Drying Wood For Turning Bowls

Turning bowls from green wood is a centuries old practice.

Drying wood for turning bowls.

Please leave wax on the wood until use. Specifically soaking rough turned bowls in a simple solution of one sixth concentrated dishwashing detergent greatly aids in turning reducing tear out from the tools and greatly reducing checking in the final drying. Drying times can vary significantly depending upon wood species initial moisture level lumber thickness density ambient conditions and processing techniques. Modern turners solve this problem by rough turning a bowl to a wall thickness that is about 10 of the diameter a 10 bowl would have a 1 wall thickness.

Microwave drying a wood bowl blank can be done with short times in the microwave at full power around 30 seconds followed by cooling time around 30 minutes. If you don t see what you are looking for feel free to call us toll free. Sorry the audio is a little low i ll switch cameras next week. Peg is even more hygroscopic than wood.

This material has been drying for 3 years as of september 2019 but does contain residual moisture. Microwave green bowl drying. Drying degrade in green wood bowls art carvings turnings and other craft items. The objective is simply to get enough peg into the outer shell of the preshaped project to prevent splitting check ing and warp during drying.

Available from packard woodworks. 95 of these turning blanks are clean free of defects and have excellent burly grain. Such a bowl will warp oval as it dries. A process discovered by hawaiian woodturner ron kent often allows better turning of bowls from green wood.

Larger bowl blanks may have a minor check or two on the faces. This does not detract from its usefulness but today s man or woman on the street sees an oval bowl as quaint. Boiling seems to dissolve many of the tars and resins contained in the sap which block up the wood cells and prevent the water inside from getting out. Blanks are completely wax sealed.

In this video i share a few tips for drying wood for turning. Allowing lumber to passively sit at a given humidity level in order to obtain a desired emc air drying may be the simplest and least expensive method of seasoning wood but it is also the very slowest. So when selecting wood for turning blanks avoid limb wood and look instead for trunk logs with minimal knots. Thank you for your support i pu.

It s an excellent way to dry rough turned bowls and can be used on all types of wood and any size bowl. Repeat the process weighing the wood bowl after each session until the weight of the bowl stabilizes. Turning stock we stock a large variety of bowl blanks and assorted turning woods in domestic and exotic woods. Use a commercial green wood sealer.