Water Soaking Rough-outs

[OGYT]

Well, I've finally made the switch. Three weeks now. (Thanks for the info, Hughie). It got too expensive for me to keep changing out the soap solution. (Though I had really good results from it.) The rising cost of Diesel convinced me to make the change.
I have four half-drums, three in use right now. One of them is now full of roughed bowls, and some blanks in the other two just long enough to get them roughed out before they crack.
The water stinks like a sewer after about 5 days... and I change it once a week... so about half of every week it really smells bad around here.
I'll keep some records, and see what kind of results I get with the water soak.
After a month in the water, I'll remove them let them sit overnight, and then deal with the drying. I'm going to wrap some in paper bags and put on a shelf. I'll paint some end grain with sealer and put in my kilns. And some I'm going to clamp and put them in the kilns. Maybe the clamps will keep them from ovaling out so much.

Shavings are gettin' a bit much. I hauled out two of these little trailers full out of my shed after roughing those bowls.

[Cliff Rogers]

Yup, it works. :2tsup:
If you can afford the water & time, you need to change it about every 3 or 4 days.

[canchippy]

I wouldn't trust it too much:( I tried with fresh cut logs of white oak, mulberry, apple and maple. All split within 4 days. They were left with the bark on and no end sealer completely submerged in rain water barrels. I also have done the boiling, soap, alcohol ways and with equal failure. Maybe I shouldn't be turning wood.:) I think any of the quick fool proof methods depend a lot on when the tree is dropped and whether there is branch wood in the samples and who's the fool trying it:). So I went back to turn and microwave and let the buggers warp. Customers seem to be OK with it and some even like the "organic" cracks when they are present:)

[OGYT]

Yup, it works. :2tsup:
If you can afford the water & time, you need to change it about every 3 or 4 days.

That often, Cliff? That will do away with the majority of the stench, but will it actually help the drying-without-cracking problem?:?
I think it would be easy to do, being retired I have plenty of time, and, being on the Volunteer Fire Dept., I don't have a water bill unless I go over the minimum. But think about how much time that'll take away from turning.... :rolleyes:

After thinking about it, changing it twice as much would give twice as much clean water a chance to wash out the sap, wouldn't it?

[Texian]

Difficult to understand how adding more water (by soaking) to a rough turning could help it dry in any faster or less distorted fashion. An alternative would be to boil the rough turning in water for an hour or so, and then let it dry slowly by whatever procedure one likes. This is said to open some cells of the wood and release internal stress, allowing the wood to dry a bit more rapidly and with less distortion.

[hughie]

Al,
Good to hear from you....:U

Got a good mate of mine who soaks everything he turns and swears by it. He only changes the water every 3-4 weeks, after to or three soakings it becomes clear. Its about then he take em out for turning.

If you add some eucalyptus oil to your water the smell will go away, a couple of tablespoons per oil drum [44gal or 200l] This lasts for a couple of months

Texian, as to why it works, well, heres the drum on what is supposed to happen. The water displaces the resin. Hence the colour change and eventual smell. When your done, the water is clear. Then theres a few weeks.....for me around 6 weeks until its real light..........too slack to wiegh em all the time. :U

I dry em out in cardboard boxes....no paper bags or sacks much down under. As to warping, it kinda depends on the timber and the cut. As the timber varies so does the success rate, no doubt some will need more, some less, not too mention the season of the cutting.

In my soap drum I never change the soap, just keep adding water when it thickens too much. I figure eventually I'll have only water. I think my soap is about 2 years or so old, its had a couple shots of eucalyptus oil, around 100mls in that time.

[rsser]

Texian, when the timber millers get their forest hardwood logs in from the mountains here in Oz, they stack the logs in big piles and set a sprinkler over them for a while.

I guess the point is to reduce the rate at which the endgrain gives up moisture in relation to something else; dunno what that might be but there are experts on this forum who might enlighten us.

[rsser]

Al, you might have to go back to work to reduce your cost of living ;-}

That's a lot of turning you're doing.

Looking forward to hearing more about the 'drying' results.

[Toolin Around]

Difficult to understand how adding more water (by soaking) to a rough turning could help it dry in any faster or less distorted fashion. An alternative would be to boil the rough turning in water for an hour or so, and then let it dry slowly by whatever procedure one likes. This is said to open some cells of the wood and release internal stress, allowing the wood to dry a bit more rapidly and with less distortion.


I would suspect that it has to do with diluting the sugars, minerals and such in the fibers, which might inhibit a uniform drying process under normal conditions.

[Ad de Crom]

Al, let me now how that turns out, always remarkable to read all the different story's about what to do with rough turnings, one put them in a paper bag, another microwaved them, another soak them in detergenta, another seal them and let it stay on a shelf for a long time. The last does my girl penfriend Pam Reilly all the time, also Eugen Schlaak from Canada is doing the same, both having not any problem.
Time to find out what is true. :)
Ad

[joe greiner]

I had a vague recollection that the season of felling the tree was supposed to be a determinant of success/failure of induced drying. My gut feeling was that if the tree was felled after leaves were gone, it should produce easier or better drying. I browsed a couple patents I'd collected on artificial wood drying, and tired of that right quick. So I let Google [drying wood season felled] do the walking.

The question seems to be unsettled as yet. But this chapter looks like a fairly complete discussion: http://chestofbooks.com/home-improvement/woodworking/Mechanical-Properties-of-Wood/Season-Of-Cutting.html , noting in particular that only the sapwood is mostly affected.

I don't know how much this helps, but I've bookmarked the link for later digestion.

In any event, I don't have the patience to rough turn and wait like the pros do. My oval bowls, turned green, are partly intended to elicit remarks like "How did you do THAT?":wink:

Joe

[Cliff Rogers]

I use the water trick do a couple of things...

1. Wash the sap out to try to stop mould. (Particulary mango)

2. Save it from cracking til I get a chance to rough turn it.

[Texian]

Sealing the log ends and/or keeping logs wet to prevent end grain cracking/checking makes sense. Just difficult to understand how soaking rough turnings in water would be helpful. Might leach out some minerals I guess.

[oldiephred]

RSSER I suspect the loggers use the water spray to keep the wood beetles from infesting the logs. That is common here.
As for soaking wood in containers, I realize that some of you know much more about this than I but I cannot get my head around this technique. Then again I use nothing but kiln dried materials from the start.
Very interesting:rolleyes:

[OGYT]

Sealing the log ends and/or keeping logs wet to prevent end grain cracking/checking makes sense. Just difficult to understand how soaking rough turnings in water would be helpful. Might leach out some minerals I guess.

Wood in its natural state in the trunk of a living tree contains from 30 to 300 percent of water, dependent largely on growth conditions and species, based on the weight of the oven dry wood. This water is contained as free water in the cell cavities and the intercellular spaces of the wood and is held as absorbed water in the capillaries of the walls of wood elements, such as fibers and ray cells. The absorbed water relates to shrinkage. When all of the free water is removed and all of the absorbed water remains, wood has reached the fiber saturation point, which is approximately 30 percent moisture content for all species. Shrinkage occurs only when the moisture content of wood is reduced to some level below the 30 percent fiber saturation point. Any piece of wood will give off to, or take on moisture from the surrounding atmosphere until the amount of moisture in the wood balances that in the atmosphere. <O:p</O:p
The moisture content of the wood at the point of balance is called the equilibrium moisture content, and is expressed as a percentage of the oven dry weight of the wood. Wood, like many other materials, shrinks as it loses moisture and swells as it absorbs moisture from the atmosphere. To further complicate the problem, wood shrinks (and swells) differently in different directions or planes. Thus, soaking in water displaces the sap, and the water has an easier time wicking out into the atmosphere, and will allow the bowl to dry a little quicker and without so much stress which causes the ovaling and cracking. <O:p</O:p
And lest you should think me smarter than I am, I copied this from the internet.<O:p</O:p

[silentC]

Wood in its natural state in the trunk of a living tree contains from 30 to 300 percent of waterHow can wood contain 300 percent water? If it contained 100% water, it would be... water! Do they mean that living wood can contain between 30% to 300% of the water that you find in the dried form, depending on the circumstances, in other words between 3/10 to 3 times the amount?

[Cliff Rogers]

How can wood contain 300 percent water? ...

I was wondering the same thing. :unsure:

[Grumpy John]

:iagree:

Don't you love the adds that tell you "5 times less"or some other such ridiculous statement.

[silentC]

I didn't think very hard about my alternative though, it doesn't make sense either.

Maybe what they are trying to say is that, by weight, living timber can be between 3/10 and 3/4 water? So if you had bone dry timber (which doesn't really exist because the cells always have at least some water trapped), the moisture content of the living specimen would be between 30% and 300% by comparison? Nope still doesn't make sense.

I'll dig out Bootle and see what he has to say.

[Cliff Rogers]

...I'll dig out Bootle .....

Have one for me too.

[Gra]

Have one for me too.

Is this were we start the grave digger jokes:D

[rsser]

Thanks oldiephred; useful to know.

And thanks for the research Al. Interesting stuff.

I'd read somewhere that moisture from the cells departed the wood before that from anywhere else; dunno how all that works.

Also remember from biology classes that if you submerge a cell in plain water, osmotic pressure will lead to a migration of cell moisture to the water or maybe even rupture the cell. Dunno how that helps; just lint in the brain box :;

[silentC]

OK, Bootle says that trees may contain water in quantities of 40% to 200% of the dry mass of wood substance, depending on the species. So we're talking moisture content, not percentage of the tree.

[OGYT]

I believe that's right... 30 to 300 % of the dried wood moisture content. Wouldn't swear to it, though.

[silentC]

Yeah, reading it again I'm pretty sure that's what they meant. Just a bit of a clumsy way of putting it:

Wood in its natural state in the trunk of a living tree contains from 30 to 300 percent of water, dependent largely on growth conditions and species, based on the weight of the oven dry wood.

They mean that moisture content is expressed as a percentage of oven dried wood. So if the oven dried wood weighs 1/4 what it weighed wet, the moisture content was 300% before it was dried.

[tea lady]

I don't know if it works for wood but in pottery, if I am drying a large platter I will wrap the rim leaving the center bare so that the drying is more even. Because the clay shrinks at least 5 % the rim can crack in a big way if the center is still wet when the rim is dry. There is the extra complication of the grain in wood, but what about waxing the rim of a green turned bowl then letting it dry?:shrug:

[Texian]

Silent got it right! To repeat his correct example, one pound of oven dry wood can, when wet, contain up to three pounds of water, for a total weight of four pounds. This would be called 300% water, even though the water was only 75% of the total weight of the wet sample. The percentage varies with the type of wood of course.

I remain skeptical that "the water displaces the sap" to any significant degree. Now if you soak it in DNA for a few days, that is a different kettle of fish.

[rsser]

TL, just sealing the end grain of a roughed out green bowl prob has the same effect.

[oldiephred]

I,m sure you are a very intelligent person but not so sure about the person who thinks that wood can contain up to 300% water???:no:
Thanks for the info.

[OGYT]

TL, I think I'll try that with a few of the next ones. When I was using the soap, I'd wrap in brown paper and leave the center inside uncovered. I'll try just sealing the rims with the endgrain on a couple. I'm also going to try using bar clamps across the end grain to keep it from ovaling out so much. I've had a couple recently (soap mix) that ovaled so much they were un-turnable.
Thanks for the suggestion.

[Texian]

You just gotta love an Australian woodturning forum with some Texans and a wonderful ceramics artist (Anne-Maria) on it. Thanks for letting me join.

Edit: Did some research on moisture content of freshly cut green wood and found (tried to copy a link here but it did not work). Anyhow sapwood much wetter than heartwood, so that 300% number was probably sapwood. Found one that was 260%. Heartwood for some common U.S. species was mostly in range of 40% to 95%. Eastern cottonwood was 162%. So you were certainly correct in thinking that the 300% number was a bit far fetched.