Dale does boil his Madrone. Christian does green turning, and the microwave, and some air drying. I turn Madrone whenever I can get it. My favorite wood, but the most difficult wood to dry that I have ever turned. I have had a 13 inch bowl finish moving at 13 inches by 9 inches, and the rim of the bowl was 2 inches up and down. I have also gotten the same amount of movement, but the rim and bottom stayed level. I had one piece where the end grain folded in, and the side grain went out. You just never know what it will do. As far as boiling, it is safer as far as controlling cracks and movement, but I don't like the way it muddles the colors. I do prefer to air dry it.
For air drying, I prefer the LDD soak. This does nothing for stabilizing, or preventing cracks, or making it dry faster (same with DNA soak), but makes the wood a lot easier for sanding once the wood is dry. After the soak, I wrap the outside of the bowl with 2 layers of newspaper, then secure the paper with a couple of wraps around the rim of the plastic film that you use to wrap boxes on a pallet with so they don't fall off (6 inch). Cut off the overlapping paper so the inside of the bowl is open. The theory (I believe this was started by the DNA soakers) is that by wrapping the outside of the bowl, the inside of the bowl drys faster, and pulls the outside in so that the bowl dries in a compression mode. I have tried this on a number of Madrone bowls, leaving them thicker than normal (normal is 1/4 inch or slightly less) up to 3/8 inch or more. Some even had knots in them. The knots did crack, but not the rest of the bowl. Almost all of the bowls dried without cracks, where normally I would lose 1/4 to 1/3 of the bowls. The plastic film keeps some compression on the rim, and I do round over the rims a bit as a sharp edge will let cracks happen more easily. A 1/4 inch bowl will dry in 10 days. To sand a warped bowl, you need a lathe that will go down to 10 rpm or less. The PM 3520A model would do this, I think the B model will also, but is factory set to go off at about 50 rpm. I called Brent English so he could tell my how to get the minimum speed on my Beauty down to that speed as well. You can't keep a sander or your hands on a warped bowl at 50 rpm, unless there is barely any warping. When it comes time to remount to turn off the bottom, some times the bowl has moved so much that this is impossible. I use a recess for the initial turning, and then use extended small jaws to remount for sanding and finishing. I sand off the bottom, and the recess, and don't bother to flatten the bottom. Customers always say "the shape is so orgainc". You don't need an iron grip for sanding.
Madrone is a beautiful wood with smooth even grain that cuts like butter when green, and smoothly even when dry. Colors are always in the pink spectrum with some reds, purples and black thrown in. The boring grubs start to get into it as it is falling, and even before it falls. It starts to split when you fire up the chainsaw. I never get any after about April, or before October. It really does split that fast.
robo hippy
