A busy day

[woodfarmer]

Was given a round from a horse chestnut tree that was felled new years eve. So it has been bit of a rush splitting it and roughing out some blanks. Not sure the centre section will survive. The deepest blank I managed to use the bowlsaver on and "saved" a respectable 27cm diameter bowl. Good feeling to have something to keep from what would have been shavings. Wasn't greedy, just took one core from a 4-5 inch thick blank.

Centre section which is starting to split.

now to dump all the wet shavings into the garden that wasn't used to pack the blanks.

 

[blackrodd]

I came across How it's made, bowl turning on u tube the other evening and after they had got the nest of bowls out of the green timber the voice over said that the bowls were immediately steamed for 4 hours to stabilise, and then dried naturally, which with the bowl walls looking at about 1/2" thick wouldn't be long.
Is this tosh, or has anyone been able to test this out?
Regards Rodders

 

[bobham]

Rodders:

Steaming them would plasticize the lignin enough to allow them to move without cracking to adjust to their new shape, but would take longer than 4 hours for a bowl turned to a 10% wall thickness, I would think. The ones in the video were cored to finished thickness and the rim and base flattened after they had dried and warped. You can see how oval the bowls had become in the segments on finish sanding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt3ZIVsLUZM

Some turners boil their roughed out bowls which would have the same effect of plasticizing the lignin and allowing the walls to move without cracking, but I would think that there would still be quite a bit of movement before the rough out was fully dry so I don't know how much help it would be. There are just about as many different ways of drying rough outs as there are turners.

Bob

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

that was an interesting video. One bowl per minute is the production rate!!!! They go a tad faster than me! The steaming/boiling idea is also interesting. I'm inclined to give it (boiling at least) a try to see what effect it has.

 

[CHJ]

I have treated green turnings by steaming/boiling, in the last instances I used a pressure cooker to shorten the time and energy needed.

I personally never liked the texture or handling characteristics of the treated wood, it seemed to have taken the 'nature' out of it making it harder/brittle to the touch and often caused an overall staining or colour cast.

Splitting faults were reduced, not eliminated, distortion still took place.

After a couple of years I stopped spending time trying* to convince myself it wasn't, like many of the alchemist related treatments expounded for the speeding up of natural drying such as soap and alcohol, a waste of turning time and now just rely on nature and time to do the work.

* a search of the forum for my early years of playing with these methods could I assume put a definitive timescale on these shenanigans.

 

[leisurefix]

It has been mentioned that there are many ways of drying, one that I have had some success with is to use the microwave. It does not seem to change the colour or feel of the wood, as long as you do not blast it for too long as that causes micro-splits. It seems to be that the wood distorts a bit less, and so cracks less too.
If you want to try it, use a medium setting, blast the wood for a minute or two, so that it is warm (but not really hot), then remove from microwave and allow to cool, then repeat the process a few times (the original instructions I found said to weigh the wood after each blasting and stop when the weight is stable - I have never bothered with this instead stopping when the wood seems dry enough).
I have convinced myself it works when I want to limit the amount of movement and risk of splitting

I really like the colouration of the smaller bowl.
Andy.