SOAP Drying Experiment

[Radar67]

RD,
     I have a can of tung oil on my shelf right now. I plan to use it to refinish a 1910 Queen Anne dressing table for my daughter.

Thanks for the comment on the bowl. I am still in the learning process and there is much to learn. Got to get back to sawing so I can finish my lumber drying area. 

Stew

[pasbuild]

Hey Radar when is our next update?

[Radar67]

Thanks for the reminder. I've been busy soldiering, sawing and many other things. I took pictures during week 3 and will post them here. I will have to get current pictures, but there is not much difference.

WEEK THREE UPDATE:









The top group is of the untreated wood. the bottom set are of the soap. I am not very impressed by the soap treatment as the cracking is much more than the untreated, almost to the point of being useless for turning. I'll try to get current pictures tomorrow and post them.

Stew

[Left Coast Chris]

This is a great experiment.  Hope the bowl blanks work out.   Here are a couple of things I do that have seemed to help.  Learned them from a master wood turner:

1)  Rough out the bowls to one inch thick.

2)  If you have an end grain heart center or knot wax those sides inside and out with parafin.

3) Put some waded newspaper in the center .

4)  Place inside of a paper grocery bag and close tightly.

5)  Weigh every two weeks  and inspect for cracking.  Glue cracks with hot glue.  Record weight.  When weight stops droping it is dry.

This can take anywhere from 2 to 12 months depending on the size and type of wood.  I have STILL had some crack.    Will be interested in the outcome of the experiment.

[Greg_Kaldor]

Hello All,
My name is Greg Kaldor and I am a woodturner from Northern Wi.  For all of you that are interested in the Alcohol method look up Dave Smith on the net and he will give you the dope on this process as he is the one that started it.  In theory a roughed turned bowl should have a uniform wall thickness of 10% of the overall dia.  Example... 20 in. dia would require a wall thickness of 2 in.  I have found that the most important crteria for a roughed turned bowl not to crack in the drying process is 3 things. first is that you must have a uniform wall thickness, if not this bowl will fail in the first 48 hr. Second you must coat the end grain parts of the bowl to try to slow those parts to match the side grain which does not dry nearly as fast.  Third you must put in a paper bag as this is a mini envirement and keeps the humidity pretty much the same over the surface of the bowl.  When you have done these things properly provided that there is not any knots or any other defects in the wood you should not lose more than one or two out of a hundred.  The downside of this method is that it takes me about a full year to dry them.  I do mostly birdseye and curly maple and sell them to the tourist shops in Door County.  I am currently building a bowl kiln.  I can controll temp. and humidity and it holds 35 at one time.
Greg

[Radar67]

Welcome to the forum Greg. I am just getting started turning wood myself. Been thinking about a bowl kiln, also looking into small scale vacuum drying.

It's been a wile since I updated. I looked at my blanks today and have decided to officially end the experiment. The untreated blank has one crack completely through. (the 4 o'clock position in the week three photo)

The SOAP blank has several cracks completely through.

My conclusion is that the SOAP does not work under the conditions I tried.

Stew

[urbanlumberinc]

I noticed earlier in this thread, somone was looking for a bigger pot to boil in.  May I suggest a beer keg with the top cut off.  I have a set of these I use for homebrewing, and they'd probably hold more than a few blanks each.