Or you could stop including the pith and pieces that are alreadty checked, moderate the airflow around the pieces, and not do ANY of these other things, which is the way all of the (productive, successful, long time) turners I know go about it. A little knowledge will go a long way toward solving your drying problem. It can be simple, or complicated. :-)
Good luck,
John Jordan
I tried sneaking this message via private means to avoid scorn and > castigation
> by the "unwashed" in the newsgroup. Unfortunately, I could not ravel your
> email address. I am herewith sending this to you using an alias I am going
> to suggest a revolutionary
> approach to your problem that does not involve boiling and any high degree > of wood
> science to accomplish your objective. This may sound Al Kyderish to you but
> I swear I have no connection with that looneytune! *G*
>
> The answer to your enigma is: [drumroll here!) LDD!!! [trumpets join in].
> If my good fortune was to have access to such a marvelous supply of oak. I
> would buck it up into logs and store them in a relatively cool, dry place
> after slathering the ends liberally with Endseal. When you want to turn an
> oak vessel, cut off an appropriate length for your project, re-seal the end
> of the log you are not going to use and re-store it. Take the prospective
> vessel chunk and trim off the Endseal (could have been whacked off with the
> chainsaw earlier) and plunge it into a vat of LDD (1 part LDD
> to 1 part water). Since the oak seems so brittle, I think I would soak it
> overnight. The following day, rough turn it to your desired degree. Now:
> The choice here is to plunk it back into the LDD until you are ready to
> finish turn or work a bit more on it. The main thing to remember is if you
> are not working on it, return it to the LDD. If you have finish turned,
> finish sanded -- then get the finish coat on asap.
>
> I would liked to have appended a copy of a world-famous treatise on LDD;
> however, the NG doesn't allow attachments nor appendments, so you will have
> to send me a request via normal email channels.
> P.S. Be prepared for the scorn and castigation from the NG. There are some
> unforgiving guys there! *G*
>
> LDDman
>
>
> > I'm acquiring 2 live oak trees (white oak) from 2 separate neighbors who > are
> > removing them. Does anyone have good experience drying white oak rough
> > outs??? Because I sure don't. Thanks in advance for all advice on this. > >
> > The archives for rcw include a lot of info about drying turnings and about
> > drying oak. I reread 3 years of postings last night on this topic. It's > a
> > lot of good info including the boiling articles from Steven Russell and
> > others; and I have Steven's CD as well. I've been applying the > techniques -
> > mostly boiling and bagging. But white oak just doesn't like me :-( > (Red
> > oak is worse).
> >
> > My drying process:
> > I roughed and boiled 24 white oak bowls and vases in late March and > early
> > April.
> > 1) While roughing out, I try to create a consistent thickness. Each > piece
> > has a 1/4 inch foot for rechucking.
> > Some have the pith and some do not. Some are bowls, and some are
> > natural edge vases.
> > Most are 1 inch thick and the larger pieces are thicker (1 inch thick
> > per 12 inch diameter).
> > 2) I overboiled them - about 1.5 hours per inch.
> > 3) Most of them are paper bagged - and some are 2-4 pieces per bag.
> > They are in my garage (Austin, TX) where it hits 100 degrees most > days.
> > (When it hits 95 I usually call it quits for that day - so I really
> > need to air-condition it).
> >
> > Some of the 24 oak pieces are cracking. Plus I get black and yellow
> > mold/fungus on some of them.
> > - Should they be individually bagged?
> > - Should they be spaced out to get plenty of air?
> > - Should the bags have a small opening left on them or totally sealed?
> > - Should I wax the pithed bowls (I have Woodcraft sealer) or all bowls? > >
> > The 2 trees I'm getting should yield 100+ bowls/vases. So it would be
> > really frustrating to put in all the cutting/roughing time and get a bunch
> > of cracked and split results. I also get some cracks in other roughouts,
> > but have had excellent luck with Texas Ash. Any and all advice will be
> > greatly appreciated.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Jeff Jilg
> > Austin, TX
> >
> >
>
>