Thanks: 0
Likes: 0
Needs Pictures: 0
Picture(s) thanks: 0
Results 1 to 8 of 8
Thread: How to dry hoop pine quickly
-
29th January 2009, 08:30 PM #1Novice
- Join Date
- Jan 2009
- Location
- Gladstone
- Posts
- 13
How to dry hoop pine quickly
Hi all. I'm hopping to get some advise on drying hoop pine quickly. I am able to get a few hoop pine pieces about 400mm diameter x 200mm high they are very wet / green. I think they may be soaked in water for some time. I need to cut them into 400mm diameter x 100mm high or 180mm diameter x 200 high pieces. I am in central queensland so it is generaly warm. I have read some articles on drying but i think this has made me more confused. Cut, dont cut,wax, paint, detergent, microwave and metho. Has anyone been down this road before? Please Help !!!!!!!!
-
29th January 2009 08:30 PM # ADSGoogle Adsense Advertisement
- Join Date
- Always
- Location
- Advertising world
- Posts
- Many
-
30th January 2009, 08:45 AM #2
xbgthardtop - you are probably going to get quite a few different bits of advise here, too, but here is my 2c worth.
Drying small pieces of wood very quickly is always a hit & miss affair, in my experience. Sealing the end grain & taking it slowly is the safest though even that is no gaurantee because internal stresses/faults can upset even the best procedures. Having said that, most softwoods are pretty forgiving. Getting the 'free' water out is the easy step. You can dry as fast as you like until the wood reaches what's called 'fibre saturation point', which is around 25-30% moisture for most woods. After that it needs to be taken carefully because that's when the water starts leaving cell walls, which shrink, setting up the stresses which do the damage.
The trick is to get water to diffuse out evenly, so as to minimise the difference in shrinking between any two spots in your billets, & that's the hard part - the more rapidly you get the water to move by heating it, or placing it in a very low-humidity environment, the more likely the 'outside' will get much drier than the 'inside' & surface splitting or 'checking' occur. The reason for sealing the ends of the wood is to prevent the much more rapid loss of water through the open vessels, which allows very rapid drying of the ends, while the inside remains 'wet'. If this happens, the outside cells dry & shrink, setting up stresses that can usually only be relieved by splitting.
Microwaving heats the water & gets it moving faster, but it will be hard to control for a big solid billet. Turners use this trick successfully, but usually rough turn so that the piece is even thickness, and no section is very thick, meaning water doesn't have to travel far.
So there you go - it can be done, but it's a fraught process with such a thick chunk however you decide to sped things up.
Cheers,IW
-
30th January 2009, 01:52 PM #3
Or you could have put it in 's shed any day this week.
-
30th January 2009, 04:51 PM #4Novice
- Join Date
- Jan 2009
- Location
- Gladstone
- Posts
- 13
thanks
Thanks for the advise it had been hot and humid here (mind you not as hot as vic) and have had a couple of 400mm diameter x 100mm high pieces crack while in the shed. But these ones were stacked on top of each other. so far I'm thinking of just painting the ends and making some type of rack. But I have some green pieces coming soon and would like to use them a bit sooner then normal.
-
30th January 2009, 04:57 PM #5
Yeah I used to be like that, once, but nowadays the problem is to get to them before they turn to dust!
I forgot to mention before that the degree of "dryness" required will depend on what you are going to use it for. If the job doesn't require dimensional stability to any great extent, you can hop into them a bit sooner, but if you are going to make musical instruments, then much patience is called for.
Cheers,IW
-
30th January 2009, 05:08 PM #6Novice
- Join Date
- Jan 2009
- Location
- Gladstone
- Posts
- 13
I'm actualy just turning them in to solid shapes like bowls and plates without the middle being hollowed out.
-
30th January 2009, 05:11 PM #7
-
30th January 2009, 06:13 PM #8Novice
- Join Date
- Jan 2009
- Location
- Gladstone
- Posts
- 13
A little bit of ovalising would not be too bad. I would be more concerned about cracking. I will giving the finished piece a few coats of polyurethane.
Thanks for the help Ian.
Similar Threads
-
Hoop pine and white pine - melbourne
By old_picker in forum BOAT RESOURCES / PRODUCT SEARCHReplies: 3Last Post: 15th December 2017, 06:12 PM -
hoop pine
By jmaxwell in forum TIMBER SWAPReplies: 14Last Post: 3rd May 2008, 04:41 PM -
Where can I get Hoop Pine?
By Walesey in forum TIMBERReplies: 16Last Post: 7th June 2007, 01:19 PM -
Is this hoop pine
By mcchaddy in forum TIMBERReplies: 4Last Post: 27th February 2007, 06:07 PM -
hoop pine ply
By Zed in forum WOODWORK - GENERALReplies: 9Last Post: 14th January 2005, 01:52 PM