Getting Some Emperical Data on Drying

charlie b · 2006-04-26T16:11:32+00:00

Though the wood industry has done a great deal of research on methods of drying wood and the various methods of stabilizing wood, it?s surprising how little of this information is applicable to the fun and games turners need to deal with in order to end up with a piece that maintains its shape AND doesn?t crack or split. There seems to be a lot of anecdotal evidence that several home brew methods work, but very little emperical data to allow for consistent, predictable results. Paper bag it, cover it with saw dust, dry or damp, soak it in liquid dishwashing detergent (LDD), refridgerate, vacuum dry - the list goes on and on. It would be interesting to set up an experiment to objectively evaluate some of the popular methods of drying turning stock prior to turning and again after it?s turned. Since you can either turn ?green? or ?dry? there would need to be two separate sets of experiments. I suspect there?s enough brain power in this group to come up with a way of getting some good emperical, objective data on the various drying methods and perhaps weed out some of the voodoo drying methods. I?ve started an initial list of things to consider when designing the drying experiments. I?m sure I?ve overlooked one or more critical things so please feel free to fill in the gaps. SAMPLES How many of a given type of wood? Green SemiDry (MC greater than 15%) Hardwood Fruitwood Exotic - resinous - bubinga, zocote Ash, oak, maple, beech Softwood Spruce Cedar Redwood Part of tree for sample branch entire branch (just cut to length) other split quarter sawn riff sawn trunk piece split quarter sawn riff sawn crotch or burl piece Grain straight twisted interlocked medullary rayed with or without knots SAMPLE DIMENSIONS Individual sample size (how long, what diameter?) (want all samples to have the same dimensions, preferably...

Apr 26, 2006 22 Replies

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Prometheus 20 years ago

Nice work Owen- is there a link for reviewing results as well?

I've got it bookmarked, and will be sure to fill it in at least a few times, anyhow.

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Tom Nie 20 years ago

Thanks, Leo.

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Owen Lowe 20 years ago

As far as I recall, it never generated any responses - now the "Submit" link is a dead end as there's no script or anything to compile it. If anyone wants to take it to their own ISP and set up the "cgi" script to make it operational, please feel free to contact me so I can remove it from my site so we only have one version up.

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