Drying roughed bowls

Re: Drying roughed bowls

Greg Haugen

Frozen wood won't crack. Green wood has "free" and "bound" water. "Free" water is what slings all over the shop when you turn green wood. "Bound" water is in the cells. Drying is the release of moisture. Freezing locks in the moisture, temporarily, until it thaws. Many people put green wood in the freezer to store it until it's ready to be used. Freezing can also help problematic species with cracking. Freezing ruptures the micro-cellular structure and aids in drying the "bound" moisture in the wood. No harm in freezing wood. If you have any tools in the unheated garage, especially cast iron, be careful and cautious with them freezing. They will break if used while frozen.

Re: Drying roughed bowls

Lyle Jamieson

Good explanation Greg. Im in Michigan and want the cold temps to help me store my wood pile longer. In the heat of summer the wood will crack, check and mold. I agree freezing is a good thing, unless you want them to dry out, than keep them warm.

Re: Drying roughed bowls

Brad Vietje

Hi Brian,

I'm responding after Greg and Lyle, and I'm in complete agreement -- no worries.

Something I can add -- coming from Northern Vermont, so *roughly* the same climate (we're colder and drier than most of Maine, unless you're north of about Houlton) is that you may only need wax + cardboard box for high-shrinkage woods like Apple and Beech, or for high-value or irreplaceable wood. Usually one or the other will work fine.

It all depends on how you store your roughed bowls for seasoning, but I dry mine in an un-heated barn with a dirt floor, so the humidity is pretty high, and I typically just toss 6-8 bowls in a cardboard box (no wax) or place single bowls in paper bags. Often I do nothing other than toss them on the floor, which is often 6" deep in shavings.

2 weeks ago I roughed out a White Birch bowl and left it rather thick, so I could play with carving fluted on the outside when it was dry. I left too much mass in the base (strike 1), and placed it on a 1/4" hardware cloth mesh shelf (strike 2) with nothing covering it at all (strike 3). Well, I'll be darned, I got my first cracked bowl in almost 10 years! DOH! I was clearly asking for trouble, and especially since we had that hot spell before all the rain.

Luckily, I caught it before it had cracked all the way through the end grain, re-mounted it, and finish turned it to about 3/8" thick with a small foot and 2 beads, even though it was still quite damp. Oiled it lightly with Walnut oil, and its drying now (in a paper bag, this time).

Take-home message is that you (and I) can probably get away with pretty lax drying conditions most of the time, unless you have forced hot-air heat, or you store them in a hot, breezy place -- don't sweat it. You'll see that folks in Texas or Arizona have vastly different conditions, and they may need to wax, bag, box, boil, etc... Over time, you'll be able to tell what will work best for you, but some bowls that I waxed during a really wet summer 10-12 years ago got pretty moldy and stained, so I learned to let 'em breathe a little more (good spalting, though).

Safe spinning,

Brad Vietje

Newbury, VT

Re: Drying roughed bowls

Mac Ray

Brian, I am in Maine also, and just toss my roughouts in a brown paper bag and leave them laying around the shop....freezing will not hurt them,,,,really no need to anchorseal or wax them.....

Re: Drying roughed bowls

ebd

Upstate NY here. Still lots of days below freezing. Some roughouts I just bury in the damp chips. Some I wrap in unused newsprint (my wife picked up a bunch of end rols from a printer when she was doinf=g Girl Scout leader duty. Undried exotics that are wax coated I just put on the shelf. I've never had any problem or degradation with letting damp wood freeze.