Sealing milled timber!

Find (or make) a wax-based emulsion or simply slap on generous quantities of latex paint.

Bill

Richard I use Anchorseal, a wax emusion product. I think that you can get Mobilcer CM end sealer where you are, a similar product. I would not be surprised though, that Anchorseal was available. I reccommend the product.

Water-borne products with high solids content preferred. Wax emulsion, latex, even acrylic will slow the rate of loss from the end grain. So will PVA wood glue and newsprint. Use what you have if you can't find what you want, but leave the bark on if possible to control things in a radial direction until you get the pieces roughed out.

Hello Richard,

I don't live in New Zealand, but I spent 30 days touring around the country in March and April 2003. As mentioned by others, Anchor Seal is the preferred sealer in the United States. One turner I know says that he uses Liquid Nail, the kind designed for wet wood and that it works the best of anything he has ever used. He has been turning for many years, about 40 I think.

Recently, there was an article in the IWCS Journal, WOW, which proposes that to keep wood from checking after you've milled it to stand it on end; i.e., vertical. The fellow had picked it up from an old logger and found it worked when he tried it.

I haven't tried either of these just passing on information I've picked up. I plan to try the latter method one the next batch of green wood that I add to my collection.

Fred Holder

Tarping works very well for slowing drying. Tarping and occassional watering (without Anchorseal) actually works better than Anchorseal used alone. Using all three works the best. A lot depends on the humidity where you live. Anchorseal alone works for people with higher humidities.

Doesn't really work that well. What it's supposed to do is favor the rate of capillary draw from the interior by orienting the piece as it was designed to draw. If you put a piece of wood over the top, you'll be amazed at how much water shows. You want to set it on a dry surface, of course, not the damp ground where it will continue some draw.

I have found it useful to prevent checks for a matter of a few days, but there comes a point - must be some inverse square rule on capillary draw - where the outside fibers do start to collapse because they can't draw fast enough. The checks produced seem to limit themselves to shallower depths, however.

Hi there For what it's worth I use PVA from the builders merchants!

Tankie

Thankyou to everyone who replied. Much appreciated.

I'll see if i can source Anchorseal locally, but i will give the PVA & Liquid nails a try also.

Hi Richard,

Im in NZ, in Hamilton. I sealed some plum last year with some sealer undercoat I had left over from redecorating. It worked really well, apart from a few peices that have started to crack in this last few weeks heat. I am new to this but I know a few others who say PVA is good. There is probably a club near whereever you are and there will be people who have local experiance.

By the way, I really liked turning plum, I did some green plum and the workshop smelt like really good from the shavings for a few days. I also noticed that little bits of pink water flew of that stained whatever they landed on, including skin.

Tony.

After all this good advice remember to not be disappointed if you get cracks. Most fruit woods move a lot and cracks just seem to happen. Pear, apple, plum, redbud and crab apple are really hard to get dry.

I started turning a lot of things green, let them crack and then bill myself as the master of cracks.

I just turned a pice from redbud that had many cracks and checks before I started. All my crticis think it is marvelous. Ricky