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Storing exotic blanks??

Darrin

Darrin

Joined
Apr 4, 2007
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Location
Canastota, NY
Anyone have any good info on this?? I have some real nice Ebony, Amboyna Burl, Marblewood, Bloodwood, and Tiger ebony all sealed. I just finished construction of my small but afordable shop (13x15) and plan on having on hand numerous blanks of exotics at all times. The weather could be 90 degrees in the summer ad 5 degrees in the winter(Although I have installed a woodstove to heat things up when Im turning in the winter). Any info would be much appreciated!!
Darrin
 
It's not the heat, it's the Relative Humidity (RH) that you're concerned with. The closer you keep the RH to ~50%, the easier things will be on the wood. Cycling from humid summer to dry winter may reveal faults even years in the future, so limit them and you'll do best. Check the information in http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/usda/ah531.pdf and http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fputr/fputr3.pdf as well as the wood handbook at the same site. Lots of good information, experimentally derived rather than anecdotally.
 
I store waxed blanks in conditioned space although I do remove a lot of wax so there is some exchange between the wood and the inside humidity. Once they are roughed I use the alcohol soak on them and wrap them up and store them in my water heater closet. If I don't use the whole blank I usually wrap it in several layers of cling wrap on the cut end.

Dried blanks I store in the shop off the floor.
 
I certainly would agree with getting them away from a room in which the temperature changes are so great and keep them waxed to slow down the drying. I've a lot of exotics as well and the area were they are stored is a fairly constant humidity and temperature.

What hasn't been mentioned is first turning. Pick the pieces that are most likely to be a problem and first turn them. Ultimately this, more than anything else, will reduce the loss because of cracking. Some loss is inevitable, it's wood we are talking about, but the amount of it can be minimized.

Malcolm Smith.
 
The thing to remember, here, is that all wood species take to drying differently.......and any single example of any particular species will react to rapid drying differently than others. The general rules will apply, but those rules will need to be modified as individual blanks mature. Cooler temperatures are your friend!

Generally, you are better off to allow lower processing temperatures, and methods of slowing it down to work, rather than to dry your roughed bowls as fast as can be done.......I know that sometimes this is hard for us to do, because we are anxious to get on with it.......but patience is a virtue in pursuing this venture.

Consider this: If you develop cracks, slow down the drying.......period! Always use a method of slowing down the process. There really isn't any other way to control drying checking. Time is sometimes difficult to accept, but the ONLY way by which one can master the technique.

Personally, I wouldn't keep unwaxed (or, wrapped) bowl blanks for more than a few months......but, like I said, all individual bowl blanks may be different than others.........there is no single rule that will be universal.


otios of cologne
 
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Like MM reported, humidity is more important in drying your exotic wood pieces than temperature. You can pick up a Hygrometer for less than $25 these days (you won't need National Weather Service accuracy) and build yourself a box with wire racks to store your exotics while they dry. I suppose you could connect it in series with your home air conditioning system (which dehumidifies the air in your home as part of the cooling process) but a box of good quality desiccant should work pretty well if you don't build your collection so large that it fills the hall closet.
 
nuturner said:
Like MM reported, humidity is more important in drying your exotic wood pieces than temperature. You can pick up a Hygrometer for less than $25 these days (you won't need National Weather Service accuracy) and build yourself a box with wire racks to store your exotics while they dry. I suppose you could connect it in series with your home air conditioning system (which dehumidifies the air in your home as part of the cooling process) but a box of good quality desiccant should work pretty well if you don't build your collection so large that it fills the hall closet.
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Unless I'm not understanding this I would comment that air conditioning and the use of dessicant speed the drying process. The outside of the wood will be much drier than the inside and will crack. You want to slow the drying. That's what the wax paint is for. That said, some stresses still will produce cracking. That is why I suggested twice turning. This doesn't take long as you simply are rough turning the bowl to a thickness that allows the bowl to distort and then be corrected in the second turning. The bowl will be oval. re-turn it when it is completely dry to it's final form. The amount of distortion varies with different woods.

Malcolm Smith.
 
I did forget to mention, I out the acquisition date on them as well. I always assume they are green (fairly safe assumption anymore) so that I know the appropriate amount of time to wait before using them.
 
In my wood storage area, I have a scale designed for weighing tanks of refridgerant. It is normally used to determine how much refridgerant has been used on a job by before and after weighing. It will weigh up to something like a hundred pounds yet is very accurate. I write the weight of first turned bowls on a card about once a month logging the loss of weight as they dry. When the weight of a bowl is the same for a couple of months, I know that it is no longer losing moisture.

I used to use a moisture meter but found a few problems with this method. One, it puts holes in the bowl. Another is measuring the moisture at the surface, we turn thick pieces of wood, and there is no information on setting the meter for uncommon woods.

Malcolm Smith.
 
Malcolm Smith said:
Unless I'm not understanding this I would comment that air conditioning and the use of dessicant speed the drying process.
Malcolm Smith.
Click to expand...

Well, we're on the same page; just focusing on different paragraphs.
The desiccant isn't in contact with the wood; it just lays there. The trick is to watch the hygrometer and introduce the desiccant when appropriate, remove it if that becomes necessary. The desiccant just sits there in a box. The "air conditioning" comment was tongue-in-cheek. I hope nobody took that seriously. You'd have to engineer quite a sophisticated system to accurately control air temperature and humidity using an active air conditioning approach - that's just wouldn't be practical.
That said, if you can keep the temperature relatively constant and the humidity at about 50% you're likely to end up with a better result than burying your green wood in saw dust, cooking it in a microwave or laying it out with the raisin grape crop to dry in the sun.
(That part about laying it out with the raisin grapes - a bit of sarcasm that I hope nobody takes seriously :-)
 
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For what it's worth, I store all my exotics indoors, in my basement, where temp and humidity are relatively consistent.

The ebony I have I have bought dried, so for me it is not an issue. I had some ebony bowl blanks in the past and kept them wrapped in shrink wrap until I used them (the was about 10 years!) so they were dry when I turned them

Marblewood, Macassar Ebony, Amboyna Burl is pretty “cracky†if you leave them exposed to the air. I usually rough turn them round (as they are spindle grain) that seems to take some of the fight out of them. Wax the ends and wrap them with shrink wrap loose enough to allow air to circulate. The blanks I treat this way are blanks I don’t intend to use for a year or so. I usually buy next year’s turning wood at this year’s symposium.

Bloodwood is lees “cracky†than the others but I use the same procedure to dry ‘em. When I am ready to use them I rough turn them a month or two before finish turning them. I even go so far as to making the hollow in the vases to help them acclimate.
What you are trying to do is slow the drying process down as much as possible. The problem with exotics is that they tend to case harden. That is when the outside is dry the inside will still be moist and will warp and crack as if were green.

I just bought a piece of Macassar Ebony that measured 5†sq x 12†long it was encased in wax. In my usual manner I removed the wax and put it on the floor for rough turning. I forgot about it for a couple of days and when I came back it sported several large drying cracks! I rough turned to a cylinder waxed the ends and wrapped in plastic. I super glued the cracks before wrapping it up. Hopefully I can still salvage a 4 1 /2 “dia cylinder to turn a trick or two from it.
Good Luck!

A

PS don't leave 'em where they can freeze and thaw, I've not had much luck this way.
 
nuturner said:
Well, we're on the same page; just focusing on different paragraphs.
The desiccant isn't in contact with the wood; it just lays there. The trick is to watch the hygrometer and introduce the desiccant when appropriate, remove it if that becomes necessary. The desiccant just sits there in a box. The "air conditioning" comment was tongue-in-cheek. I hope nobody took that seriously. You'd have to engineer quite a sophisticated system to accurately control air temperature and humidity using an active air conditioning approach - that's just wouldn't be practical.
That said, if you can keep the temperature relatively constant and the humidity at about 50% you're likely to end up with a better result than burying your green wood in saw dust, cooking it in a microwave or laying it out with the raisin grape crop to dry in the sun.
(That part about laying it out with the raisin grapes - a bit of sarcasm that I hope nobody takes seriously :-)
Click to expand...


Perhaps I wasn't clear. Your procedures dry the wood more rapidly. Why else would one employ a dessicant. Air conditioning also lowers the humidity. The likelyhood of cracks is increased.

Malcolm Smith.
 
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