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drying roughed out bowls

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drying roughed out bowls

#1

drying roughed out bowls

jared

>remove 1 for email

Hello I know that this subject has probably been beat to death at times here but I am still learning. I have a new, bigger lathe, PM 3520, so I am turning a lot bigger bowls. I just roughed out two, a walnut and an ash bowl, both 14 inches in diameter. I plan to coat them with anchor seal and then wrap in a couple of layers of newspaper and put them in my house basement which this time of year, in the midwest, in a house with forced air heat, is a dry and warm place. On the smaller bowls, 6 to 8 inch that I previously turned I put the green bowls in a grocery bag filled with wet shavings but this gets kind of out of hand with the bigger ones an requires a lot of storage room and is kind of a mess, shavings all over the basement whch my wife doesnt appreciate.

Does this sound like a good plan? Should I use Johnsons paste wax instead of the anchor seal? I already have a few roughouts that have been given the alcohol treatment but these two blanks have a lot of figure and I want to make sure they dont crack during the drying process. Thanks in advance Jared

Re: drying roughed out bowls

#2

Re: drying roughed out bowls

MikeinCapeMay

>Hi Jared,

Coat the end grain, inside and out with anchorseal, put in a brown paper bag that bears the date of when you roughed the bowl, give it about 3 month to 6 months. Myself, I don't bother with the bag, I simply anchorseal the end grain and put them on a shelf. Some people advocate sealing the entire bowl. I don't agree, the idea is to equalize the drying process, not stop it.

You can also do a search here fro LDD (Liquid dish detergent)drying and alcohol drying.

Re: drying roughed out bowls

#3

Re: drying roughed out bowls

John Lucas

>I do the same as Mike. I've only lost one bowl to checking this year.

Re: drying roughed out bowls

#4

Re: drying roughed out bowls

Mike Rubes, Apex, NC

>Hi Jared,

I'm coming around to Mike's way with the anchorseal. I've been coating the entire bowl, but for some it's been more than a year and the darn things are still wet! :) Like he said, the idea is to equalize, not stop it all together.

Good luck,

Mike

Heading to the shop in Apex, NC.

Re: drying roughed out bowls

#5

forgot to mention

jared

>One other thing I forgot to mention is that the walnut bowl has a band of white sapwood at least an inch wide in some areas around the top. Should it merit any special treatment? the log that it came from had been down for a while, I would guess at least a year judging from the fact that it didnt seem all that wet when I turned it. I dont know for sure how long it had been cut as I got it from a tree trimmers dump site. Thanks for your replies. Jared

Re: drying roughed out bowls

#6

Re: drying roughed out bowls

Mike Schwing from Md.

>I think you might be on the verge of overkill, but you are surely on the safe side. Almost any one of the methods you have described would be sufficient on its own.

I anchorseal the entire rough. I have never had one crack since, and if you believe that wood won't dry through anchorseal, just weigh one after the anchorseal dries, set it outside in the sunshine and low humidity for a few days and weigh it again. Don't take my word for it, do it yourself.

Re: drying roughed out bowls

#7

Re: drying roughed out bowls

Wally Dickerman at Green Valley, Az.

>I use a very heavy coat of Johnson's paste wax. I seldom use paper bags. I have no idea why people put dry shavings in a bag with a roughed out piece. If the shavings aren't dry when you put them in, they soon will be. I almost never lose a piece due to cracking, and I live in hot, dry Arizona.

Wally

Re: drying roughed out bowls

#8

Re: forgot to mention

Dave MacLuskie

>Sometimes that sapwood on walnut will stain brown, sometimes not. In my brief experiments... wet walnut, in shavings will turn sapwood as dark as the heartwood. Anchorsealed and dried turns it a golden brown color that I rather like. Alcohol soak keeps it pretty much white.

The dryer my walnut blanks are getting, the less staining seems to occur, so your dry logs may not have much issue.

Re: drying roughed out bowls

#9

Re: drying roughed out bowls

John Lucas

>Wally

My understanding was the shavings were supposed to create a more humid environment along with less air movement to slow down the drying process. All it ever did for me was create mold. I stopped using that method almost immediately.

Re: drying roughed out bowls

#10

thanks

jared

>thanks for all of the replys and the good information. I just got back in the house. I was out in the shop painting the end grain of my bowls with anchor seal. Jared