>I live in the Calif. desert. Reading this board makes it clear green wood is the way to go. However,
I was just given access to a lot full of cut timber that belongs to a tree removal service. I brought some home and cut it. Very dry. I'm not experienced but judging from the weight, appearance and difficulty to cut I'd say it was the equivalent to kiln dried lumber. I really want to practice with it and I need to know if there are special methods of working with dry wood, special gouges,etc.
Advice will be greatly appreciated. There is enough wood available to keep me busy for a very long time.
>Wear dust protection and go at it. If you turn the rpm up too far your tools will get too hot to hold so keep the revs down a bit and keep your tools sharp, (often). Trial and error will teach you how to go from there.
That's not at all clear to me. Green wood is fun to turn, real easy to cut, and can result in some interesting natural edge works. It can provide nearly instant gratification for the turner. It is also far cheaper (usually free) and more readily available - try to find a dry bowl blank 8" thick! However, it also can be very messy and the turned object can split and warp easily. And you can't make things like threaded boxes from green wood if you want the lid to actually fit on the box.
Turning dry wood is more work but necessary if you want round objects instead of ovals. Note that even green wood turners often turn dry wood - rough out a bowl from green, let it dry for a year, then finish turn to get a stable piece.
I love to turn dry wood. I just work a bit slower and may have to take smaller cuts with very sharp tools. It's more work than green but that doesn't scare me. I recently turned a bowl from bone dry Lyptus, nearly hard as a rock, and it came out great. This was from a blank that someone else gave me because it was "too hard" to turn.
I do tend to use scrapers (and cabinet scrapers) more with dry wood, where I might shear scrap with a bowl gouge with wet wood.
BTW, something I haven't seen mentioned anywhere: I generally use several identical gouges with the same grind. When one gets too hot to hold, I switch to a cool one! This also doubles the turning time between sharpening and sharpening two identical tools on the Tormak is very quick. Another advantage is I get to buy more tools!
(And some time I'd love to trade some green East TN wood for some bone dry desert wood!)
>Ken, most of us turn both. I cut my own blanks from fallen trees. They're wet when I rough them out, and then they sit on a shelf till they're dry and stable. They are then turned to final shape and finished - but at that point it is "dry" turning. All of my bowls go through this process, so I get to enjoy both wet turning and its related messes, and dry turning with its finished results.
Most of us here do this. An exception would be segmented turners, and a lot of platter turners are able to work with dry lumber anywhere from an inch to 2 or so thick, since that can be found at lumberyards.
I have platter blanks that were roughed wet drying just like a bowl, and I also have 2 24" wide, bone dry 1" thick purpleheart boards from a lumberyard waiting to become giant purple platters.
Practice on that dry stuff, it isn't that much different. Take the advice of the 2 guys who have replied above mine.
I started hollowing the newly acquired lumber and it's going slow. I drilled a hole down the center and started enlarging it working from left to right.
A neighbor suggested soaking the logs in water to add moisture. Is this feasable or a bad idea?
>Don't add water. (Wasn't there a movie about that a long time ago?) Okay, you could soak the pieces if you want to, but why? Dry wood doesn't have the nice long curls that wet wood does - but you don't get splattered. You also don't have to worry as much about distortion as the bowl or turned work sits.
You say you were given a bunch of pieces from a tree removal service? Fine - it isn't the equivalent of kiln dried wood. Even in Palm Desert, it would take a while (1 year or more) for a large thick piece to lose it's moisture. The inner part is still somewhat "green". My $0.02.
>Another advantage of more than one bowl gouge sharpened the same is that someone starting out can quickly learn when a tool is dull.
Sharpen both tools before you start turning. When you don't get the easy cut you want it could be bad technique or it could be a dulling tool. If you have to go to the grinder to freshen the edge you might lose the feeling you were questioning. But if you have a known sharp tool at hand you can easly tell if it's technique or a dull tool that is causing the more dificult action of the tool.
