So I got a load of silver maple from a friend.....

Mike You are going to have fun. The problem with finish turning wet wood is it moves and cracks. Rough turn and dry before finish turning. Take a look at my web site under roughing a bowl for some hints.

Soft and soaking, I'll bet. Faster you get them roughed and drying under control, the better.

At the least, run your saw up the middle before the radial shrinkage can ruin them, and protect the ends from rapid moisture loss.

will giveyou a good idea of how it shrinks, explains why, and allows you to chooseyour antidote. Chapters 2 and 3 are what you want to look at, with figure3-3 showing how the wood will distort while drying.With the sap already up, the cambium and sub-bark are going to be wettereven than the sapwood, and will shrink at a different rate than the wood,since their structure is different. Means your bark-up styles are going tobe a crapshoot when drying. Run some water-thin CA glue along the sub-barkand cambium to try and stiffen and adhere it. Works most of the time.

I got some that had been standing dead awhile. Beautiful spalting but where not spalted rather bland white wood.

I made sure I grabbed Y pieces, and anything with character. I should have a lot of bowl blanks, and I agree, it is rather bland white wood, but I need the practice as my bowl turning skills are severely lacking. I can turn a mean spoon or spatula handle though. :)

Thanks!

Mike Rinken

WOW! Great stuff on there Darrell. My addiction to turning is growing (please don't tell my unfinished furniture projects) and I think soon I'll be way past the Jet Mini Lathe I'm currently using for everything.

Thanks for the site link!

Mike Rinken

Darrell, I must disagree. I'm willing to bet one big fat dripping wet piece of big leaf maple burl that I don't lose any more of my wet turned to finished thickness bowls than you do of your thick turned, dried, then returned bowls. We have different styles, but are both doing essentially the same thing. Turn to an even thickness which distributes the drying stresses evenly over the whole bowl, then controlling the drying process so that the stress doesn't build to a great enough level that would cause the bowl to crack. Yes they do warp, which I love. Power sanding is almost a necessity. About the only ones that I lose are ones where I don't quite turn out all of the radial cracking that almost always comes off of the pith. I had one peice of Madrone that finished moving at 18 inch long by 13 inch wide by 9 to 6 1/2 inches high. It wasn't oval, it was triangular. It is the mystery that I love.

Darrell Feltmate wrote:

Hi Mike

Maple, any kind can be bland or just beautiful, just depend on the tree, and from where and how you cut the blanks out of the log, quilted, tiger stripe, curly, reaction wood, bird eye, etc. are all types of maple wood, and give you some idea of all the shades of maple lumber around. I have turned a good number of turnings out off silver Maple, it is not a problem wood, either for turning or drying, but you have to follow some common sense rules when working with it, to keep the wood from splitting and cracking, you have to give the wood the time to loose the moisture, so that the stresses stay below the point where the wood will split.

Seal the end grain of the logs and rough turn as soon as possible, keep wall thickness approx. at 10% of Dia. then either put in paper bags or seal the rough outs with a log end wood sealer.

For making weed pots or and candle holders the same thing counts, keep them in paper bags or seal with wood sealer, but the bigger solid or almost solid turnings, they still like to crack, though a lot of times if you wait till the wood has totally dried the cracks close up and are barely noticed, specially if you turn the crack to the backside (G).

For the bark-on turnings, like GEORGE mentions, the early spring is not the best time for a lot of woods to keep the bark on, from the time when the bark of oak logs and limbs was used for the leather tanning industry, the bark was taken in early spring when it came off easily after clubbing it, still, what do you have to loose, other than some bark, give it a try, only practice and experience will make you a better turner. ca glue might keep the bark on for you, but even without the bark it can be nice, so don't waste more time. GO FOR IT !!

There is some silver maple on my web site, if you care,

fun and take careLeo Van Der Loo

Skippy J //snip//

Turn to an even thickness which distributes

Just as politics, all shrinkage is local.

As an example of how unevenly the drying stresses are distributed - wet pieces warp.

Turn almost any wood to 3/8 or less, and you should have no cracks you couldn't already have predicted. Exceptions are woods with prominent rays, which split easily and randomly along them when local forces are high. Sometimes they even close up later.

Robbo Hippy I do not think that we are disagreeing, merely interpreting the same data to different results. It is my record that finish turned wet bowls distort and crack. The incidence of cracking is less than that of distortion since distortion or warping is close to if not at 100%. It should be noted that I tend to turn a lot of reaction wood or the like for wet and cracking is more likely that from a clean piece of trunk wood. The question is whether a warped bowl is suitable. I am usually turing a bowl for utilitarian purposes and in this case a warped bowl is not as useable. For aristic purposes it may be superior depending upon the eye of the beholder. On the other hand I enjoy turning wet wood to finished hollow forms with the grain parallel to the ground and usually including the pith. They are turned for the warp and sometimes with the expectation of radial splitting along the pith, sometimes with the hope that a consistent wall thickness will avoid the split. There is an uncertainty that adds to the enjoyment. Keep turning and have fun.

Well this still has me scratching my head, and there isn't much hair up there to scratch. I also turn reaction wood whenever I can get my hands on it, mostly crotch wood. I am wondering why you seem to have more problems with cracking when you turn to finish thickness than I do. Some woods I can leave at 1/2 inch plus and they don't crack, and others need to be 1/4 or less (like fruit woods). Maybe it is the difference in our growing climate or something. A 30 year old Silver Maple here is 30 inches in diameter.

George, your comment about uneven stresses got me thinking too. I thought the warping was due to the structure of the wood fiber: little shrinking up and down the tree (compression load) but a lot around the girth of the tree (to accomodate seasonal water and sap flow). Does that cause the stress? Is it because some parts shrink more that others, like sap and early wood compared to heart wood? robo hippy

Darrell Feltmate wrote:

distort and

turing a

Yep, early wood contracts proportionately more than late. The firmer, dense "rings" are pulled in by the wider, but softer early wood. Of course distribution of pores and variations between species play a factor. When you cut near a limb, you've revealed a new local warp, that of its annual rings. Check the fpl literature on wood structure, and any plank down at the Home Depot to see the way radial distortion pulls toward the sapwood with its broader rings. while radial takes dimension from the width. Slash knots either stand proud of or sit below the average surface, depending on whether their larger rings are out or in.

My problem now is my lathe is not big enough! I'm going to have to turn smaller bowls to fit on the lathe (Jet mini lathe). I tried turning a larger piece, as large that would fit between centers and not hit the bed, problem was the tool rest is now a good 4-6 inches from the surface as i had to put it on past the center on the right and it will not move any closer. I'm not turning something that large and heavy just suspended from a tenon until I have a good amount of wood removed, but the tools are not reaching without considerable danger to hands and poor control.

So looks like lots of small bowls, lidded containers, etc. No big though, I need the practice and will be fun turning! But man I GOTTA get a bigger lathe.

thanks for all the advice so far.

Mike Rinken

You can turn what will become about a 9-9 1/2" bowls safely and easily. Takes care at the bandsaw and maybe a trim here and there with a block plane, but you can get good circularity at 10 which will contract some with drying.

The way I do it at

makesswing over toolrest just a phrase, and allows you to keep things in tightwhere control is greatest.Won't matter if you get bigger, something else will always happen. I got a16" and then found out my drillpress could only bore to the center of a 151/2" circle. I ordered a 1" router bit for center plunging, though.

Skippy, One of my favorite things to do with silver maple is to force it to spalt. Just split it and put it in a plastic bag out of the sun. In 6 months you should have some nice spalting. I got a couple of pieces about a year ago. Put it in garbage bags in my garage and got some beautiful wood. I have a bowl from it at the gallery where my pieces are for sale and get more questions about that wood than any other. Tony Manella