Alcohol drying bo-bo

Re: Alcohol drying bo-bo

Ron in Drums PA

>It might be too cold in your garage. If you are placing the bowls in your garage to avoid the smell, it might be a good idea to bring them back into the warmth after a day or two. I don't know how cold it is in Michigan, but in my part of Pennsylvania it is 1 degree, colder if you add the wind chill factor.

Also, I wrap about six layers of newspaper on the outside for about a week then remove the paper and let them sit for another week. I also make sure air can circulate around all sides of the blanks.

Re: Alcohol drying bo-bo

Robert Cox

>Are you thinking freezing is locking the moisture in?

Re: Alcohol drying bo-bo

Ruth IN So. CAl

>Pete, I think that you may have soaked them too long....about 2 hours is what I have read and just tried. I rough turned some palm last week, keep it outside but bring it in every day to weigh it. It is still loosing weight so I am thinking at least another week or so for a total of about 3 weeks.

ruth

Re: Alcohol drying bo-bo

Pete L

>I had read in some threads that there was thought not to be too long of soak time, but apparently not. Will only soak for a couple hours next time, and the comment about freezing the wood may have been a good point. What moisture still locked in may have frozen and stalled the drying process. Have 5 white oak bowls that were soaked about 6 hours each, wrapped with 2 layers of un-printed news paper stock, turned upside down on an open rack, and siting in my basement shop. Started that process about a week ago. Will be aquiring more wood this week, and will do the 2 hour soak on those and store indoors.

What type of scale are you folks using to measure the bowl weight? I assume an electronic digital scale is needed, due to the small amount of fluctuation in weight that is being measured?

Thanx for your help and concern for fellow turners.

Pete

Re: 2 hrs. is thought to be the minimum time.

Al Crandall

>If you read the article archived in the Turning Tools and Techniques articles section of Wood Central you will find the following quote by the author, Dave Smith: "Once the bowl is roughed out it is submerged in denatured alcohol for at least 2 hours. Larger, thicker bowls need to soak longer to ensure good penetration of the alcohol. Longer soaking time does not appear to damage the wood."

I suspect that those cracks were present in a very un-noticible almost microscopic size before you submerged the blanks.

I have spent some time at the elbow of our club president, Duane Leach, and he is the best at discerning Small cracks in a turning. He would point out the tiniest flaw in the wood and remind me that I won't like the results after drying if I didn't take some more off to remove those cracks. The things I was overlooking and he was finding was just blowing me away. I can't argue with his success rate.

Re: Alcohol drying bo-bo

Fred Le Bail

>I am having the same trouble attempting to dry Ash bowls. I have @20 blanks of different types of wood that have been soaked,and the only ones that are cracking are the ash.The Spalted Maple and Birch ones are doing fine. Turmed a Spalted Maple on Saturday and it finished up great . It could be the temperature which yesterday was -24 C .But again all of the peices are in the same spot.

Re: Alcohol drying bo-bo

Mike Schwing from Md.

>It makes no sense to me to suggest that there may be a maximum soak time where damage would occur to cause cracks.

I have used and observed this alcohol drying process for long enough to have some experienced opinions. We have heard from scientists here about what happens to water and denatured alcohol (DNA). They tell us that the water is replaced by alcohol and if the bowl soaks long enough all of the water will be replaced. No one has suggested any cell damage occurs from the soak so I have ruled that out of my personal equation.

I have also observed that the woods I have soaked feel "fake" to me after drying and the best I can come up with is that the alcohol is dissolving the oils in the wood and carrying them away along with the water.

All we are doing is replacing a substance (water) with another substance (DNA) that evaporates more readily. This will lead to quicker drying.

Cracks, as I understand them, occur when the drying rate differential between the inner and outer surfaces is too great and the strength of the wood to resist the stresses generated is too great to absorb the stresses by changing shape without cracking.

It makes sense to me that if we have replaced all of the water with DNA, then the drying rate differential will be less dramatic than if there was still water left in the deeper reaches. The alcohol is wicked out of the deeper structure as it evaporates from the outer just as the water would be - but the alcohol should wick out more quickly - with _hopefully_ less cracking.

Personally - my observations have been that woods tend to crack when they are dried too rapidly - whether that is done with alcohol or with water or wax or paper bags or microwaves. I do believe that alcohol soaked bowls - with long soak times, seem to be a bit more stable than simply left exposed, but I have seen absolutely no difference in the success rate versus anchorseal/wax - it just doesn't take as long. I think the risk factors are all still present and this should not be thought of as a "cure all" drying method. I also see no difference in the warpage factor.

If we seek to get rid of some of the water in a bowl with alcohol, then why not ALL of the water? A short soak makes no sense to me at all. I don't need to be a scientist to know that the alcohol is not going to permeate a wet bowl in just a few hours, just like a marinade only soaks a few millimeters in a steak. I have left bowls in the drink for a week with no problems.

I would tentatively suggest that you can get away with roughing your alcohol soaked bowls to a sligthly thinner wall than normal - and this thinness will allow for greater wall flexibility to resist cracking, too.

All that said - I'm done with alcohol soaking. I'm just not in a hurry, I've seen no better success rate, and I see no long term advantage to storing buckets of alcohol.

Now, if someone can come up with evidence that the alcohol is somehow destructive to the cell structure, all of the above changes.

Re: Alcohol drying bo-bo

Ron in Drums PA

>Alcohol doesn't freeze. But the cold may slow down the alcohol's evaporation.

Re: Alcohol drying bo-bo

jim ketron

>Fred Have you tried any of the Ambrosia maple that you have got from me yet? I have had great success using the alky method on my bowls I always let mine soak for around 24 hrs

Jim

Re: Alcohol drying bo-bo

Fred Le Bail

>Jim , I haven't tried them yet. I am trying to get the coring system down pat before I chuck up those Beauts'. They should be large enough for 2 blanks.

Ash is the only problem so far in the Alky bath and I think that has to do with wall thickness. I turning them thinner now. See how that goes.

Fred