Turning a platter with wet/green wood

[Bruce Miller]

I have these maple rounds that are 25"diameter that I got in the spring( I posted here to Identify what it was I had), I'm finally getting around to doing something with them.
I cut one of them in half parallel with the grain then cut two slabs 3"thick from one of the halves. My intention is to turn nesting platters with these slabs.
Question is can I turn these while green and turn twice like I would do a bowl or would it be more advised to wait and dry them then turn once. Reason I ask is because I don't want warpage in these particular pieces since they are nesting. Also with such large diameter I would imagine the warpage would be exaggerated, is that correct?
If I could turn them twice, once green and once when the warping has completed what rough thickness would you think I should make them or at least the largest of them. I'm thinking the largest finished diameter is going to be around 16" and sit around 1,1/2" base to rim.

 

[hockenbery]

What I do with platters is dry the slabs 2” thick for a year or so then turn the platter from dry wood.

If the blanks are quarter sawn you won’t get much warp up and down.
If the blanks are slabbed bark to bark they will cup.

You could wet turn it to 1.5” thick dry it for a year and then return it.
There is not a lot of wood removal in platter turning so twice turning has little benefit and is more like double work.

 

[Bruce Miller]

Okay I'll toss these in the corner with anchor seal on the end grain for a year or so and revisit. One is bark to bark and the other is the two sides of the pith area with the pith cut out. I'll probably end up cutting up some more bark to bark also cut some bowl blanks and let it all sit there for a while, I have a lot of this stuff and storm season is coming so my pile will only get bigger.

 

[hockenbery]

also cut some bowl blanks and let it all sit there for a while

The bowls you will want to turn green. Get rid of the inside mass turning fun to turn green wood

Drying a board ( platter blank ) works because it isn’t thicker than 2”.

Drying bowl blanks doesn’t work because they are 4-8” thick or thicker.
A roughed out bowl with 1.5” thick walls can be dried like a bowl shaped board.

 

[Bruce Miller]

Oh yes I get that, I was more thinking of trying to break down these large rounds in order to make room for more and just piling up bowl blanks not so much really to dry but more for having readily available blanks I can grab and go.

 

[Leo Van Der Loo]

Bruce my experience with turning platters from fresh green wood is that as I first turn the rough stock to round and and keep it from 1 1/2" to 2" inch thick that is the minimum for larger platters.

They get set away and left for a year or two or longer, than I return the piece for flatness, and set away again for a couple months, and then final turn and finish it.

Why all this long time you might ask, well I have found that even when left for a year and then returned, thinking the wood is dry, the platters and shallow trays will still move and you got a rocker, if stil thick enough you can then try to flatten it again, but I have a couple sitting here that have just a bit too much to return them, been thinking of boiling them and then forcing them flat and let dry, would have been easier if I had waited a bit longer.

 

[john lucas]

I don't have a lot of experience with this because I tend to let platter blanks dry for a long time. Not on purpose I just cut them, put them up and then never get back to them. Most I've turned have been a minimum of 2 years and possibly longer. They have stayed flat. the one I turned the other day was cut about 3 years ago. I moved and built another workshop during that period so that blank just sat there. It was 16".

 

[Don Wattenhofer]

The rule of thumb for air drying lumber is one year per inch but that will still not guarantee uniformly dry throughout the piece plus the area near the pith will likely have defects from old branches that may have reaction wood. The slab with the pith may be your best chance if the wood on either side of the pith looks good after 3 or 4 years but you will likely need to cut on either side of the pith then glue back together.

 

[Bruce Miller]

Thanks all for your replies and sharing your experience with me.
I’m probably going to both, let air dry for years and also rough turn then air dry, just because I feel like turning a plater right now and I have the wood to mess up with.
As far as the length of time it takes to air dry will probably be a little less than most.
I have a basement shop and in that shop is a giant coal burning hand fired stove I use as primary heat for my house so it’s on ~6 months a year.
Any and all wood I bring down in the shop gets dried out very quickly (actually too quickly) it’s like a kiln down there.
I struggle but have successfully found ways to evenly dry my rough sawn flat boards without too much checking and I’ve had some bowl blanks that I put down there in November of last year that ore down to 6-8% now. Some are useless from uneven drying but most seem to have made it through.
I’ve found that if I rotate my stock it fairs better and I get better yield. I think I need to rotate my turning stock more often than my flat board stock, but this is all part of my learning curve into what works best for me and my situation I guess.

 

[robo hippy]

The best platter blanks are quarter sawn, either directly down the center to the pith, and/or a cut or two on either side of the pith. These will be the most stable blanks. As you go up into the 'rift' sawn area, maybe 1/2 the way from the pith to the bark, you get a lot more cupping. It is manageable, some times... It is a safe bet that the platters will continue to move over the years, that is the nature of the wood. If you turn a footed platter, and leave 3 small feet, they will sit on any flat surface without rocking. A 4 legged bowl or platter will not. Personally, I like warped pieces, and the way they never sit flat.

robo hippy

 

[Bruce Miller]

Hey Reed, was just out sawing up some more of these rounds. what I'm doing is sawing 2-3" slabs, first one being the very center with most of the pith contained in that slab, I will cut the pith out later and that will give me two slabs from that one, Then I'm cutting 2 more slabs per side (or half round) this brings me out to about 8" or so away from the center. I stop cutting flat slabs there and started to cut up bowl blanks from the remainder of the rounds.
So I'm guessing I think I am getting the quarter sawn cuts for the platers or flat pieces. I'm certainly no Sawyer and am horrible at tree ID along with grain orientation, just not what I do....But learning.

 

[hockenbery]

This is a slide I use in my working with wet wood demo.
You can see how the pieces in s straight grain log will warp.