from my neighbor as he was heading for the landfill. I am not a poplar fan, but I figured it would be good for practice as I am just begining. I started my first NE bowl figuring I would throw this piece of boring wood away after I got some practice. Surprise, Surprise, Surprise! The wood inside was gorgous!!! There is a little bit of curl, and some nice grain. I have read in the distant past that you can turn a bowl to finished thickness on the lathe, and the friction from sanding will dry the thin wood. I finish turned this piece to less than 1/8 inch. Except for the foot, you can see light through the walls. The artical read that when the piece is finish sanded, you put a finish on and the wood will dry very slowly and evenly afterward. I called my mentor, and he had read a similar article, but hat never tried it. Does anyone have any experience they can share before this cracks. I am most concerned about the foot, where the wood is much thicker. Without finishing the top side of the bowl, I can't really reverse it and finish the foot. Do I use oil base or water based finish or what? I need something I can get localy in a small town. Where do I go from here.
Thanks,

Brian

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Brian...one of my favorite finishes is Zinsser's dewaxed shellac.....Bulleyes Sealcoat IIRC.....It will say on the front "100% dewaxed shellac".....It goes on easy....can be applied on or off the lathe. I get mine at the local Ace Hardware here in Lewiston.

Yup....that's one of the things I like about turning....You don't know what's inside a piece of wood until you get there....

Good Luck!

[Bill Wyko]

I found on one piece of Eculiptus burl that when I put Deft gloss finish on the outside and not on the inside It shrunk to the center which tightened up the piece. It was 3/4 inch at this stage though and it did distort too but it didn't crack. In the end it turned out very nice though.

[George Tokarev]

Devotees of Norfolk Island Pine turnings routinely soak the piece green in an oil bath. The oil won't cure well until the piece has dried somewhat, but the immiscibility of oil and water will slow things down a bunch, while protecting the piece from mildew. Most folks remove from the oil bath and wipe/drip the goo (oil/water emulsion) off, then reimmerse and repeat a few times.

On a very positive note, your location indicates you may have true poplar, rather than the magnolia masquerading under the same name. True poplars are almost bulletproof in drying, in my experience. They will move, of course, and a bit randomly, due to the interlocked grain that yields the shimmer. Soaking in oil after drying, curing, and topping with a regular varnish makes a nice effect on thin aspen (poplar). I set them out in the sun so that people can see the pattern on the tabletop change as they turn it around. They sell well.

Fun to turn when they're so thin and wet they almost flop, aren't they? Reinforcement with a wrap of low-tack masking tape covered by duct tape will help stabilize them once you get around a quarter inch thickness. I've also heard of folks using the self-adhering Saran-type wrap you get in home centers.

[Brian Brown]

I'm not sure if this is considered a true poplar. It is from a hybrid poplar that is really popular here as a landscape tree because it is fast growing, and somewhat drought tolerant. Because it grows so fast, the growth rings are very thick.

Brian

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Pretty little NE Brian! Very pretty!

[Bernie Weishapl]

I soak my immediately in one of these oils which are Minwax Antique Oil Finish, Watco Teak or Watco Danish oil, or Minwax Tung Oil. I have only did 9 NE from cherry to mesquite but not one has cracked using the above. Good looking NE. Nice job.

[George Tokarev]

I'm not sure if this is considered a true poplar. It is from a hybrid poplar that is really popular here as a landscape tree because it is fast growing, and somewhat drought tolerant. Because it grows so fast, the growth rings are very thick.


Almost certain that it is a true poplar when you say that. Populus species, of the willow Salix family. The other "tulip polplar" is a member of the magnolia family.

In my experience, all of the members of the family Salix turn pretty much the same.

With the bark up configuration your sides will pull away rather than press down on the bottom, so you'll end up with a convex, rather than concave configuration. Get some of the width out of the way. Thickness doesn't mean much except as greater mass lowering the center of gravity. Doesn't affect drying or warp much. Check figure 3-3 at http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fplgtr/fplgtr113/ch03.pdf for the way wood warps. The chapter also has the basic data on average distance by species, for those times when you're using TDT methods and want minimum dry times, and EMC/RH tables to tell you how many wraps to put around it.

[Glenn Hodges]

Brian, if that was mine this is what I would do: cut off the bottom or sand it where you would like the bottom to be, sign it, spray it with light coats of laquer, let it cure for a couple of days and buff the laquer lightly. When I sand the bottom of a green wood natural edge I make sure I sand the center much deeper than the sides because I may have to come back and relevel the bottom. These high sides of the bottom will allow me to resand the bottom and not remove any of what I originally wrote on the bottom. Check it in about a month to see if the bottom is still level, if not sand it level, and respray the bottom where you had to resand with laquer.

[Dennis Peacock]

Greetings Brian,

Very nice NE Poplar piece you have there. Poplar is a great practice wood, but if you search this forum, you'll find many poplar pieces and some with very nice color to them. This is a bowl (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=39172) that I did a while back and it's poplar. All I did was leave the log sitting on one end inside my shop for about 8-10 months. The colors and spalting were very, very nice IMHO. So....don't "conclude" that Poplar is just a good practice wood. The bowls of mine that have been most admired? You got it....Poplar. :D

[Glenn Hodges]

It is easy to tell one about how to do something, but another thing to show it. I went out to my paint room and got one of my small wild black cherry bowls that was turned yesterday and sprayed with multiple coats of lacquer but has not been buffed. To help you understand how it looks in reality understand it is small, 8.75 in. in diameter X 4 inches tall. I find the lacquer retards drying which helps prevents cracks. I do not do this on regular bowls. I hope this helps.