Sealing a roughed bowl

[Brian Palmer]

I see alot of people use Danish oil to slow the drying on a roughed out bowl. Just for curiosity would Linseed oil work the same, or is there a reason Danish oil seems to be it.

[Donny Lawson]

I'm not sure about using oil but "Anchorseal" seems to work well. The OLD type anchorseal works great but the new is good if you apply a few coats.

[John Keeton]

Brian, most Danish oil has varnish resins in it and probably would seal the wood more so than BLO. I am not sure either method would work well on a rough out - perhaps others with experience in this will comment.

[Jack Mincey]

I'm just glad that I don't have to mess around with anything more than putting my rough outs into a brown grocery bag. If a bowl is to big for a bag I put them into a card board box. It is cheap and works without all the mess of painting anything on to my rough outs so I will keep doing it. I live in Western North Carolina so if anyone has similar weather and humidity where they live the bag method should work for them as well. Getting an even wall thickness with it just a touch thinner toward the bottom is the most important thing when drying in this method. Shape of the bowl also is important being that a bowl that goes straight up will be prone to crack more than one that has a nice curve to the side.
Jack
Jack

[Eric Gourieux]

I turn mostly wet wood and use Anchorseal or the paper bag method for drying. Both work fine for me here in southern Indiana. I haven't used Danish Oil to slow drying but have used it in the finishing process after the piece is dry. Storing rough turned wood in a brown paper bag is certainly the easiest and least messy, but a benefit of coating with Anchorseal is that you can easily see what you have drying on the shelf.

[Sean Hughto]

Just some Anchorseal has worked great for me.

[Faust M. Ruggiero]

Brian,
You spent a slippery Saturday morning with two guys who use different methods to slow down the loss of moisture in our rough outs. Tom just wraps them in paper and stores them in an unheated garage for a while. Once they have lost the really wet stuff, he unwraps them and stores them in a heated space. Tom told me once he probably has 300 roughed out bowls. I have had little luck with paper. My experience is I need to change bags often or suffer mold problems. I prefer to use Anchorseal on the end grain. I store my bowls in a lightly heated space. I also soak some bowls and hollow forms in DNA to speed up the process. In our area, air dried rough outs need a good two years to dry if they are over an inch thick. The DNA process shortens that time to 3 months.
faust

[Bernie Weishapl]

Brain I do like some of the others and use anchorseal. I started doing that about 3 yrs ago after seeing a demo by Mike Mahoney. He paints his whole bowl with anchorseal. I have about 60 or so bowls all painted inside and out with anchorseal only one has a small crack.

[Harry Robinette]

I been using Anchorseal but have been losing some sense the "New" Anchorseal came out. Started going back to just turning green and if it warps Oh well.

[Pat Scott]

I think a lot of it depends on what part of the country you live in (humidity, etc), as to how you seal bowls. I live in CO which is dry and we have low humidity. I use Anchorseal as well and coat the entire bowl. I let the bowl dry overnight and then put it in my basement either on the floor or on the bottom shelf of my storage shelves. I use those heavy metal wire shelves that you sometimes see in restaurants. The shelves are not solid, more honeycomb type, so my assumption is they would let more even airflow across the whole surface of the bowl. The intent is keep them as low to the ground as possible, no more than 3' off the ground because the airflow and temperature can increase the higher you store it. If possible I store the bowl upside down. The reason for this is if stored upright, any moisture inside the wood could migrate down to the base, and the base would stay wetter than the walls and now your bowl is not drying evenly. Bowls stay on the bottom shelf for several months minimum before being moved up to the 2nd shelf, then 3rd shelf, etc. By the time they make it up towards the upper shelves they have lost a lot of moisture and are fairly stable. If a bowl is going to crack in my experience it will crack within days after being rough turned. Usually if a week goes by you can breath easier and are probably out of the woods.

Some bowls you can tell after rough turning are just wetter than normal (more than usual). I'll leave these bowls covered up in their shavings overnight so they can lose some of the excess moisture. Being covered in their own shavings reduces airflow around the bowl, and the wet shavings will let some moisture escape but not at a rapid pace. Then the following day I'll coat the bowl with Anchorseal like normal. So far I've had good luck with no cracking when done this way. If I coat a dripping wet bowl with Anchorseal it seems like there is a good chance it will crack. But if I let some of the moisture escape through the shavings, it seems more stable and so far no cracking.

I'm experimenting with some pieces where I coat them completely with Anchorseal, AND put them in a paper bag. I've only tried this so far with my largest platters and bowls (18"), or highly figured crotch pieces. It seems like the larger pieces have a higher tendency to split.

I've never heard of anyone using oil to seal a rough turned bowl. I would not try it.

[Brian Palmer]

Faust when you soak it in DNA do you literally soak it in like a 5 gallon bucket of it or "paint" it on heavy?

[Jon McElwain]

I think a lot of it depends on what part of the country you live in (humidity, etc), as to how you seal bowls. I live in CO which is dry and we have low humidity. I use Anchorseal as well and coat the entire bowl.

Pat I totally agree. I live part of the year in Colorado, and part of the year in Juneau. VERY different climates. I had a large ash blank that was sealed with wax for 3 years prior to moving it to Colorado and nary a crack. Within 2 months of moving it to Colorado, it had a major split with through the middle.

In Juneau, I get around to sealing a blank's end grain within a few days, in Colorado, I seal the entire think as soon as it comes off the bandsaw or lathe. In Colorado, I seal them, put them in a box on the floor of the garage and cover them with shavings. I still loose one now and again - especially in the winter.

[Faust M. Ruggiero]

Brian,
I keep a Rubber Maid garbage can with 10 gallons of DNA and soak the item for a couple days. I've already forgotten a bowl and left it for weeks with no ill effects. Until recently I used a 6 gallon sparkle bucket with a tight fitting lid. That works well for bowls 10" or less in diameter. They still need to spend some time drying but since you just got a new lathe, I am sure you are anxious to make some finished pieces. You can turn to finish (once turned bowls) and if you turn thin enough your bowls will not crack even without DNA or aging. They will warp but some folks like that look. It works well on Natural edge bowls since they are not round anyway.
faust

[Don Alexander]

don't know if Danish oil is the best way but so far i have had very good success with oak not splitting all to heck on me by putting as much Danish oil on it as it will soak up and since i also use Danish oil to wet sand when needed and also to finish most things it doesn't cause me any extra work which is also a big PLUS

[Dan Hintz]

Just out of pure laziness at times, I have been doing both bagging and DNA. A couple that I turned at Grumbine's were anchorsealed at the endgrain and left in the open air (upstairs in the living area on a table, so plenty of air circulation), the others I've done were soaked in DNA for several days and then stuck in a bag for a couple of weeks. Both methods seem to work just as well (though the anchorsealed ones sat for much longer to dry).

Harry, I always ask for the original formula when I order... not even going to play with the new formula, not worth my time.