Processing green bowl-blanks

[MKepke]

I find myself with an abundance of green bowl blanks. I need to get them rough-turned and drying before they crack into firewood.

Given one chuck, a whole bunch of faceplates and a whole bunch of blanks, how would you go about processing these?

I'm assuming/expecting I need to follow some form of rough-turning->let the turning dry->finish turning.

Is there a method I can use for bowls where I leave a faceplate on the piece during the drying cycle to minimize remounting for finish turning?

What order of operations would you follow?

Note that I simply don't work fast enough/have enough time to finish turn from rough in one sitting.

-Mark

[Arlin Eastman]

Mark

I know others will chime in but I have not turned green wood but once.

Arlin

[Steve K]

If I'm going to twice turn, ie, turn, dry, turn this is what I do.
First, turn to a rough diameter and I loosely follow the 10% rule, leaving the rough thickness about 10% of the diameter. That's up to about 1 1/4", don't really go thicker than that. There are guys who say that's not necessary but it works for me.
Then, I seal the entire bowl inside and out with anchorseal. Again, there are other methods but also again, this is what works for me.
Basically after that I just throw the blank on the shop floor somewhere for about a month. After a month or so I will put it on the lowest shelf of my drying rack. I have lots of blanks in different stages so I'm always shuffling them around. As space opens I move the blanks up in the rack.
Generally my rough blanks dry for the better part of the year. I've some that are a few years old. Using this method I save 90-95% of my rough turns.

[Jason/Woody]

I've never left a face plate on. It seems to me that the wood would want to warp too much and would possibly deform after you removed the plate anyhow. If you use a face plate for roughing them to shape, are you using a chuck to finish them off with a tenon or mortise? Those aren't hard to true back up for remounting once dry. You're only talking a few minutes before you're back to true and mounted. IMO, that's easier (and cheaper) than keeping face plates mounted.

You can rough wet would very quickly too.

You could probably also just seal the sawn blanks if you don't have time to rough them all out.

Maybe just rough one or two at a time and work through your pile? I don't know if that's feasible because I don't know what you consider an abundance. I had probably 30-40 at once one time and roughed them out in a day. Wet wood = fun wood IMO

[David Delo]

SteveK gives some good advise about what/how to preserve green wood blanks once its turned 1 time. I follow pretty much that procedure and it seems to work for me. I've done the brown paper bag thing but it seems to me (in my climate) and circumstances, just turn it to 10% and seal it and put it away until you almost forget about it works best. I'm not in a hurry.

But if you have way too much to handle, I'll be traveling down your way in the next few weeks and can help relieve you of any troubling storage problems you might have. Just PM me your info and maybe we can work something out.

[MichaelMouse]

Don't leave a faceplate on a curing blank. The squeeze will mess up the attachment, causing you to remove and replace.

Smartest move, if you have a hundred fifty bucks or so, is to get a chuck, rough turn for circularity and thin to about 7.5 % of total diameter wall thickness. Unless you have something which distorts monstrously like madrone, flame birch or elm, in which case you MIGHT want to go to 10%. Don't worry if the thickness isn't uniform. Makes no difference as long as you have no broad, uninterrupted areas of face grained wood.

I tried, then quit coating outside endgrain many years ago. Just keep them in a relatively high relative humidity for the first week or so while the unbound water evaporates. For me it's a basement floor in summer, an unheated garage spring and fall. You can use the garage in your climate even in winter. The geometry of the bowl is much more important than any coating in reducing loss. Using 3/4" thickness as a mark, you'll have about eight weeks to 10%. Don't push unless you have to. Bring it indoors to the shop the last couple of weeks to condition, weighing it when you bring it in, a week later, and a week later. When it stops losing, it's as good as you'll get for your conditions.

If you look below, you'll see that I use a pin chuck for roughing outside, both wet and dry. I like a mortise versus a tenon for hollowing out, and see no reason whatsoever to remove the center pillar tailstock support until the bowl is as circular and thin as I want it to be. Safer for me that way, and hurts nothing.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d160/G...aple15.jpg

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d160/G...everse.jpg

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d160/G...od-One.jpg

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d160/G...od-Two.jpg

[jerickson]

I agree about 7.5% thickness on rough turns. I've done 10% for a few years, and it's pretty much always overkill.

I also would not leave the faceplates on. Even if the warping didn't mess up the mount, do you really want to pay for that many faceplates?

I rough turn, then put some CA on any bark inclusions or areas I think will be prone to cracking like knots. I do coat the outsides with anchorseal, but agree I would probably be fine without. I just feel better doing it, I guess. Haha.

For logs, I saw out the pith, leaving to "half" logs, seal the end grain with anchorseal, and store them on a low shelf in the garage. As long as I get rid of the pith, almost all of my logs survive indefinitely that way, until I can get to turning them.

One tip for re-centering when the bowl is dry: Leave a clear mark from your live center in the bottom of the bowl. Then you can use a jamb chuck for re-mounting later and it's a lot easier to find the center.

[Steve K]

Forgot to put it in my OP but I don't tend to use a face plate. However, a couple years ago our club hosted Liam Oneill, who is credited as being the author of the "irish grind". During his demo he said he uses a face plate and always leaves it attached. If I remember right he said he processes about sixty bowls at a time in his kiln and has face plates on all of them as they are drying.

[Angus]

Steve K said:

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Forgot to put it in my OP but I don't tend to use a face plate. However, a couple years ago our club hosted Liam Oneill, who is credited as being the author of the "irish grind". During his demo he said he uses a face plate and always leaves it attached. If I remember right he said he processes about sixty bowls at a time in his kiln and has face plates on all of them as they are drying.

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Interesting, I would think that would lead to more cracked blanks since the part attached to the faceplate couldn't move.

[Arlin Eastman]

Angus said:

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[blockquote]Steve K said:

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Forgot to put it in my OP but I don't tend to use a face plate. However, a couple years ago our club hosted Liam Oneill, who is credited as being the author of the "irish grind". During his demo he said he uses a face plate and always leaves it attached. If I remember right he said he processes about sixty bowls at a time in his kiln and has face plates on all of them as they are drying.

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Interesting, I would think that would lead to more cracked blanks since the part attached to the faceplate couldn't move.

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I just thought of the cost of 60+ faceplates
Also I feel if he can do it more power to him. I used a face plate for all of my turnings for 5 years before I got a chuck. The chuck makes things easier for after the face plate work

Arlin