Alcohol Drying of Wet Wood

Fred,

Your results are very similar to mine. I've done about thirty small bowls with the alcohol soaking method with excellent results. Except for two ash blanks that took over three weeks to reach equilibrium, all the others dried in two weeks or less.

Most of these bowls have been out-of-round. Enough that I had to true the tenon before completing them. Most of the bowls have been either English Walnut or Cherry though there were a couple birch, maple and oak.

Some people over analyze the process. To me it just plain works!

Harry

Wonderful testimonials. Are you sure the results aren't due to the Q-Ray "Ionized" bracelet you're wearing, or the dish detergent in the cabinet under the sink?

Well George, thank God that you weren't the judge when some of the great discoveries of our time were being discussed, not on a newsgroup of course. It never ceases to amaze me how some people can be so critical of a process that works very well. It has even worked well on madrone for my wife and I. She definitely doesn't wear and ionized braclet or use the dish detergent except to wash dishes. I don't care if you ever take advantage of the alcohol drying process (and hope you don't enjoy the benefits of it), but I hate to see you debunk it and maybe keep others from trying it to get good results with their wood drying.

Fred Holder

Well George, thank God that you weren't the judge when some of the great discoveries of our time were being discussed, not on a newsgroup of course. It never ceases to amaze me how some people can be so critical of a process that works very well. It has even worked well on madrone for my wife and I. She definitely doesn't wear and ionized braclet or use the dish detergent except to wash dishes. I don't care if you ever take advantage of the alcohol drying process (and hope you don't enjoy the benefits of it), but I hate to see you debunk it and maybe keep others from trying it to get good results with their wood drying.

Fred Holder

Aw Fred, c;mon. You know, it's just George's way of letting us know he's still around. As evidenced by his posting techniques, about the only way he knows how to express himself is to crap on something.

I have seen a lot of evidence that this procedure works, although no one seems to know why. I have emailed back and forth with different individuals that are like you and I, ones that do not care "why" but only use the method as a means to an end. Some swear by it, others have had different levels of success.

You know the longtime friend of this NG, Leif, swears by the LDD method and it works well for him. Others have found that protcol successful, moderately successful, and not successful at all. I think it is the same for he alcohol method. I was glad you took the time, made the effort and then went a step farther and shared with all of us.

I would be willing to bet that George has not tried the alcohol method, but even if he did, it is a shame that a grown man (at least I am assuming this... maybe not) replies to someone simply sharing information backed by his careful fact gathering by sarcastic, snotty opinion. It is often the response of the small mind to make fun of something they don't understand or are unfamiliar with. But at the very least, lack of understanding, unfamiliarity, or any other reason doesn't excuse that kind arrogant, sarcastic remark to someone that is simply trying to share.

I know this is the kind of horsecrap that ran you off for a long time, as well as many others. All I can say Fred, is don't go away because of some of jerks that post here. It is a public forum, and like the members of the flat earth society (you cannot prove the earth is round to their satisfaction, nor can you prove we ever went to the moon) they have a right to their opinion. They are one dimensinal thinkers. If they haven't experienced "it" themselves in some way, it may not exist at all.

George is "one of those". He posts very pleasant threads when he is trolling for compliments on something he has done, or if he agrees with you, or understands what you are saying. The rest of the time, it's... well... George. He is no different on the other NGs on which he participates. The people here are just nicer and more tolerant of his behavior.

I live this quote, but don't know who said it. It may have been the "anti George":

"Brave he be, who first tasteth the oyster"

How would you have liked to try to convince your friends you could actually eat those things raw? Now to me, that's REAL uncharted territory.

Thanks for the post.

Robert

I am still experimenting with the various drying methods, and for the way I do things I don't notice a whole lot of difference.

At first, I would just turn to about 1/4 to 3/8 thick (wet wood), in sizes from 16 inches diameter to 3 inches diameter, and put the bowls on a shelf and let them dry. While I never weighed them, they would be mostly dry in 2 weeks or less: say about 98% of all movement had ceased, they were dry enough to sand easily (no loading of the sandpaper), and didn't feel cool to the touch.

The same seems to hold true for the alcohol bath and LDD methods. I have never bagged a bowl blank. I have had about the same amount of cracking with all methods. Most of the cracks coming from cracks in the wood that I didn't cut out, some knots, and some crotch wood. I left pieces to soak for 24 hours to a month, and got the same results. I haven't noticed that any of the methods had any effect on movement, especially on the Madrone.

I was at a demo at Dale Larsons place and the topic of the alcohol soaking came up, and there was a chorus responce about alcohol soaking hardens the wood. I had thought to myself that I had noticed how hard some of them were to sand before I heard that.

The biggest difference that the LDD soak makes is in sanding. I don't leave my blanks thick, and then return them, I turn to finish thickness, and then sand. When sanding any of the LDD bowls, the dust comes off like big wet snow flakes, rather than fine powder. It does take about 2 plus weeks for the fragrences in the LDD to go away, but that is minor.

The last batch that I soaked, I added the last 3 gallons of my left over alcohol to the LDD mix (10 plus gallons). The biggest difference that I noticed was that it thinned down the solution so that the mix dripped off a lot faster when removed from the tub. They sanded out nicely.

Some time in the future, I will take a bunch of bowl blanks of Madrone (the most difficult wood I have found to dry), from the same tree, make them as identical as possible, and try all of the methods, and be a bit scientific about it all. My curiosity is demanding it of me just to see what and how much difference there really is.

As far as how it works, I have talked to a number of people about this. Most recently at my last show. As near as I can tell, alcohol and glycerine (in the soap) act in similar ways to reduce the surface tension in the water which allows the water to move out easier. Or something like that. I don't really care about how it works, just the end results.

To be continued......

robo hippy

I apologise for the off-line response, but I don't post to the USENET any more. The tenor has changed, and I'm not interested in flame wars.

robo hippy wrote: snip

snip

While I wouldn't presume to question a turner as experienced as you are, I'm curious about one aspect of your LDD use. When I use it, I turn to final thickeness and then finish immediately. I don't allow the wood to dry before I finish it. Is that what you are doing, or are you drying it before finishing? I ask because I haven't had very many bowls crack, some warped, but cracks were very rare.

Dave Leader

Hi Fred. After the last discussion on alcohol, I contacted Dave Smith to get permission to run his article in our chapter newsletter. Several members approached me telling me it really does work for them. I've not tried it yet, but plan to give it a go today if I remember to hit the local hardware for some alcohol.

What would be most interesting to me concerning the drying results above would be a side-by-side comparison of two similarly sized and shaped forms from the same section of tree. Treat both the same with the taping and bagging, but treat only one with the alcohol. I'd give it a go myself, but I don't have a scale...

Dave, I haven't tried to sand and finish the bowl as soon as it comes out of the LDD solution. I would guess that one reason for doing this would be that by putting the finish on you would slow down the drying rate, and keeping the wood moist with finish. Both of these would aid in the slow controlled dry = less cracks method. One reason that I don't do this is that I turn a lot of bowls first, and then sand them all at once. I have a big sanding hood that I use that I can't turn inside of, so has to come off and on between turning and sanding. Another is that I think (haven't tried so it isn't proven to me) I would have to spend more time with the cleaning stick on the sand paper that I would if it is dry wood. Another is that I would worry about sealing the soap fragrance in the bowl, which I would not like. Some woods like blm (big leaf maple) which are starting to rot smell sour. They have to dry totally to get the sour smell out. Now I guess that I will have to try sanding and finishing a wet bowl some time. Don't worry about questioning me about anything, I do it to myself all of the time, and am always experimenting. After all, that is how we all learn. robo hippy

George,

My mother taught me that if I couldn't say anything nice, not to say anything at all. Also there is an old saying, "It is better to keep quiet and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt!"

You may want to think about these things.

Hi Fred, Thanks for sharing your success with us. I don't know or care how much of woodturning is art and how much is craft, but for me it's sure not science and I don't care. Well actually I do care a little, I'm glad it's not science because whatever facet of the endeavor I am involved in at the time, I don't want to burden my efforts and fun with too much deductive or inductive reasoning or data gathering. I think it's the same for most of us whether we turn as a business, a hobby or more often both.

When a drying method works to the satisfaction of a woodturner I think there is merit in it. Whether the satisfaction is due to scientific proof, placebo effect, herd instinct, appeal to authority or a visitation from the Almighty the method is valid for the believer so why should he care what disbelievers think. Although I may not believe, I know I can't disprove a positive with a negative, so I'm always glad to hear about someone's success.

Several methods for drying wood are satisfactory for somebody, but not for everybody. Usually when several techniques are in use, there is no one best technique. Boiling, LDD, alcohol, waxing, thinning & bagging all work for many of us and I have no trouble in believing in the merits of each. The option is mine, but I seldom choose to use any one of them, not because I 'know' it won't work, but simply because it is usually too much trouble. I rely on the kindness of mother nature. She will always take back some of her timber, but then I will always have wood to burn. :)

Turn to Safety, Arch Fortiter

Fred, here is what the FPL says, thought it would add to the discussion:

Solvent Seasoning

The solvent seasoning process involves subjecting the wood

to a spray or continuous immersion in either hot acetone or a

similar solvent miscible with water for a number of hours

until most of the water is extracted from the wood. The

solvent is removed by steaming or with a vacuum. Additional

water is removed at the same time.

Although solvent seasoning has not been applied to eastern

U. S. hardwoods, extensive research has been done in California

on using this method to dry tanoak sapwood. For 4/4

lumber, drying time is as short as 30 h. A few pieces of

lumber have suffered streaks of collapse, probably because

of the presence of heartwood or bacterial infection.

Dan

"Dan Bollinger" wrote in news:25- dnWSUbvcIw snipped-for-privacy@insightbb.com:

discussion:

Tanoak seems to be pretty susceptible to streaks of collapse, no matter what you do to it. One reason that it is a limited market hardwood...

Pretty, though, in the right hands.

Patriarch, with a hundred board feet of the stuff in his flatwood racks...

Well, I have to say the scientific method employed seems a bit dubious, Fred.

I was, however able to duplicate your results yesterday.

Took a plate of wet dirt - it's been raining, and carefully monitored and recorded the data so I could look like _I_ knew something too.

0800 145 grams 1000 138 grams 1200 124 grams 1400 116 grams 1600 114 grams

Stable thereafter. So, based on your experimental results and mine, I'll have to concede that if you put something wet where air can get to it, it'll lose weight, and it seems to be from loss of moisture.

Ran a parallel experiment to document whether or not this was the case. Put the dogs' dish on the counter out of reach and measured an 18mm depth of water at 0800 , and 17mm at 1800 when the dirt was stable. Couldn't have lost anything but water, so I consider that it might have been the case with the dirt.

Since I formed the wet dirt on to the bottom of a paper plate, I have to say that, subjectively at least, there seemed to be little distortion during the process.

I see, you like "me too" posts. See the one I just sent.

As I have said before, I have done exactly that, with successive cubes from

1x1 cuts, to make distortion measurement easy and valid. The answer is the one I keep giving. Not only is there no scientific validity to the assertions made by proponents - the speculative mechanisms violate known scientific laws - it makes no difference whether the piece is soaked or not. I keep suggesting that Fred take up the challenge and do it for himself, and instead we see what he posted yesterday, a documentation of evaporation.

Note that the piece is protected from rapid loss by control of relative humidity, a method which has been used to control loss from drying wood for as long as man has cut it, and you find the real answer. Just as the LDD types who turn thin and experience little failure. If you turn thin, you won't, unless you throw the thing out into the desert, or an air-conditioned home, which is about the same.

I was answering one.

GEORGE HAS SPOKEN!

no need to carry on this thread or method of drying

Tony Manella ndd1"at"ptd.net (remove "at")

I agree. I'm sorry that I posted the information to arouse the God of Drying, but I hope my mis-information may still help some poor uninformed soul who isn't biased by science.

Fred Holder