Air Drying Cherry

Re: Air Drying Cherry

Dick Coers

Let's see, it depends on; where you live, how wide the stock is, and how and where you have it stacked. For pepper mill blanks you should rip the stock into 3x3 or similar dimension that you need for your design. Maybe even turn it round to reduce the cross section of the stock. Air dried stock can cause issues with pepper mills if it dries more after final turning. You'll need to move the stock into an attic, after it gets below 20% moisture, for more complete drying to 6-8%. It will be years before it's ready if you leave it in wide slabs.

Re: Air Drying Cherry

Barry L Elder

Start at 2 years per inch of thickness, depending on how you have it stacked and whether you have splits between each board (log). You may not like to wait that long, but it's better than ruining a lot of wood!

IMO, never

GaryG in MD

In my experience, the interior of "thick" pieces of wood 'never' reach equilibrium, where 'never' is up to ten years. DAMHIK!

If you're going to make a box that requires zero movement for the lid fit, first, use only endgrain pieces. Second, treat it like green wood no matter how long it's been drying -- rough it to near the final size and then set it aside for a week or two to let it equilibrate and relieve stresses before final fit turning. ...GG

monitor the moisture

John K Jordan

I'm using dogwood that size now that's been air drying for around 10 years. On the other hand some 3x3 soft ambrosia maple was nearly dry in just months.

You can monitor the moisture: weigh some of the blanks with a sensitive scale every few months and record the weight each time. When the weight quits dropping the wood is as dry as it's going to get in that environment

Alternatively, you can periodically check the absolute moisture content with the oven dry method, a destructive test that involves weighing a sample cut from the middle of a typical block, heating in a oven until completely dry, then weighing again. This is the most accurate way to measure moisture. I took this photo when testing the moisture content of some air-dried ebony. I used a thermocouple to monitor the oven temperature but it's not absolutely necessary, just don't get it too hot.

I use an old toaster oven and these tiny scales:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0012LOQUQ

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002SC3LLS

This might be useful. It has the oven dry method and all about air drying.

https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fplgtr/fplgtr117.pdf

JKJ

Re: Air Drying Cherry

Don Stephan

In the last few weeks this was discussed extensively on the WoodCentral forum. There is an oft repeated guidelines of one year per inch of thickness. Until that discussion I was one of those repeaters. It was pointed out that local conditions can vary widely - average relative humidity, exposure to precipitation, exposure to wind, . . . - so air drying make take more or less than one year per inch. In addition, outside air drying cannot bring wood to a low enough moisture content to be used in a conditioned environment, such as in a residence or business.

Sealing the ends of solid blanks (boards, 2x2's and 3x3's, and similar with Anchorseal or a similar product helps reduce drying checks, and a moisture meter is the easiest way to determine when the wood has dried to a stable moisture level outside (in many parts of the US, 10-12%) to be brought into a conditioned space, and when the wood has stabilized in the conditioned space.

Alternatively one can record the weight of the wood monthly to determine when it has reached stable moisture levels.

Re: Air Drying Cherry

John Jordan

If you rough turn them, they will dry in a matter of weeks. I don't know why more people don't use this approach.Richard Raffan roughs a lot of his boxes.

John

Re: Air Drying Cherry

John K Jordan

>>>...rough turn them...

I always do that for boxes, not only for drying but for a shorter time even when starting with so-called dry wood.

But I've never tried it for pepper mills since they are usually "hollowed" to finished ID with a Forstner bit, at least the way I've made them with the shaft version of the Crush Grind mechanism. I thought a deep hole with Forstner bit needed wood in the center to work properly (but I've never tried it otherwise.)

Perhaps drill a bit undersized then after drying true up the critical dimensions for the mechanism chamber and mating recess for the knob? I'll try that the next time I make pepper/salt grinder sets. (People keep reminding me they are waiting!)

JKJ

Re: Air Drying Cherry

Roger

John,

I have also rough turned box blanks from cherry, walnut, catalpa etc. with good results. I have rough turned box blanks from fresh sawn green cherry and the done the alcohol drying method and never had a problem. I was thinking of sawing some of the cherry into 4/4 and 8/4 and 12/4 lumber for different projects and some into bowl blanks both round and natural edge. I was mainly thinking of the lumber as far as drying time.

Re: Air Drying Cherry

Roger

My natural edge bowls are usually turned green and thin to final thickness and conventional bowls rough turned and then final turning after drying.

Re: Air Drying Cherry

john lucas

I cut a lot of cherry up into blanks for boxes and spindles and mirror blanks last year. I left them about 28" long and cut them into squares from4x4, 3x3 down to x1 and mirror blanks were 1"x 6". Sealed the ends with anchorseal and put them in my wood shed that has pretty high moisture level as when it rains hard water flows through. Of course when it's dry it gets pretty warm in there. Anyway I haven't lost a single piece. that was a year ago. I've turned several spindles from the 2x2 pieces with no problem and they have dried about a year. I turned a couple of boxes from the 3x3. Roughed them out leaving the walls a good a fat 1/2" and let them dry in the shop for a month. Then final turned them. No problem. Usually when I want boxes from wood that I suspect is still green I dry the blanks in the microwave with many low power cycles over a day or so.

Re: Air Drying Cherry

Roger

I have rough turned peppermill blanks, drilling an under sized hole through the center, do the alcohol thing, then "lightly" glue in a dowel to be able to center a forstner bit for final work.

Re: Air Drying Cherry

AZ in Colorado Springs

Drill about 3/8" deep with the forstner bit. That will leave a stub wall (inside the cavity). Hog out other material, let dry, etc. The sides of that hole will provide registration for the forstner bit.

We adapt this technique when building rocking bi-planes for kids. On the wheel, we use a hole saw to cut a circle to simulate a wheel / tire transition. We need the same center point for the hole saw and the forstner bit. So, drill a shallow hole with the forstner bit, then use the center point to guide the hole saw. Then finish drilling a hole for an axle (dowel) with the forstner bit.

Re: Air Drying Cherry

Roger

Thanks for the input.

Starting a Forstner bit.

John K Jordan

>>>Drill about 3/8" deep with the forstner bit. That will leave a stub wall (inside the cavity). Hog out other material, let dry, etc. The sides of that hole will provide registration for the forstner bit.

What if the piece warps significantly when drying so the Forstner bit no longer fits in the registration hole?

I ask since I've had small roughed dogwood box blanks warp so much during drying that even holding them was a challenge. This rough-turned 2.5" dogwood blank, not even excessively wet to start with, was this much out of round after drying. And this is an end-grain box blank, cut well to one side of the pith.

Holly and persimmon are some other woods I've had warp like crazy but not as bad as dogwood. How bad can the starter hole be before a Forstner bit has a problem?

JKJ

Re: Starting a Forstner bit.

AZ in Colorado Springs

Ooh. That's a good point. I don't know how tolerant this process would be to bent wood.

Re: Starting a Forstner bit.

Roger

That's what I was thinking when I suggested drill an undersized hole through the blank, then after drying lightly glue a dowel in the hole. Then your forstner bit will have a spot to be centered on.

Re: Starting a Forstner bit.

Barry Irby

I thought "good" Forstner bits could be started running on the rim??? Thus could be used to drill semicircles. I thought the tip was mostly an indicator to tell the operator where the center was, not to guide the bit.

So, if you drilled a say 1" hole through the blank and then came back a drilled out the center larger, say 1 1/4" or 1 1/2", whatever, would that not clean up the warp? Or would it not be accurate enough?

Re: Starting a Forstner bit.

AZ in Colorado Springs

The difficult part would be getting the bit centered or positioned correctly.

Actually, maybe not "difficult," but would require a different technique.