Knowledge You Can Build On — Est. 1998
Topic for 05/04/05 Drying, Alcohol or Kiln?
tdaniel
>Which is best...kiln drying in a small, inexpensive home-made kiln or soaking in denatured alcohol? We'll try to compare costs, benefits, limitations, etc. Any other means of drying can also be discussed. We'll open the line at 9pm eastern and start the topic at 9:30. As always, we'll end the topic at 10:30 and accept questions or comments on anything turning related as long as anyone is standing.
TD
Re: Topic for 05/04/05 Drying, Alcohol or Kiln?
Dominic Greco in Richboro, PA
>Terry,
Cool! I'll be there.
See ya around,
Dominic
P.S. Thanks for making this a topic
I may have an opinion on this topic.
Dave Smith, Longview, WA
>Hi TD,
First I want to say I won a Mark Kauder bowl 2 years ago at the End of Pond gathering held at Ray Thompsons. A year ago Mark's pieces were already out of my price range.
I find it interesting that there are a lot of opinions about drying bowls but not much testing and data to substantiate claims. Most of the post on the forums about the alcohol drying process pertain to problems encountered drying a bowl. Because of this many people are lead to believe the process is faulty or suspect at best. From the feed back I have received a large number of people are using the process with a very high percentage of success and confidence.
A case in point. Eric Skell sent me data he collected on drying 15 bowls. The types were 8 black ash, 3 white oak, 3 cherry and 1 osage orange. There was a recent post about turning osage orange that I didn't respond to it because I sound like a broken record. Eric turned a 6 1/4" osage orange bowl with 5/8" walls on 4/16. Within ten days the bowl stopped losing weight and had a distortion of 1/16". By inspection Eric's data appears to be in line with my own data and that of other people.
I am interested in the number of people who have tried the process and their comments about it. Unfortunately the chat format does not lend itself to gathering that type of data. I have found that forum poles don't work well either.
I will try to attend the chat this evening. However, I prefer to answer questions rather than debate philosophy.
Dave Smith
Still on the fringe in Longview, WA.
Re: I may have an opinion on this topic.
tdaniel
>Hi Dave
We were hoping you could join us tomorrow night for the chat. Some in our club have had good success with your method but we have also had some failures due to our faults. The biggest problem we see is the cost of the alcohol, by the barrel it is $8 per gallon and another problem is storage space outside the building becuase of the fire hazard if left inside. We"ll try to look at both sides of this and see when and where each should be used.
TD
Re: I may have an opinion on this topic.
Pat Mulligan
>Dave I've been using alcohol for about two months now.All I can say is- it works great for me.Quicker and less distortion.I can't wait to try it on cherry burl.Thanks for putting that info out there. Pat
Re: I may have an opinion on this topic.
TomW In SouthJersey
>I also like the alcohol process. I don't have the patience to let a piece dry for months. This lets me rough it and still be able to finish it while I still have the same design thought in my mind.
Since I've never used any other process I'll look forward to the discussion tonight.
Tom Wright
