Green Wood?

Hello Jesse,

If you rough turn it to about 10 percent of the diameter for wall thickness; i.e., a 10 inch diameter bowl would have a one inch wall thickness. You should be able to then put it on the shelf in a cool dry place and it should be ready to final turn in three to six months. There are many treatments that you can use to help prevent cracking and minimizing warping, but none of them work on every piece of wood.

Steven Russell uses paper bags to dry his rough turned bowls with good results. He sells a DVD that has his paper bag drying protocol on it.

I've used Cedar Shield (now Turner's Choice) with good results. I generally soak the piece for a day or two and then let it set for at least three days before turning it. You can also soak the rough turned bowl and get pretty good results. The Hawaii turners have been spraying it on the finished turned bowl and had very good results. It is a bit expensive however.

The alcohol soak works pretty well and seems to help the wood dry a bit quicker and with less distortion.

I've also had very good luck with Pentacryl, which helps stop cracking and checking and I believe helps the wood to dry quicker. I turned a wet Redwood salad bowl (14" in diameter) with a 1-1/2" wall thickness that I treated with Pentacryl and it was dry enough to final turn in three weeks and without any cracks and a minimum of distortion. A second bowl of the same size was turned at the same time and treated with Pentacryl. I waited two months to final turn it but is was very dry. Pentacryl is about the same cost as Turner's Choice. Both help prevent checking and cracking and reduce distortion.

Richard Raffan rough turns his bowl and throws them in a pile for a couple of days and then puts them in cardboard boxes with the date of turning, type of wood, etc. When he gets an order he selects boxes that have been drying long enough and final turns them.

So there are many ways to handle wet wood, but rough turning is the safest way to handle it and preserve it. If you don't have time to rough turn it then seal the ends with something, Anchor Seal is pretty good. So people use water base paint and one woodturner I know uses Liquid Nail and claims it is the best ever.

If you do a search on this group, you'll find even more methods used to treat wet or freshly cut wood.

Welcome to the world of woodturning and good luck.

Fred Holder

Hi Jesse

I will give you a short and simple "how I do it" and then I will sent you to Darrell's website for you to go and spend the rest of the weekend, (yes it should take that long to absorb it all) going back and forward all over his site that he has build up over a number of years, and has kept it kind of simple and down to earth. You also have to appreciate that he is not trying to sell anything, so no snake oil BS as we see al to often on other sites. Here it goes, and none of this is chiseled in stone, I improvise as is needed. The wood log blocked up off of the ground, I measure the Diameter, and saw off a length that is equal or slightly more to the D. Place that piece on a stump and decide where I will make the cut or cuts and draw a line to guide me. Place the piece on its side, and hammer two steel bars next to the piece so as to keep it from moving, something like this, \O/, and saw it in two. Now I will remove at least one of the steel bars, and place one of the halves with its newly cut face up, take a compass and scribe a circle. Now I will cut the corners of the blank off, so it now looks like a stop sign 8 sided. Screw a face plate to the blank and turn the outside to the shape you like, and incorporate a way to hold it so you can flip it over and hollow out the other side. Done with that, I will take a thick paper bag and put my new rough out in it, close the bag and place if out of the way in a cool and airstill place to sit for a few weeks, taking a peek once in a while and when it feels drier I will take it out of the bag (like in 3 or 4 or 5 weeks) and set it again in that same spot to keep drying for a while ( maybe a month or two or three) then I will give it a place with all the other bowls that are waiting, but you could probably finish turn it by then. Here's a few pictures of what I just have tried to tell you.

End of story And here's the link to Darrell's site Have fun and take care Leo Van Der Loo

On Mar 29, 7:13 pm, Jesse wrote:

Jesse Try my site for an answer. More than you need to know, but it is fun.

Turn the wood green to overthick if you're going to re-turn it, desired thickness if not. Let the water evaporate, but not too fast. If you have a high humidity area like a basement, could be all you need to do is leave them alone for a couple three months for an inch thickness. You can game the system by studying wood technology at

where you will find the average shrinkage numbers for various woods. Essentially, the thinner you turn at the outset, the sooner it dries, so if you anticipate the loss due to average warp, you can turn thinner than the 10% people keep talking about. All kinds of ways to push drying, but all carry a risk of loss greater than the patience method. Even some absurd ideas and some snake oil out there periodically. Some places are better than others, some otherwise great information is interspersed with stuff you have to shake your head at. Get the old turner instructions through the URL at Darrell's site and maybe these for something to read while the wood dries.

Hello Jesse,

My website has an educational library that has several articles on drying wood by various methods. The main educational library is located here:

http://www.woodturn> Thanks for the advice on the new tools .It all makes sense so i will