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bowl in an hour-not

john lucas

john lucas

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Well it took it 18 hours to stop losing weight but that was because I left the bottom a little thicker so it would sit and not be tippy. This bowl is 1/8" thick, the bottom where the feet are is a little thicker than 1/4", the center of the bottom is about a fat 1/8". I finished it about 6 yesterday and it stopped losing weight somewhere between 11 and 12:30.
No alcohol soak, no soap, no microwave and it wasn't even very warm outside.
This was a leftover from a walnut crotch. I used it for a demo on safety because it had a bark inclusion in the middle which could have easily split the piece if turned at high speed. I was also talking about staying out of the line of fire to avoid being hit. I only turned a small part of it to discuss how to avoid catches.
The grain isn't very centered since I wasn't actually going to finish it. I decided to see if I could turn past the bark inclusion and was successful. It's so much fun throwing shavings that I couldn't stop and next thing you know I had a bowl.
 

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Thin & mostly end grain exposed....

John -

Nice piece...especially for "playing"!

I would venture to say that the reason this bowl dried so quickly is that the majority of the surface exposed to the air is end grain, and that since the bowl is so thin, it doesn't take too far for water to find the air to evaporate. Furthermore, since walnut is somewhat open grained, the larger average cell sizes further contributed to rapid drying.

By the way - thanks for the nostalgic visit to the old double-pan Ohaus balance! I haven't seen one of those in a long time! I used one for years in several labs that I worked in during college and grad school before everything "went digital"...

Rob
 
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Rob I bought that at a flea mkt back when I was mixing my own chemicals for my darkroom. It was kind of old then and that was at least 25 years ago. Never thought I'd be using it for wood but it's really handy when I'm drying box blanks.
 
John.
Nice to have a data supported result.

I've always given finished turned bowls and hollow forms 3 days drying time.
then sand and finish.

Thanks for showing that a greenwood turning can be finished in 20 hours clock time.

now watching a scale for 18 hours must be a Guiness record.

-Al
 
Al It's like watching water boil. Nothing happens and then you turn your back and it's lost 5 grams. 🙂 Kind of like my belly only in reverse. 🙂
 
Neat. Now if you knew the original moisture content, the relative humidity during the drying, and told us if you'd spun or aired out casual moisture ....

BTW, have you checked it again? I like three days between weights, better still a week.
 
MM I don't have any way to check the moisture content but it was throwing water on the lathe. The only drying that happened occured while it was being turned and while sanding. The bottom was green enough to be difficult to cut cleanly and I had to wait about 2 hours to sand a couple of the uphill grain areas on the foot.
It's been my experience that it won't lose any more weight or movement on this size and thickness of bowl. On bowls that are 1/4" thick they will move more for about 3 days.
 
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