Drying rough turned bowls quickly.

[Steve Inniss]

And that is what I am doing. I am always looking for new ideas or trying something that is off the wall because quite often it will stick. I appreciate people like Dave who dream this stuff up.

From the same logs of Cherry (real test for the idea) Pear, Apple, Curly Maple, Yellow Birch and an Elm Burl, I made two blanks of each, three of the Cherry and Apple as there is two sealers I want to compare. I rough turned them all the same and they are all in the same room drying. I'll take notes each week and for those interested perhaps place some pictures on my website as to the results per specie. I am also logging the room temps and humidity, just for reference.

Andy

Andy,
Thanks. It'll be interesting to see. Not that I'm trying to give anyone else a make work project but... It would be good to see a rough turned bowl, marked with a line "cutting" it in half (rim, down to foot, up to rim on other side) soaked (one half in denatured alcohol - the other not), bagged for 9 days or so, then finish turned. Theoretically, the soaked half will not check or move and the unsoaked one will. I'm guessing there will be some wicking of the alcohol, but it will be interesting to see if there is a clear difference on the same bowl.

I'm curious though, did you end up using Methyl Hydrate? The following link would indicate that it is not 97% ethanol, 3% methanol as others have suggested as the makeup of denatured alcohol:
http://www.murraychemical.com/msds/METHONOL.doc

-Steve

[George Tokarev]

Hi Andy,

I never kept track of the temp and humidity. I wanted a process that didn't require special conditions. The intent was for minimal cost and no major equipment. I don't know how big your bowls. But in a week a small bowl soaked in alcohol will probably be dry. If you log the weight everyday you will be amazed how fast it drops. Thanks for doing a comparison test. Now we will know if the process works in Canada.

Never monitored temperature and humidity? The combination of temperature and absolute humidity, Relative Humidity, is the most important element in the entire process. Wood gains or loses moisture by adsorbing or evaporating moisture to the air in an entirely predictable manner based on relative humidity. Your "tests" failed to monitor this? This is all there is to drying wood!

Please learn what wood is, does, and how it is made to do it before you proceed and involve others hoping for a magic feather to allow them to fly. The bagging method is a tried and true one, though not normally required unless the RH is extremely low. It's based on maintaining a low moisture gradient from center to surface to minimize drying stress and damage. If not bagged, the gradient will be higher, and the piece dry more rapidly, possibly suffering drying stress and damage. ALL drying methods are merely variations of this method, balancing speed against risk of damage. Your method succeeds because you're doing what turners have done since they began turning green wood - controlling the rate of moisture loss.

You appear to be suffering from false logic in your conclusions. If X produces success on its own, and you do A and X , why would you assume A makes a difference? Is alcohol a chemical with which wood is unfamiliar? Not at all. You have probably heard methyl alcohol, methanol, referred to a "wood alcohol," and for a reason. It is present in the tree all the time, used in synthesis of the cellulose, hemicellulose and lignins which are wood. It used to be produced from destructive distillation of wood, whence the name. Ethyl alcohol is often there too, caused, as always, by fermentation of sugars. The soft maple I've been roughing has a smell like a fine Burgundy, and a bit of a "bite" when tasted, having been felled early last year and the sugar fermenting in the log.

You jump on me and my gentle reminder to be cautious when drawing conclusions so far out of the main stream of data, then accuse me of being closed-minded. If my mind is closed, it is because it is full of precise information on the nature of wood and how it reaches EMC with its environment. This is derived from experimental data, is objectively verifiable, repeatable, and is easily available to you at http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/tmu/publications.htm

The publications on drying wood, stress in drying, and air drying are most interesting, and bear on your "experiment" directly. You now have to figure out whether you have done anything chemically or physically to alter this, or whether the difference is only mental.

[Jason Roehl]

George, read (or re-read) Rob Bourgeois' post. Would you not agree that this test procedure (bowls from two halves of the same log, with one of the two processes applied to each bowl, bagging or soaking in alcohol and wrapping) removes the temp/humidity variables because the two bowls would be next to each other on a shelf, subjected to whatever the room conditions are?

Many of the turners Dave used to do his test have been turning bowls for years and drying them by bagging them and letting them sit. I'm pretty sure some of these folks used to weigh their bowls to determine when they were dry enough to be finish turned. So if soaking them in alcohol drops the time on the shelf from 3-6 months to 1-2 weeks, that's pretty significant. Your posts seem to indicate that nothing can be done to make the bowls dry faster, and you talk extensively about how water acts in wood. However, this is talking about soaking a bowl in alcohol, which is miscible with water. Surely some of the water in the bowl would be replaced with alcohol during the soaking, then during the drying, the alcohol will speed the dry time because a blend of water and alcohol evaporates faster than water alone. This, I believe to be the essence of Dave's hypothesis. A good scientist who doubts this could work would duplicate the experiment, not say that it can't work based on current knowledge.

I'm reminded that a certain sailor was once told he couldn't sail around the world because everyone knew that the world was flat...

A question: is there a mainstream of data on bowls soaked in alcohol and then dried?

[Jim Ketron]

Dave I think you have a Great thing going Keep up the good work!!
I would like to thank you for posting your methods. I will give it a try when I get some blanks cut up.
Never mind what people (or someone) says. if it works it works
Im always looking for faster better methods for my time in the shop is limited as it is!
Jim

[Dave Smith]

I will attempt to stop by more often.

If anyone want any information on the alcohol drying procedure don't hesitate to email me. I welcome information about your first couple bowls completed using the alcohol drying method. I plan to compile an article about the results of widespread usage of the process. Pictures would be most welcome. Please advise me if I may use your name and or pictures on my web site or in an article for publication. If I don't get overwhelmed with data I will make the information available in some form.

Things to include:
Type of wood: including, burl, crotch, etc.
Type of turning: bowl, closed form, hollow form, etc.
Approximate size:
Wall thickness:
Type of alcohol used: leave blank if denatured ethanol used.
Length of time soaked:
Length of time dried:
Finished thickness:
Type finish:
Overall outcome: modern art not on purpose, kindling wood, acceptable, etc.
Optional:
Relative moisture of blank: fresh very wet, some what wet, mostly dry
Deviated from procedure: Didn't wrap, waxed outside, put it in the chicken coop to dry, etc.

Dave Smith

Blessed with a lot of internet friends in Longview, WA.

[Andy London]

Steve, I am trying Methyl Hydrate for the first run, it is cheap here and easy to get, I can buy denatured but it's going to be expensive unless I or one of my many buddies that I have told about this process can find us a supply, which I believe they will. But you are correct, it is not the same accoriding to a couple of friends that are in the chemical research area of a local university....I've also asked them for there thoughts as to why this works.

I have so much wood in the species I mentioned that even if this does not work at all, it will have been worth the experiment, as I mentioned things off the wall quite often stick. I think based on the feedback that it does work as I know some of the turners that have tried it.

It will take some time to post the results, this is a very busy time of the year for the shop, pounding the hours in day and night. I will compile the information in an Excel Spreadsheet and post it for consideration. Our temps here are pretty low at the moment, well below freezing and I am seeing how this process works in the cold as the air, when cold, is very dry and good drying weather, at least in my experience.

There seems to be some confusion coming from the negative side, this process is using part of an older proven process (paperbag) and adding a new process being the alchol, to cut the drying time substantially....why anyone would not be willing to at least give it a try is beyond me, all there is to loose is perhaps $20.00 and a bowl blank at the most.

[Aaron Koehl]

Then perhaps an analysis comparing the response variables of the bowl drying methods is in order. We should measure:
1. the drying time (total time involved)
2. the material costs (cost of any solvents used, etc)
3. the labor time involved (total hands-on time)
4. level of checking and cracking

I'm sure the result would be interesting to see. Obviously, the fourth measure is the most difficult to gauge objectively, however a few independent ratings (1 to 10) of a dried bowl would provide a valid measure. Two and three are straight forward, and the first one can be measured a couple of different ways: for example, a scale or other measuring device.

Ultimately, we can't argue with what works--everyone has different methods for accomplishing an end result. Hats off to Dave for sharing his method with us! I appreciate the contribution, as do many others. The dissenting opinions are valuable as well, so long as they are tactfully engaged. A true comparison of methods would require a formal approach, along the lines of what I started this post with. However, informal inspection is usually accurate when conducted by professionals, and by accurate I mean that professional observations usually coincide with the formal test results.

[Kurt Aebi]

I usually won't contribute to a thread that is this heated, but here goes!

This is a forum that has been graciously opened up for us to Share Ideas, not Squash Ideas. I realize that with the written word, it is difficult if not impossible to capture the inflection, so we must write clearly and concisely so as not to cause a rift if possible. Georges comments were probably intended for us to not blindly follow Dave and that was good advice. He may have (and did - in my opinion) carry his opinion to an extreme without even giving a shread of merit to the idea itself. This probably was taken (me included) to mean that George has a "Closed" mind, unwilling to try something new. I have encountered more than a few "George's" on a taxidermy forum that I frequent.. I must admit, if I see their name on a post, I just skip it now regardless of the content - I just don't need to see that kind of narrow-mindedness. I really hope this forum doesn't go that route, I don't think our moderators (US) and our administrators (Aaron, Keith, Ken, etc) will let that happen.

All Dave was trying to do was give people an alternative method to try and it seems to me that he followed the basic rules of any R & D project before posting his findings and there is a lot of turning experience that I am sure have notified him to the merits and misgivings of this method before he posted this thread (3 years of taking data and experimenting should show that).

I wish to thank Dave for this thread and all the time and effort his field testers have put into trying and reporting on this method - one well worth trying - in my opinion.

We should also thank George for his efforts in trying to help us Not be Blind Following Sheep (I think that was what he was trying to convey - not as eloquent or uncontroversial as we really would like to see around here), but I think posted with good intent, though presented in a rather confrontational kind of way that seemed innapropriate to this viewer. He should have just given us his thoughts that this could be one of those "Magical Elixers" that would lead us to our ruin and left it at that. Most of us would have said "Good Enough" his opinion is noted.

I am not trying to Bash George, even if it sounds as such, just trying to thank him for his opinion and to give him aome advice as to voicing his opinion without the controversy that is all. Nobody's opinion is wasted breath, or we would never learn or try anything new. Remember, the World (woodworking world as well! ) was once thought to be flat!

[George Tokarev]

Then perhaps an analysis comparing the response variables of the bowl drying methods is in order. We should measure:
1. the drying time (total time involved)
2. the material costs (cost of any solvents used, etc)
3. the labor time involved (total hands-on time)
4. level of checking and cracking

I'm sure the result would be interesting to see. Obviously, the fourth measure is the most difficult to gauge objectively, however a few independent ratings (1 to 10) of a dried bowl would provide a valid measure. Two and three are straight forward, and the first one can be measured a couple of different ways: for example, a scale or other measuring device.

My wife, bless that piece of anthracite residing within her left chest, is fond of answering the question "how's George" with "compared to what?"

That's the rub. There is no objective data valid for comparison offered by the proponents, which means nothing was studied, merely asserted. This is a shame, of course, because it would be so easy to do an objective study. Consider the method used to evaluate drugs. They are compared to nothing and to a placebo. Unfortunately, efficacy is compared to nothing, when it should be compared to the placebo in more than statistical significance, but that's another lawsuit. Double blind would be carrying it too far.

I offered, in another thread, an example of what happens from doing nothing. The placebo would be a non-treated blank bagged or wrapped, stored under the same conditions as the treated and nothing blank. This would be a simple study, designed to demonstrate efficacy. As long as the same conditions are followed, it would be valid for comparative purposes. To be accurate for interpretive purposes, there would have to be a bit more effort. Other data would have to be collected, for instance strength of solution (independent variable) versus drying rate, and, throughout, the two controls.

It's possible that soaking might prove effective in only one aspect, as in occlusive sealing, which gives great protection against drying degrade, though it does greatly increase time to EMC. It might be that it works on diffuse-porous woods but not on ring-porous, or accelerates the time to the FSP only, or protects against drying degrade only under extremely low conditions of RH. These interpretive results would be a natural benefit if there was real data collected. Or it might, as I suspect, turn out that it is a way of spending quality time with the wood, and nothing more. I have no objective basis to assume anything else.

When you hear the sound of hoofs, it might be a zebra, but unless you're in Africa, the smart money goes with horses.

[Fred LeBail]

Steve, I am trying Methyl Hydrate for the first run, it is cheap here and easy to get, I can buy denatured but it's going to be expensive unless I or one of my many buddies that I have told about this process can find us a supply, which I believe they will. But you are correct, it is not the same accoriding to a couple of friends that are in the chemical research area of a local university....I've also asked them for there thoughts as to why this works.

I have so much wood in the species I mentioned that even if this does not work at all, it will have been worth the experiment, as I mentioned things off the wall quite often stick. I think based on the feedback that it does work as I know some of the turners that have tried it.

It will take some time to post the results, this is a very busy time of the year for the shop, pounding the hours in day and night. I will compile the information in an Excel Spreadsheet and post it for consideration. Our temps here are pretty low at the moment, well below freezing and I am seeing how this process works in the cold as the air, when cold, is very dry and good drying weather, at least in my experience.

There seems to be some confusion coming from the negative side, this process is using part of an older proven process (paperbag) and adding a new process being the alchol, to cut the drying time substantially....why anyone would not be willing to at least give it a try is beyond me, all there is to loose is perhaps $20.00 and a bowl blank at the most.

Andy, I too would like to know how you make out using the Methyl Hydrate as I have been looking and that is all that is readily available.

I live on the Miramichi in N.B. . If you go to Perth-Andover through Rt 108 you pass my place.
Fred

[Fred Chan]

Dave, thanks for posting your process for drying. The best purpose of a forum is to share new discoveries and ideas with fellow woodworkers. How many turners would have thought of using ca if they didn't read about it on a forum first? It is unfair to disqualify any new idea as having no merit without testing first. I hope you keep the forum updated with your reseach. Andy, I look forward to seeing your results with methyl hydrate. Does the stuff have a strong smell? Somebody must know what denatured alcohol is called or what it's equivalent is in Canada.

[Philip Duffy]

After reading all the commentarys I find it interesting that the objective of reaching stabization seems to be a function of so many factors that we never consider. Just yesterday, in a mini-test of the drying process, I turned a holiday ornament og holly (a notorious wood for cracking), hollowed it to 1/8th, and dunked it for two hours in the Denatured alcholol. After drying for 8 hours it no it weighted 65 grams and 8 hours later it weighed 65 grams. I think that is all I need to know. Ready for hanging on the tree!