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water and soap drying

Max Taylor

In Memoriam
Joined
Dec 26, 2005
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Location
Fort Worth, TX
I need the procedure for drying green wood in water and liquid soap. Have a project that includes 14 to 18 in. bowls from green pecan. Alcohol drying is cost prohibitive, dont ya know. Would like to have these by Dec. 25th. Thanky, Max 😱 🙁 🙁
 
Here you go. http://www.ronkent.com/rontech.html Now if you think any method that involves soaking will dry wood, you might want to take a look at chapter 3. http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fplgtr/fplgtr113/fplgtr113.htm

Ron some good ideas, actually. But he discarded acrylic floor "wax" because he mistakenly thought it actually contained wax. Check your acrylic "stabilizers" for content. The dish detergent contains glycerol to keep Marge's hands soft. A triol, it is hygroscopic, attracting and holding water. Unfortunately, as in other alcohol "methods" of drying, it's not ionic enough to displace bound water. It can only mix with it. The surfactant makes water "wetter," but any gain is pretty well taken care of by reduced capillary draw. Ethanol, with its lower boiling point is alleged to make water evaporate faster, but that would seem to defy the process by which we get alcohol - distillation. They have not repealed Raoult's law, that I know of.

An inch thick in end grain shouldn't take more than a couple months to stabilize with the ambient relative humidity. Slow evaporation with a coating or covering, add a bit more time. Push it by putting the piece in fairly low humidity, subtract time but increase chances of checks.
 
soap submersion

I have had recent success with submersing bowls in a 50/50 mixture of soap and water. I soak the bowls for 4 days then set out to dry for 3 weeks. They have been warping less than 1/4" and have been stable after re-turning. I have tried it with maple, cherry, elm and ash with no cracked bowls yet. I have only tried this on 8 bowls, not enough to say it works or doesn't. We'll see what happens to the finished pieces over the next month. So far a week after being finished the completed bowls are still round and look great. My finish thickness was 3/16". I do not plan on continuing to do this since I have been turning a year now and have plenty of rough outs waiting to be finished. A new turner talked me into trying it with him.

Good Luck
Matt
 
Ldd

Max, that Ron Kent website is where I received my information on LDD (liquid dishwashing detergent). Over the past two and a half-years I have tried DNA, boiling, and LDD methods for accelerating the drying of my bowls.

The process I now use almost exclusively is the LDD. Don't know how it works, but I can say that within 3-4 weeks my roughouts stabilize their weight and show minimum distortion and generally no cracks. I have successfully tried cherry, hickory, walnut, maple, poplar, birch, elm, and (with some challenge) oak. I even use it for my natural edge bowls and bottle stopper blanks. I know the popular method these days appears to be DNA, but its cost and safety issues have concerned me.

I use the cheapest dollar store or supermarket soap and keep a little squirt bottle with white vinegar nearby to neutralize the alkaline feel of the soap on my hands.

Jack
 
Dustpan said:
I need the procedure for drying green wood in water and liquid soap. Have a project that includes 14 to 18 in. bowls from green pecan. Alcohol drying is cost prohibitive, dont ya know. Would like to have these by Dec. 25th. Thanky, Max 😱 🙁 🙁
here we go again......
 
The dishwashing detergent method (not a soap although most people don't know the difference) is NOT to reduce the drying time (most woodturners think that it is), but to stabilize the wood by replacing some of the water with a never drying concoction of glycerol, perfume, FDA Green #??, some mystery surfactants, polyethylene glycol ?MW, and who know what else. Soaking in PEG 1000 does roughly the same thing and neither one speeds up the drying process. On the contrary, the wood may never get as dry as a conventionally dried piece of wood. However, both of these methods, which are intended to be used only on freshly cut green wood after rough turning, do allow you to turn something without waiting for it to completely dry -- so it does reduce the waiting time before you can turn it. Despite the glowing testimonials on both of those methods, I'll stick with the old fashioned way of doing it. I have some misgivings about the long-term effects on the wood and on finishes applied over detergent or PEG. Max, I have a 10 lb. block of PEG -- it's yours if you want it.

Bill
 
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soap soaking

It has always been my understanding that soaking in a 50/50 solution of detergent and water was to stabilise punky wood, such as spalted anything. I've used it on spalted beech with great results. A three day soak and a three day drip dry...not drying in the seasoned sense of the word, but drying in the "I don't want a shower while I turn the wood" sense, and then rough turn, put aside, re-turn.

As others have mentioned this process seems to "fill up" some of the flacid cells which have collapsed through the spalt and allows the wood to be turned fairly well.

It's my belief that any assumed success when this process is used to dry wood is simply good luck. In the summer of 2005 I turned a series of large bowls, 12-16" dia., from quite freshly felled spalted sycamore. These were turned to finished dimensions and have since shown no distortion whatsoever. Just good luck. And, I should add, these bowls received no treatment whatsoever.

Andy
 
soapy bowls

Dustpan said:
I need the procedure for drying green wood in water and liquid soap. Have a project that includes 14 to 18 in. bowls from green pecan. Alcohol drying is cost prohibitive, dont ya know. Would like to have these by Dec. 25th. Thanky, Max 😱 🙁 🙁
I read an article on this and have just asked for feedback from ernie conover. i understand the conover workshop uses this method very sucessfully. a 6 to 1 ratio water to detergent, dawn or some hand dish detergent is recommended but not the dishwasher stuff...for at least 24 hours and up to 72 hours. this should stop checking and cracking as well as tear out when turning. see http://www.woodcraft.com/articleprint.aspx?ArticleID=313
 
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