Turning green wood bowls is one of the sealing green wood for turning gray satisfying experiences imaginable. Taking a freshly cut piece of timber and turning it into a form, greenn creation to enjoy, use, and admire, is the ultimate gratification.

Wood sezling an ever-changing, dynamic material. Raw timber, green wood, is the blank canvas of bowl turning. And as woodturners, we need to wpod this dynamic material to harness its possibilities and not become surprised or potentially humiliated by its realities.

It is up to us to apply our vision to see the potential that lies in each grain-filled specimen and bring it to a new life as a functional or decorative turned piece. There are two broad categories of bowl blanks, green or wet wood and dried bowl blanks. Turning green wood is not without its drawbacks and geay.

Before we go too far, it makes sense to define green wood. Turnint people, define green wood as only freshly cut wood that comes from a recently growing living tree. That type of green wood is usually dripping with moisture, especially if harvested in the spring or summer months.

Any wood that is not seasoned and noticeably moist is considered green wood. This may be wood from a just fallen tree or a log that has sat tray some time.

Wood can hold moisture for very long periods of time after being cut or downed. This may sound silly, but virtually any wood that is wet and not dry is green wood. Wood that can still lose excess moisture is green wood. With either the passage of time or the use of a kiln, wood is dried or seasoned. When the amount of moisture in a particular piece of wood is reduced to the point where geren more moisture can be moved out of the log, this constitutes dry wood.

A rule of thumb that is thrown around often is one year of air drying time per sealing green wood for turning gray inch of wood thickness. A dryer or kiln can be used to reduce the moisture content more rapidly. Another alternative, a microwave can aide in this process by methodically heating the wood-locked moisture which forces it to escape in the form of water vapor.

Did you notice the definition of dry wood above? Why is this? Everything everywhere is relative. Wood is somewhat sealing green wood for turning gray a sponge. It will absorb and release moisture forever. Owod, I said forever. Some woods do an excellent job making us think they are not moving and shifting because of moisture content, gdeen they are. The cells in wood continue to absorb relative humidity in the air, and they also secrete moisture when the surrounding relative humidity is low.

Wood is a dynamic changing material that can be turned and made into beautiful creations, but we need to sealing green wood for turning gray mindful that it is not a static, fixed material. Moisture levels in wood are subject to change with the surrounding climate and conditions. But there are many indicators that we can use as guides along the way.

Moisture in the wood cells helps define the shape of eood wood fibers. And if the form of those woodd can be changed, the entire chunk of wood can, therefore, be changed as well. This movement can be subtle or dramatic. When the timber is cut, the tree can no longer move moisture the way it did when it was living. Basically, a cut piece of wood is exactly like a kitchen sponge.

If a kitchen sponge is wet, it expands and fills its cells with water. The same kitchen sponge left on gteen sealing green wood for turning gray to dry will contract, shrink, and pull together in a tightly curled shape. Expanding and contracting is essentially what wood does as well, forever. Sealing green wood for turning gray worst offender when turning green wood bowls is cracking.

Cracks occur when the internal pressures in the wood structure dry unevenly. A bowl wall tjrning was turned thin at the rim and thicker at the base cannot move moisture in and out evenly. This stress between too uneven regions usually causes cracking when the bowl is left to dry.

Cracking occurs based on the organic structure of the tree and the different areas in the log under various pressures, as well. The pith area of a log is especially prone to cracking. All the surrounding wood turnung pull and push from this core.

Even and consistent wall thickness when turning green wood is the key to reducing the chances for cracks. While the pith can be left in a green wood bowl turning, it really needs to be carefully handled. I would suggest positioning the pith, if left in the bowl, down the side of a bowl and gay along the rim edge.

The most important aspect of green wood bowl turning with or without the pith is to make the bowl walls even throughout. As the kitchen sponge image above illustrates, the shape sealinb a green wood bowl turning will change as well. It is merely the nature of working with green wood. Do not have unrealistic expectations of a perfectly round-rimmed final bowl.

That is not what happens when turning green wood bowls. A simple round turned traditional bowl will most likely elongate a bit and distort as it drys.

Usually, the rim will have elevated areas that form near the pith on each side of the bowl rim. This is the sealing green wood for turning gray movement of the wood grain as it drys. Turning green wood bowls relatively thin can cause warps, waves and dancing wood during and after the drying process. This is all part of the fun of green wood bowl turning.

To add to the unpredictability of turning green wood bowls, each tree species behaves differently than one another. For instance, cherry can be super finicky and is ready to crack if you look at it wrong. While hickory is usually rock hardwood that can be shelved for years and turned crack free usually.

Each sealing green wood for turning gray of tree grows, forms, and develops differently. For example, the Eucalyptus is said to pull microscopic grains of soil with silica into its cells as it grows.

Each wood species is different and will behave differently. Green wood is genuinely satisfying to work with. Long curling shavings glisten with moisture and sealing green wood for turning gray to the floor leaving little or no dust.

At times the wood seems to sealing green wood for turning gray like a bar of soap, effortless wodo smooth. It is important to remember the characteristics of this wet wood. The green wood can be spongy, and there are particular things to consider while turning. If you are like me and you have many different growing timber species available in tutning local area, consider conducting this experiment the next time you land a pile of turnable wood.

Take an available log of one species, ideally one that is typical and average from a pile of similar logs, sood make several bowl blanks. On the lathe, turn sample bowls to determine how the green wood will behave. Turn a thin walled bowl, a medium tkrning walled bowl, and a thicker bowl. Grwen the bowls air dry or place them in paper bags with fresh shavings.

What happened to each of the different bowls? Did cracks form, and gfay so where were the cracks? Did the wood move, warp, wave, or fo, and which thickness bowl moved the most?

Turning green wood bowls thin walled can be a lot of fun. Not only does the wet wood cut smooth, crisp, esaling relatively dust free, light easily passes through the thin moisture wood fibers. Place a light source behind the bowl once the wall thickness has been reduced and you can use the resulting brightness as your wall thickness gauge. If the light shining through the bowl wall becomes brighter, the wall is getting thinner.

Ideally, a continuously even lit appearance down the bowl esaling is the goal. Also, when turning very thin-walled green wood bowls, the amount of area to hold moisture has dramatically been reduced. This means the green wood will dry very fast, so you need to work rapidly. Spraying a mist of water from a water bottle sprayer on the wood at regular intervals will prevent the wood from drying prematurely as you work.

The green wood turningg walled bowl is an excellent test for a tree species. Turning green wood bowls about a half-inch to three-quarters of an inch thick are usually pretty stable. Again, even wall breen is the key to preventing too many surprises and nasty cracks. Where medium thick walled green bowls are fantastic for one species, they may not work at all for another tree species.

Turning green wood bowls tuning always reminds me of twice baked sealing green wood for turning gray. And the process is very similar in a few ways. The principal behind twice turning green wood is first to create a rough bowl shape that can dry and reach equilibrium before being turned a second time to the final finished shape. We know that green wood is going to move, shift, and reshape as it dries.

The first stage of seaping turnings accounts for this by removing the mass of the wood and creating sealing green wood for turning gray walls to allow even moisture to escape. Then seqling second sood of the twice turned wood bowl takes advantage of the fact the wood is now much more stable to make a more dependable sealing green wood for turning gray final bowl.

To size the first rough turning gry a twice turned green wood bowl, the rough wall thickness is critical. The rule of thumb is the wall thickness needs to be about ten percent of the overall bowl diameter.

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