Best lathe out there

[Bill Jobe]

Anyone willing to respond to my question about storing my wood outside, this winter anyway. Temps sometimes -20 or worse. Right now I have so much wood gathered not only can I not get my truck it, my wife has to park diagonally.
2 and a half car garage!! Who makes this stuff up?.

[John K Jordan]

Anyone willing to respond to my question about storing my wood outside, this winter anyway. Temps sometimes -20 or worse. Right now I have so much wood gathered not only can I not get my truck it, my wife has to park diagonally.
2 and a half car garage!! Who makes this stuff up?.

Green wood "survives" nicely frozen. In fact, one way to preserve that perfect chunk is to freeze it until you have time to turn it. Trees freeze solid every winter and it doesn't hurt them a bit.

I would be more concerned about the heat, since it can dry wood rapidly even with high humidity. An extra coat of sealer probably wouldn't hurt. Store well off the ground unless you want to experiment with spalting. Store in the shade if possible. I would consider laying down a vapor barrier on the ground, then some short pieces of 4x4 or larger with longer boards on top to hold the wood, then cover with tin or something to keep the rain and sun off. Don't wrap it with a tarp which would hold moisture. Expect some to fail, even if well sealed.

The general wisdom is to turn green wood chunks as soon as possible, within a few days or a week if possible. Rough turning then drying before finish turning is a good method. If you have way more than you can turn in a week or so you might consider giving some away, selling, or trading for some dry wood or some pizza. The sad thing is that chunks of wood stored either inside or outside in the weather will probably turn to firewood by the time you get to turning it, even with the end grain sealed.

Another problem with storing outside in warmer weather is it may be attacked by insects like power post beetles. I have personally seen them eat through a coat of Anchorseal and head into the end grain in maple. There are chemical treatments that will discourage them.

The other John Jordan (the famous one) said he prefers to get green wood in the log, stored off the ground in the shade. (he turns only green wood) When he is ready to turn some he cuts off about 6" from one end of the log and throws it away, then cuts a chunk for turning.

I turn mostly dry wood and I like turning small things. What I generally do with green wood to minimize loss: I process most green wood as soon as I can into turning blanks using my big bandsaw, from 1" square up to 3-4" or larger, some rectangular chunks, occasional round blanks. I write the date on each piece or at least prominently on a few of the larger pieces. I seal these well immediately after cutting and stack them with good ventilation indoors on wire shelves. I let them dry for 6 months or so then sometimes transfer to bins depending on the free shelf space. I let these dry for a long time before turning, the time depends on species and size. I check the dryness with a pinless moisture meter before use. It is a LOT quicker to process extra green wood into turning squares than it is to mount and rough turn them.

When well dried I stack them tightly on other shelves or toss the in bins. Before final stacking I usually skim them with the bandsaw to square them up, expose clean wood, and cut away any significant drying defects. I also make sure each piece has the species and date written with a sharpie. Much of the wood I'm turning now has been drying at least six years, 10 years for dogwood. I mounted a rough turned bowl last week that I put up to dry in 2003. You can't get in a big hurry when air drying turning wood!

I try to do a little processing throughout the year so I always have wood. In the last few weeks I've processed a bunch of holly, hard maple, and cedar. In the last few months I also made big stacks of dogwood, elm, black locust, persimmon, cherry, and others. This week I'm cutting green walnut and white oak in my spare time.

JKJ

[Roger Chandler]

Anyone willing to respond to my question about storing my wood outside, this winter anyway. Temps sometimes -20 or worse. Right now I have so much wood gathered not only can I not get my truck it, my wife has to park diagonally.
2 and a half car garage!! Who makes this stuff up?.

You can store wood in very cold temps. Some production turners keep wood in the freezer to avoid cracking. You seem to have temperature extremes, [reading from your other post] so you need to mitigate the things that hinder your success as much as you can. Keep it dry, and out of the sun if possible....a tarp certainly helps, as does shade [underneath trees] Keeping the wood off the ground to avoid soaking up moisture is a must as well, [think pallets, or blocks with pressure treated 4x4's or some such configuration. If you have lots of the wood, log form is a good way to go with the ends double sealed with Anchorseal, but work them up as you can, and then allow your roughouts to dry slowly in stable temps if possible [like a basement if you have one.]

Some turners keep their wood in water.... in barrels, or a pond, but not everyone has that kind of room.

I think you will get a lot more responses if you take the subject of wood drying/storage and make a separate thread out of it......might get a lot more/better input than on this thread about lathes.

[Bill Jobe]

Thank you, John, for all the much needed wisdom and knowledge. I have quite a pit of kiln dried cherry and walnut. It should be ok to cut to a certain length and stack on ahelves in the garage, wouldn't it?
And I am very excited about the peach and butternut I picked up a few days ago. The guy I got them from even cut the longer pieces ( some butternut about a foot across) into shorter lengths and sealed them emediately.
Beautiful stuff with bark curled under at one place. That's where he cut it and I cannot wait to make something special with it. I actually got it from a freind of a freind, and my freind wants me to turn an urn for him. I told him if he did not like it after moving in I plan to make a secret exit for him.

[Bill Jobe]

I try to do a little processing throughout the year so I always have wood. In the last few weeks I've processed a bunch of holly, hard maple, and cedar. In the last few months I also made big stacks of dogwood, elm, black locust, persimmon, cherry, and others. This week I'm cutting green walnut and white oak in my spare time.

JKJ

Since you mentioned black locust, I must not have gotten the office email
It technically isn't a tree, but instead it is a lagume. a relative to peas, beans and peanuts.

Also, I recently learned that there are no cedar trees in the US. what we refer to as various types of cedar are actually junipers.

[Bill Jobe]

But, the book I read was dated 1980, so your mileage may vary.

[Bill Jobe]

You're right, Roger. I should have started a new thread.

[John K Jordan]

Since you mentioned black locust, I must not have gotten the office email
It technically isn't a tree, but instead it is a lagume. a relative to peas, beans and peanuts.

You can call a locust a bean if you want to. You might want to call the US Dept of Agriculture and correct their misunderstanding. They can let the wood experts and scientists know they are all wrong.

Let us know how your black locust recipe book and line of snacks works out. Perhaps make sweet snacks from honey locust.


Dry wood is fine to stack and store inside indefinately. I have dry wood reportedly over 100 years old.

JKJ

[Roger Chandler]

John, it looks like we were replying to his wood drying/storage question at the same time last night. Had I known you were going to chime in with such advice, I would have not replied, as both of us gave similar advice. Such happens occasionally on the forums.

[John K Jordan]

John, it looks like we were replying to his wood drying/storage question at the same time last night. Had I known you were going to chime in with such advice, I would have not replied, as both of us gave similar advice. Such happens occasionally on the forums.

Ha! I think it is wonderful when two or more people reply, even with identical words! When I am asking for advice I love to see more than one person say the same thing - it adds an measure of assurance.

I also like to see that someone else is thinking the same way I do since if I'm way off base I want to know! I learn a lot from the forums.

I do agree this particular topic would be best addressed in a new thread.

JKJ

[Prashun Patel]

I agree with you John.

I think it's wonderful when two of more people reply, even with identical words.

[Roger Chandler]

I agree with you John.

I think it's wonderful when two of more people reply, even with identical words.

Not to mention identical times! We both posted at 9:53 pm! So we had to both be slaving away at the keyboard trying to help the OP with his question.

[Jeramie Johnson]

Great thread. I have a Grizzly G0766 and Griz 17" bandsaw. Love them both. If money was no object, I would be chasing a Robust or equivalent.

If you are jumping from a Harbor Freight 10", then Jet, Powermatic, Grizzly, anything will be a dream machine. Get the most swing you can, if you think you will have the itch.

To go to the Robust or equivalent, would be like jumping from a Pacer to a Bentley. If you can do it, don't hesitate.

[Leo Van Der Loo]

Since you mentioned black locust, I must not have gotten the office email
It technically isn't a tree, but instead it is a lagume. a relative to peas, beans and peanuts.

Also, I recently learned that there are no cedar trees in the US. what we refer to as various types of cedar are actually junipers.

I think you are right and didn’t get the whole office email message .

True there are no native Cedar trees in N.America, and one of those, the so called Eastern Red Cedar is a Juniper species, the other two also called Cedar, are the Eastern White Cedar and the Western Red Cedar, they are NOT Junipers, but Thuja, namely Thuja occidentalis for the Eastern White Cedar and Thuja plicate for the Western Red Cedar.

As for the Leguminocae trees like the Black Locust, Honey Locust, the Acasia and Mimosa and many more do belong to a very large flowering family that includes also shrubs vines and herbs, and for their seeds being in pods like the peas and beans, often called being in the bean family, here some more info for you to get up to speed on this .

Leguminosae.jpg

[Brian Kent]

Hey, congratulations on a great purchase at a great price!