Oak in cardboard boxes
Charlie, I quite like turning oak. I’ve worked with many kinds - cork oak, tan oak, black oak, valley oak, live oak – While their cell structure varies a bit they are all very similar in how they respond to turning. We have quite a lot available in California due to the sudden oak death problem. There is a lot of movement (shrinkage) in the green wood. I find it is best to let is sit in a cool and shaded place for a couple months before milling into turning blanks; but then that is what I prefer with almost all the green wood I acquire. By green turning to finish you can get some wonderful surface textures as the wood dries.
John, have you used the cardboard box drying method? I’ve had good success the last few years by placing my rough turned forms in heavy cardboard boxes for the first six months or so. A box of about 3 – 5 cu ft works great for a pile of forms and you can easily control the air exchange by how much you open the top flaps (or add holes with flaps). I keep the box closed fairly tight for the first month (at least during the summer when our humidity drops) and open the boxes every couple days and rotate/reposition the forms inside. Then I start leaving the flaps partly opened after that, checking the contents weekly. I will swap bowls form one box to another depending on what I see going on, or add fresh green forms to a box that seems to be drying to fast. This might sound fussy but it’s pretty easy to do. Charlie’s barrels sounds OK if you want to trap humidity but may be more difficult to actually control the daily air exchange.
- Scott