Question about cutting fresh timber for bowl blanks

[Scott Brandstetter]

I am new and have a question that I don't know the answer to. I recently took my chain saw out and cut out some blanks from trees that my developer has cut down for a new phase in our neighborhood. I took my time, analyzed the wood, and made the cuts as best I could. I then put anchor seal on the end grain and they are sittng in my basement. During this time, I have also bought several pieces through ebay. That's what got me wondering. Every piece I buy online, they are turned already and then sealed with wax. The pieces I have personally cut I did not turn rather cut the pith out and simply sealed the end grain.

Can you all educate me on what I should be doing. Should I cut the tree out and immediately turn it round or am I good cutting a blank and sealing the end grain. My thought is that I want to turn vessels as well as bowls so I don't want a perfectly round shape to begin with.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[john lucas]

The ones you bought were probably cut round on a bandsaw. What your doing is fine. The idea is to seal the endgrain areas because the wood looses water faster through the end grain. what you want to do is to even out the drying and sealing the end grain does this. when wood dries it shrinks. If the outer layer of wood dries and starts to shrink and the inner layer is still moist and doesn't shrink you get cracks. The 3 most important things for saving green wood is to get it out of the sun and wind and seal the end grain. Sounds like you've done that. Even then you might get some checks so the safe thing is to cut them longer than any bowl or vessel you want to make. Then when you get around to using the wood cut off the ends that might have some cracks. I usually cut about 3" off and look really hard for check that went deeper. If I see any or suspect there might be some I cut off another 3/4" or so and try to break it. If it breaks easily I cut off another chuck until I know I've hit solid wood. Bugs are the other bad problem but since your storing them on concrete you've probably eliminated that as a problem.
The wood in a bowl blank will take a very very long time to dry so assume it's still wet when you get around to turning it. Many people will rough out a bowl leaving the walls about an inch thick and then let it dry and re-turn it later after it dries. This speeds up the drying to 3 to 6 months depending on where you live and how wet the wood was. If you want to learn more about turning green wood do a google search. There is a lot of good info out there.

 

[john lucas]

should have asked where you are in Kentucky. We might be able to find someone near you that turns if we know about where you live.

 

[hockenbery]

John covered it nicely.

I cut most of my wood into 24-30" lengths and then rip them through the center and seal the ends.

Before I cut I evaluate the log looking for knots, healed over limb scars, crtoches. I cross cut and rip in a manner that will let me use or avoid those features and choose the symmetry of the grain, few logs are round. My rule is to get one good blank from a log section rather than two mediocre one.

I like to make hollow forms with the opening in a limb scar. I like to make bowls in symmetrically balanced grain.

Wood has a shelf life.... It begins loosing color first in the sapwood. Depending on storage the sapwood begins to grey in a couple of weeks and almost always in a couple of months. Removing the bark can slow this a bit.

The wood can still make nice pieces they won't have the color and contrast of the sapwood. I've turned walnut that was well over 8 months old. Still high in moisture content but the sapwood is ugly looking so I bleach it and get it to about 80% of what it looks like when turned a week after cutting.

Have fun
Work safely,

Al