I need some advice on drying bowls.....

[Mark Cothren]

I've even considered rolling some chicken bones on the floor under my lathe combined with some chants or maybe some cursing.....

You've been talking to Burns again, haven't you?

[Perry Higgins]

Ken,
I've been working with Pear wood (orchard trees removed from production) the last few weeks and I have yet to get the DNA process to work on this wood. In contrast, the dish soap process has worked without fail and the blanks are coming out of the same log. I'm no expert and not nearly as well versed as the other contributors, but for me out here in the dry west, DNA does not work on fruit wood and dish soap does. I'd suggest you give it a try.

[Bob Hallowell]

Ken,
I think I Know your problem,

here's what I found works-

walk around the lathe clockwise with your right hand touching it- stop scratch your head then walk around counter clockwise 2 with your left hand touching the lathe.

Let me know if it worked for you

Bob

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Bob.....I don't need any help causing my vertigo attacks to occur......I need help preventing or eliminating them!....PS....this didn't work well for me using a baseball bat instead of a lathe either!

[Mike Vickery]

Ken great advice you got especially about the grain orientation. Please keep in mind when it comes to news paper you climate has a lot to do with it. 2 sheets of news paper may work fine for someone in a more humid climate, but will not cut it for me in the desert. I believe you are in a pretty dry climate. One guy I watched and the woodworking channels has a simple and brilliant statement that works in all environments. If your bowl is cracking it is drying to fast, if it is molding it is drying to slow. You will have to play with what works for you to slow down drying. You can spray the outside with deft, wrap in more newspaper, put news paper in a brown grocery bag for a while, use anchor seal or many other methods to slow the drying down even more.
P.S. If you DNA is old you may want to consider replaceing, when mine gets old it picks up a lot more water and seems to decrease the the benefits quite a bit.

[Reed Gray]

All of the drying methods are centered around one concept, and that is to control the rate of drying. Too fast and it will crack. I generally turn to final thickness (1/4 to 1/2 inch) then LDD soak, then dry. I like the warped shapes. To dry, I start with them on the floor for several days, then move them up to a rack for final drying. They reach equilibrium in 1 to 2 weeks, depending on when they are harvested, and the time of year. My shop relative humidity is around 55 to 60%. Any knot, crotch, or other reaction wood, or uneven thickness will result in uneven stresses and increase the chance of cracking. Bagging, newspapers, burying in dry shavings/chips, anchorseal, or keeping in a humid area are all ways to slow down the drying process. With the soaking (LDD and DNA) I haven't noticed any difference in drying time, movement, or cracking rate. This could be due to my turning thinner, and maybe if I left them thick for returning, it may make a difference. Another experiment for me to try some time. The LDD method does make the bowls a lot easier to sand out when dry.
robo hippy

[Mark Cothren]

Please keep in mind when it comes to news paper you climate has a lot to do with it. 2 sheets of news paper may work fine for someone in a more humid climate, but will not cut it for me in the desert.

Good point, Mike.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Guys......So far I've been just following what others have posted here in the past..........But all these post have got me to thinking.

Lewiston is dry.....almost as dry as the deserts in California, Utah, Arizona, etc. Our average total moisture is only 12" ....2 inches less we'd be a desert. My shop is heated and is currently set at 64 F...it's not too hot but our humidity is extremely low....Now we have some humid days but 30-40% is probably normal and often less than that....

I'm going to rough some out this weekend and try more news paper...try some brown paper bags.....and I think I'll try some boiling and maybe some dish soap. It's not like any of them will hurt my success rate. I know these methods work but so far, DNA hasn't produced a single success for me. My alcohol is relatively new. I WILL FIND A METHOD FOR SUCCESS!

Just in case, however, I will start saving some chicken bones!

[George Tokarev]

There you go. Invest ten bucks in a good hygrometer and find out what's really happening. Get a nice big appliance box or something similar to rack your roughs in, and monitor humidity.

Don't make the bottom of a cross-grain piece too broad and the sides too steep, or you won't get the benefit of radial shrinkage to counter the tangential. The outside of the bowl tries to pull fibers apart, the interior compresses them, so if you go the paper or anchorseal route, you need worry only about the outside. Any incipient crack inside will close automatically, and you might as well not slow drying too much.

[Jim King]

Boil those blanks.

http://www.exoticwoodworld.com/index...ic&sc=boiling1

http://www.exoticwoodworld.com/index...ic&sc=boiling2

[Keith Burns]

Ken, I really think the chicken bones are your best bet !!

[Bernie Weishapl]

Bob.....I don't need any help causing my vertigo attacks to occur......I need help preventing or eliminating them!....PS....this didn't work well for me using a baseball bat instead of a lathe either!

Oh Ken in order to get rid of the vertigo attacks you do what Bob says but the other hand is tugging your ear. Works every time.

[George Franklis]

Ken, I really think the chicken bones are your best bet !!

I prefer turkey bones - dark meat only.

[Bob Jensen]

What works for me on a bowl that size is turning wall thickness to about 5/8" thick and making SURE the bottom is also sized about the same. I then soak in alcohol for 24 hours or thereabouts and then let it sit out for an hour to air dry and then i put it in a tyvek bag. Tyvek is the house wrap product you see everywhere, it lets moisture out but not in. I can say honestly that my sucess rate is probably 98% doing it this way. I do not use this on every bowl or vessel i make but i do use it for colorful, troublesome woods, highly figured wood, or wood that i buy. Fruit woods are certainly the worst, and have been my only failures, pear, and apple. Once i purposely left the pith in a large cherry bowl, it was at least 2" down from the top of bowl and to this day the pith is still there and not a crack anywhere around it. I really believe the biggest mistake is leaving to much wood in the bottom of roughout it tends to dry unevenly and has little option but to crack.

bob

[Curt Fuller]

Ken, I really think the chicken bones are your best bet !!

Not just any old chicken bones will work though. They should be KFC chicken bones. And what makes that work even better is using the old buckets from KFC for the drying. They have just the right sized holes in the lid for ventilation.

More seriously though, I'm not far from you in terms of climate and humdity and I have all kinds of problems keeping my wood from cracking also. I remember the posts about you getting the big maple tree and it was at the time of year when the sap is starting to really move up into the tree. I've had my best luck cutting trees in late fall/early winter after the leaves are off. And I think you want to slow or even out the drying process some in our low humidity. I use the rough turn and dna process too, but not until after the blank has been allowed to dry out somewhat (6-8 months) sealed in anchorseal. One thing I've found is that if there's enough water in a blank that it flings it on you as you're roughing out a bowl, then it's going to be hard to keep it from cracking and will take some extra care to do it. If the blank is dryed out some first I have much better luck.