2 Alcohol Drying Question

Totally submerge for me

Dominic Greco in Richboro PA

>Ron,

I prefer to have the blanks totally submerged. I have found on one occasion that NOT doing this might have resulted in a crack. But this was with some pre-cracked walnut (cracked when I was cutting it to a round on the bandsaw). I would assume that it is better to have the entire surface area of a bowl covered by the alcohol. You'd get an "even" soaking this way.

I have a couple of "clean" bricks (scrubbed them myself I did!) that I keep in my alcohol soaking pot (a huge canning pot from K-Mart). Once I place a bowl in the alcohol bath, I sit a brick on top of it. I need to do this when I dry pen or bottle stopper blanks out as well. But at that point, I take out the wire can "caddy" that came with the canning pot and use that to corral all the pen/bottle stopper blanks. Then the brick goes on top of that.

See ya around,

Dominic

In addition to what Dominic said.

Dave Smith, Longview, WA

>Hi Ron,

Submerging the piece would appear to be the best thing to do. But in a closed container the air will become saturated with alcohol vapor anyway. Beside that, the alcohol will wick into the wood. I seem to have misplaced my data on comparing the difference between totally submerged and floating bowls.

Spindles were part of my original list of questions I had put together over three years ago. It became apparent early on that I couldn't test everything so that was deferred until I could obtain sufficient funding. I have soaked and dried a lot of pen blanks and larger spindle pieces. I have no data to show the process is effective. That said. I soaked and dried some root wood. The wood twisted but didn't split as badly as pieces that weren't alcohol soaked. It takes a real trained eye to differentiate relative damage after drying. I also have resawn wood (holly and apple) and dried them after soaking in alcohol. They dried in a short time with little cracking but they still twisted. I believe it is a good way to dry pen blanks and other small pieces. The operative word is believe. I am not prepared to put my neck on the chopping block with this application of alcohol soaking.

Dave Smith

Neck retracted in Longview, WA.

Thanks

Ron in Drums PA

>I kind of thought total submersion would be best. I used two small rectangle sheets of PVC last nite. The sheets cling to the alcohol's surface and wouldn't let the wood break though.

Also last nite I roughed out two lidded boxes that where spindle orientation, both cherry. I meant to pull them out this morning but didn't have the time.

I'm excited about this process. One of the biggest problems I had as a turner of about a year has been some of the wood I roughed out 4-9 months ago are shapes I am not happy with today. It seems I can turn a blank and finish turning within two weeks. Now the rough blanks will be equal to my skills.

I also see that it would be easier to experiment with shapes. Another problem I had was tying to remember what I was thinking on a blank I roughed out 6 months ago.

Re: Totally submerge for me

Kenny

>Hello, just one question, do you leave the alcohol in the canning pot with just the lid on when not soaking the wood? Thanks for your time.