hearing bowls drying

Re: hearing bowls drying

Barry Irby

I have not heard bowl blanks drying. I would be concerned about cracks because the only thing I ever heard like that was I put some pieces of walnut flat stock in the back seat of my car (in cool weather) and a little while later heard "CRACK" and one of the pieces had split nearly in two.

Re: hearing bowls drying

Bill Howatt

Sounds are generated when things move and cracking sounds are a concern. There may be no visible cracks but they can still be there and open later when the wood is worked again.

Bill

Re: hearing bowls drying

robo hippy

Very common on thin turned madrone fresh out of the microwave. You have to hold it up to your ear, but kind of like muted Rice Krispies...... One theory is cell walls breaking down to release the 'entrained' water.

robo hippy

Re: hearing bowls drying

Lyle Jamieson

Agree, Chris Ramsey had me listen to one of his hats drying. Thin walled under stress of shaping the hat. By sticking the hat up to your ear the sound was very evident.

Re: hearing bowls drying

Dick Coers

Certainly not as imaginative as putting a shell up to you ear and hearing the ocean! There are 17 fresh bowls in the kiln, so lots of rice crispy sounds!

Eucalypts do

Geoff Whaling

Dick,

Eucalypts grown in wet locations start making drying noises as soon as you fell them. Some of the cracking noises can be heard over an idling Stihl chainsaw even when wearing hearing protection.

In Townsville FNQ I regularly hear the drying noises in our dry winter months as our humidity varies wildly from about late May through to early November. Can be 60% plus one day and down to less than 10% overnight. I suspect some of the noise is from the blanks creeping against each other when stacked together. AS the dimensions change the stack moves slightly.

Re: hearing bowls drying - and finishing

Rum

I had an 16" calabash bowl that had fully dried and I was getting ready to finish it. I was using water borne poly and poured a small dolop into the inside and swirled it around. Well the bowl started making the most horrible cracking noises as the inside soaked up some of the moisture and created adifferential with the outside. I quickly put some on the outside and it stabilized it enough that it stopped making exploding sounds. The bowl (somewhat contrary to expectations at the time) survived and has had no visible cracks open up so I'm not actually sure where the wood was moving. Since then I've put the finish on the outside first (and mostly don't used the water born stuff anyway, it was an experiment).