Wood Help

I suspect your wood is splating/rotting

Personally I've never worked Pear, but I have had better results with turning fruit wood green

On Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:00:11 -0500, Casper wrote (in message ):

some of your bandsaw issues can be traced to the blade itself, and how it is tensioned, the condition of the wheels, and the way the wood is fed through the saw. I have cut wet birch and wet pitchy pine with my bandsaw with little or no problem. My success is partly because of the coarse wide blade I use for this kind of cutting. About 3/4 inch wide blade, variable pitch tooth count, averaging 5 tpi. The tires on the wheels are clean and crowned, and the wheels are true and squared with each other. It might be the case that your sawblade is too narrow and the teeth are too fine for this job. There has to be enough space between the teeth, and the depth of the gullet between the teeth has to be big enough to carry the sawdust through the cut without jamming or dragging, causing undue force loading on the wheels. the blade tension has to be enough to keep the blade true and not so much as to hasten its failure due to breakage. I can reverse my saw to clean the blade with some spirits on a wad of felt - teeth won't catch or snag the felt. (this is a very dangerous operation, even with the blade running reverse - keep track of your fingers)

This is not intended to sound like a diatribe, just a group of possible problems with a bandsaw, which is possibly the second most useful tool for a turner, after the sharpening equipment.

Respectfully, tom koehler

Hello Casper,

Drying is the part of collecting wood for turning that can be most destructive to the turning blanks and disappointing to the collector. I consider that one has two options: seal the wood and store it on a shelf out of the weather and sun and allow it to dry slowly or rough turn the wood to a 10 percent wall thickness and place it on the shelf to dry using one of several methods available.

Assuming that you have cut the wood into turning blanks as previously described, the wood should have its end grain part sealed to slow the drying time and should then be stored on a shelf with little wooden stickers (little strips of wood about ¬ inch thick and up to 1-1/2 inch wide, I've found that old lath make fine stickers) separating the blanks so that air can flow all around the wood. Drying occurs best when the wood is stored out of the weather and sunshine in a location where it can get sufficient airflow to carry away the moisture. Every species of wood behaves differently and some of the worst are fruit- woods and Madrone, with Madrone being one of the most difficult to season without cracks.

Richard Raffan says that he tosses his newly turned wet wood bowls into a pile and allows them to air dry for a day or two. He then puts them into cardboard boxes and puts them on the shelf to finish drying. He writes the date on the box and waits up to a year before he final turns the bowls in the box. During the drying process, the bowl will warp and sometimes crack. I assume that the box keeps air from drying the bowls too quickly and the cardboard box may absorb some of the moisture. I've had very good luck putting rough turned bowls into old paper grocery sacks and placing them on the shelf. There are several other methods that people are using to dry bowls and keep them from cracking, namely, microwave drying, boiling, soaking in dish detergent mixture, and soaking in alcohol. I've tried all of these with fair results. I recently heard another theory on drying that violates all of the methods set forth on drying wood. This fellow says that an old logger friend told him about this method. Dry the wood while it stands vertically as the tree grew. He says that there is minimal checking and warping is kept to a minimum. I think he was drying boards, rather than bowl blanks, but it is worth trying.

Fred Holder

If you had turned that wood two years ago when you got it, you would have had dry bowls a long time ago, rather than slit and rotten wood as you have now. The best you can do now is take what you have left that is still worth turning and rough turn it now, then place those pieces in a brown paper bag and place that at a cool place so it can dry at a slow rate and not split hopefully,(make sure there are no splits in the wood to start of with)

Several things come to mind.

1. Where did you store the wood? That will make a difference as to how they dry. If the space it too enclosed or if the wood is left out in the weather then mold and/or rotting could be a problem.

1. What do you want to make out of these pieces? If you want to turn bowls then turn them. You could turn them to your finish thickness right off. In this process they would probably warp a little but that is OK. Or you can turn them to a thickness of 10% of the over all diameter, reseal them with wax, and then let them finish drying for about 6 months or more. At that point you can put them back on the lathe and finish them.

2. If you are going to use them for spindle turning then it might be good to cut them into long strips that are square on the ends. They will dry faster that way.

1. I have turned pear wood. When it is slightly wet it is a delight to turn. Turns like butter. When it is dry it is very very hard. It will still turn OK but you will spend extra time sharpening your tools.

Good luck, Ted J thelathentlog.com

Yes, there certainly are bandsaw issues. The bandsaw is my father-in-law's. It's an old Rockwell-Delta that he keeps in his garage next to the door. There is no insulation or heat and he usually works with the door open, so it has a fair amount of rust. He got it used and doesn't seem to be interested in caring for things much past keeping them out of the rain. His drill press is in his barn, which has a caved in roof and collapsing floor and it's heavily rusted.

While I was sawing, the blade jumped the wheels twice and parts usually keep slipping a bit and require you to stop sawing and tighten them back up evey so often. We already changed the blade once and the second is showing definite signs of loosing it's edge. All his backup blades are either dull, rusted or both.

Since I don't have room for one of my own, I'm not picky on where I can get things done. I'm glad he let me use it. I've tried to convince him to clean it up a bit but he just doesn't want to spend the time. I've offered but he declined. So I use it as carefully as I can and figure I'll just forgo getting much fresh cut wood anymore. I'll have to be more selective about what I keep, turn and carve.

Thanks for the advice tho. I'm hoping I can afford to expand my shed next year and get my own bandsaw, but until then I have to make due and deal with this current wood as best I can. At this point, if I can at least salvage some of the pear, apple and cherry, I'll live without the ash, walnut and others as they are easier for me to get than the fruit woods and I like them carved.

`Casper

Fred,

Thanks for the reply and information.

I've turned wood green but I turn more dry. Unfortunately I am very confined on workspace, including storage. My un-cut wood must remain outside until I have more room inside.

I have two places I can store outside, one covered and blocked on one side and the other uncovered but blocked on two sides. I had it stored in another location but was forced to move it due to rules in my living area. Next year I hope to expand my shed and include a better, albiet limited, drying/storage spot. Until then it's stacked, spaced and sealed at both ends.

I've tried turning bowls and bagging them with some luck. Again, this is all about space for me. It is certainly easier and fun to turn green, but I do really enjoy turning dry and finishing right away.

Since I've started caring, it's even more frustrating being space limited. I fear if I can't get my shed expanded soon, I may be forced to give up some hobbies and tools. An unhappy prospect.

Another person recently told me about standing the logs upright. I'm going to try it with some of the wood and see how it works. Mother nature isn't wrong too often.

I've actually put my cut wood into cardboard boxes to slow and even the drying process. It certain works with smaller pieces and that's a big help to me.

I'm also now ustilizing plastic crates for spacing and stacking and hopefully that will help too. Can't hurt and the crates were free.

Thanks again, `Casper

Wood in the log dries slowly. Figure at least a year per inch of thickness, maybe more. 2 1/2 years is not much drying time for 6" of thickness. Now you know why we rough turn. You get your bowl or hollow form wall down to an inch or less and it will be dry in a year or less and you still have enough wood left to true it up after it is done warping. If you are trying to dry some thick carving blocks, that's going to take a great deal of patience. Soren Berger is a champion of drying cabinets (a simple kiln) to speed things up considerably. People use them with great success. It's just a box 3 feet square and as tall as you want. It can be made from wood, heavy cardboard, an old refrigerator, whatever. Put some shelves in it made from sticks, old oven shelves, any kind of lattice that allows free air movement. My box is 4 feet high and made from styrofoam insulation panels. Drill ten 1 inch holes in the sides near the top and bottom and put a 60 watt light bulb in the bottom. This creates a gentle warming and air circulation - emphasis on gentle.

I seal the outside endgrain on bowls and hollow forms to reduce the risk of cracking. Bowls go top down, base up. Weigh the blanks every few weeks on a sensitive scale. When they stop losing weight, you are done.

-mike paulson, fort collins, co

Yes, some pieces are showing spalting. Pieces with moderate to some with little to almost none. I had hoped to avert this but the tree, as I later found out, was rotting on the inside when it was cut down.

I've turned green, and it's fun and certainly easy, but I prefer working on a piece start to finish right then. Since I am also using this wood for carving, I prefer it dry for that as well.

Thanks to everyone for all the info and input. Under my constraints I guess I'll have to keep air-drying wood to a minimum

I was hoping someone knew of a product or home-made remedy that I could use to heal up the cracks or at least prevent them from getting worse and potentially splitting the wood. Will Pentacryl do that??

`Casper

Hello Again Casper,

I don't think there is anything that will heal the cracks. Personally, I don't like to work with cracked wood. Wally Dickerman posted a cure for bowls that cracked after turning. Wally said that he soaked cracked bowls in a 50 percent mixture of water and white glue. I've only tried this once. I had rough turned a 14 inch salad bowl to be given to a friend as a house warming present. I went to final turn it and it had a crack almost 3/8 inch wide at the rim. I didn't have another piece of suitable wood. So I tried Wally's process. I let it soak for two days. I took it out and the crack was still open. Disgusted, I threw it on a pile of lumber. It was rained on for a couple of days. It was about a week when I started to pick it up and trask it. Surprise! The crack had closed up. I let it dry for a few days and then final turned it. There was only a hairline where the crack had been. Several years later, now, the bowl is still getting lots of use without cracking again.

Fred Holder

The people I know that have done similar often find that a 60 watt bulb is too much and have to use a smaller one. A small fan often helps too

Anything you can manage in the way of a top cover on the second pile that's rigid will be a big help. Tarps and plastic appear to cause more problems than they solve in the usual "draped over the pile" arrangement, as they trap moisture as much or more than they keep it off.

The rotting, spalting and failing to dry are heavily impacted by not keeping the wood out of the weather. I have nicely stacked piles of "firewood" out in the weather which, due to not getting them under cover and not getting them burned, have in 6 years turned into nicely stacked piles of rotten wood - despite being cross stacked off the ground with plenty of airflow. I wasn't intending for them to sit for 6 years when I stacked them, of course. But wood stored out in the weather will rot, unless the weather is a desert climate, perhaps. If you have wood you consider valuable, you might want to consider renting some dry storage space for it if your situation prevents making dry storage for it at home. If it's not worth renting space for, it wasn't that valuable after all...Depending exactly what constraints you are facing, sometimes an enclosed trailer can get past annoying rules better than a shed can, and buying one may prove cheaper than renting space in the long run.

Thanks for all the input. I've lost a fair amount to rot but I have salvaged a fair amount. Hopefully it's now in a better location.

I've got about 6-10 logs left to cut but decided to leave them till spring. I've put those inside my father-in-law's old corn crib, out of the weather but where they should get good air circulation. With luck those will dry out more and be ready to cut in the spring.

The stuff I already cut up I sorted and am currently using a piece of the pear to carve a goose. It's coming out ok so far but I have found a few tiny veins of punkiness. I haven't decided how I want to handle them yet. I may leave them as is, seal them in or I might even clean out the veins and put in some fancy ground stone or something. It'll depend on how the rest of the wood looks once the carving is done.

So I've learned more this year about natural wood drying and log care. Next year I'll know better how to cut, clean, plan, etc., so I can start having ready wood every year. I'm really loving turning, scroll sawing and carving but I think I've run out of hobby room. ;)

Thanks for the wood/log education. Everyone here is a great and appreciated wealth of knowledge.

`Casper