The lure of turning green wood has been the cause of a great deal of frustration among novice and advanced wood turners. The potential rewards and possibilities are seemingly endless, and the appeal is so strong that it is tried and tried, again and again, with failure every time. The bowls always crack. This article is about how to turn green wood successfully. There are a few techniques that must be mastered, and a couple of tricks that need to be employed before the success rate makes it fun and worthwhile. These tricks and techniques do not require the use of special chemicals or preservat. So when selecting wood for turning blanks, avoid limb wood and look instead for trunk logs with minimal knots. Because the ends of a log start to dry immediately after cutting, seal them right away to avoid checking. Use a commercial green-wood sealer. (Available from Packard Woodworks. Call /, or go to www.- ) These sealers clean up with water, dry clear, and are superior to paraffin, which can flake off, and paint, which may require several coats for a good seal.  This way, if you find any checking after sealing and storing the blank, you'll have ample stock to trim from both ends, exposing check-free surfaces. When chainsawing a log section lengthwise to form bowl blanks, lay the log on its side, and support it to prevent rolling. Guild member Gary takes us through the techniques he uses to turn green wood into a bowl. The Grand River Woodturners Guild holds monthly meetings at the. First and foremost, the storing green wood for turning value center of the tree Drying Green Wood For Turning Jack should be removed from your blank. How will i know that the timber is adequately seasoned before I begin? Next up is to build a big pressure cooker from steel pipe or an LPG cylinder. Reply 2 years ago. The process of making a bowl from green or part seasoned wood is very straightforward. Melt the wax in a shallow tray and dip the ends of the piece of wood in it.

If the light shining through the bowl wall becomes brighter, the wall is getting thinner. Ideally, a continuously even lit appearance down the bowl wall 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 medium 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 thickness 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 twice always reminds me of twice baked potatoes. 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 twice turnings accounts for this by removing the mass of the wood and creating even walls to allow even moisture to escape.

Then the second stage of the twice turned wood bowl takes advantage of the fact the wood is now much more stable to make a more dependable shaped final bowl. To size the first rough turning for 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. Why such a thick wall? As the bowl deforms in the drying process, the pith ends of the roughed bowl will stretch and elongate typically. As this happens, an oval is formed. Having the thick walls will allow enough material to second turn a true round Storing Green Wood For Turning Point exterior circle and then a final inner circle. If the walls of the twice turned roughed bowl are too thin, the second turning will cut through the more extended areas and destroy the bowl.

There just would not be enough material to reveal a final round shaped bowl. On the other hand, if the bowl is made too thick, it will take too long to dry, and they will merely be excess material to turn away needlessly. You may be thinking, with all these factors and nuances to consider, why even bother with turning green wood? After all, purchasing a nice clean, dry bowl blank is nearly effortless. This is true, but there are many drawbacks to buying prepared dry bowl blanks, including excess dust, predetermined wood cuts, and the expense.

First of all, green wood is everywhere around and usually free for the taking. Recycling a fallen tree is a whole nature-soaked interactive process with our environment. Creating green wood bowl blanks is a gratifying and satisfying process. Not only does it help someone clear what they may consider waste debris, but it also yields lasting heirlooms of beauty when turned into wood bowls.

Green wood is usually free. How many things in life are reliably free and plentiful? Not too many. With a little exploring, there are numerous ways to acquire free wood to turn bowls. Green wood, in most cases, was headed for a different demise of rot, compost, mulch, or worse yet, fire. Think of saving and using green wood as a rescue and recovery mission.

The number of beautiful wood species trees that go to waste is astonishing. Turning green wood is a fantastic experience on the lathe. Many species of timber, in green form, turn buttery smooth and surrender gracefully to the bowl gouge. Wet green wood turns more efficiently and cleaner than dry wood. Free flying dust is reduced making the air a bit safer to breathe. Shavings from green wood come off large and curly Storing Green Wood For Turning Glory producing little or no dust.

My favorite thing about beautiful free green wood is you never know where it will come from next and what species it might be. It could be a storm that makes literal tons available, or a friend calling to let you know about a recently removed specimen.

When collecting, cutting green wood bowl blanks , and turning green wood, we the creators of the final wood turned bowls, get to decide where we would like to cut the wood and in what direction and to what final size. We are engaged in the entire process from the source to the final turned piece. This is not possible when purchasing dried bowl blanks, as someone else has already made all those decisions long ago.

Turning green wood is a hands-on process that places the woodturner in charge and at the helm from start to finish. Massive amounts of experiential knowledge are gained when turning green wood bowls. Turning skills specific to each tree species become engrained into our hand, eye, and tool coordination.

In many ways, we truly honor the very nature of the tree as we gracefully and elegantly lift it from the process of decay and set it on the stage of appreciation, for generations to come. A lot of good information here. I have been turning for about twenty years off an on but just recently got into green turning.

Have you ever run across something like this? It has a very pretty grain. Thanks for sharing. I have not tried this technique, but it kinda makes sense. If those fibers are soaked they have a tendency to raise up. Every tree species will react differently, but it sounds like locust fibers rise up in this soak. Good to know. I tried something today. Sanded with 40 grit and used a bull nose scraper with no success.

I thought what can I fill with, so I had some sanding dust on shop floor and mixed with titebond glue and spread over the whole bowl. Will put back on lathe and sand and see if it comes out smooth. Once you are comfortable making clean bowl gouge cuts, depending on the wood, you might be able to start sanding with or grit paper. Happy Turning, Kent. I put a glue sawdust mix and let dry for 24 hrs.

Put back on the lathe and sanded with 40 grit and used a heavy nose scraper. Sanded again with 60 up to It finally is smooth. First, thank you so much for putting all this effort in to writing these articles. So I did. Almost all of the pieces I turn crack. Some very beautiful pieces of wood, one more recently a truly beautiful piece of Rainbow Cottonwood, have become totally ruined due to cracking.

Maybe you can offer some advice. I live in Colorado. It is ARID here! I mean, it is really dry most of the time. So, very dry here. I was so enthusiastic earlier this year when I got going, that I was buying wood left and right. There are also some woods you just cannot seem to find kiln dried at all, they only seem to be sold green.

Not to mention all the other benefits you mentioned in your article about green wood. I also find a certain enjoyment turning green wood. KD is fine, and not having the cracking is great, but there is something about green wood.

The way it cuts, the clean, curly shavings and chips you get off a green blank, the significantly lower amount of dust for me, this is a big bonus as I seem to be very allergic to wood dust!

The whole time I'm reading this I'm thinking that it just has to interfere with his finishes but he says it doesn't. Check it out. Pete Blair. Store green bowls I have tried about every method out there including boiling, steaming, bagging, microwaving, waxing, fast air drying with a boot dryer and yes, even Kirkland soap.

I didn't like the smell of the soap soaked ones. My 'go to' are now boil and wax on the outside then I either store outside off the ground under cover of my back deck or place in a large closed plastic garbage can or in a bag.

Having said that what I really enjoy most is turning to finish while green. I have always turned green to final thickness. For storing, I am more into leaving the log whole, and keeping it covered. When you cut up slabs that sit for a bit, you are risking end checking.

If you leave the log whole, and cut off what you are going to turn, then there is only a little checking on the one end. I don't have any log sealer any more. If it will be a day or two, then most of the time I will put the blanks in a large 4 mil plastic contractor's bag, which is the same bag I am going to put the shavings in after a day of turning. If the blanks are cut round, and it may be a week or two, I will wrap them in the stretch plastic film, totally enclosing them in the film.

This is generally good for a week or two. Much beyond that and there is a risk of molding. Sinking them in water will be good. Even a kids pool with some water in it and a plastic cover over all the wood will keep the humidity up enough so that there should be no cracking.

I have used, and still use the soap soak method developed by Ron Kent, which he came up with for dealing with the Norfolk Island Pine. If you have ever tried to sand any type of pine or fir, you know how fast your abrasives load up.

The soap acts as a lubricant, and makes every single wood I have made into bowls sand out a LOT easier. Also, sanding out dry wood is much easier than sanding out any green wood, even if it makes more dust. Cracking can still remain a problem. With the thin turned bowls, both soaks do nothing to prevent cracks that I could ever determine. DNA seemed to make the wood harder to sand out, and I have no idea why.

So, soak for 24 hours minimum, then remove and rinse off the surface soap. Back to the shop, and set them on the floor for the surface to dry a little, generally an hour or three. Then wrap the rim in the stretch plastic film. This step, along with making sure to round over the rims seems to do more to prevent cracks than any other step I have taken. The rim is the vulnerable part. You can keep an even wall thickness till you get to the rim, and it stops, making it a transition area.

A sharp edge, besides the risk of slicing yourself as you turn, is very fine, and cracks will form there first, in part because of the changing wall thickness.

So, the plastic film puts some compression on the rim, and seals it. Another point in letting the LDD soaked bowls dry before sanding is that all of the fragrance evaporates out. I have not been able to smell or taste any soap after drying is done. If you wet sand, and then finish before it is dry, you may seal the fragrance in a bit longer, though it will still evaporate out eventually.

The brown soap is the best rather than the green or blue because they can color the wood. I do keep a separate vat for the black walnut because it does draw some color out, which will stain other lighter woods. Most of the other light woods leave little color, or at least not enough to change the colors of the bowls you are soaking.

When the vat gets too dark, I try to find an ant hill I talk about this a bit in some of my video clips on You Tube. Bill Boehme Administrator Staff member. I have another one for you -- PEG polyethylene glycol in which is an indicator of the average molecular chain size.

Rather than cut them up for fire wood I decided to turn them into blanks and leave them to season naturally for future use. Cherry is a hard wood that would be expensive to buy pre seasoned especially in large pieces so i could not let this opportunity slip past. Fallen tree limbs are heavy and can be very dangerous if they are still attached to the tree, I will not go into how to remove fallen limbs as it is best done by someone who has had experience working with trees.

Once the limbs where sawn up into manageable piece i turned them into down to remove the bark and make them into uniform cylinders, these blanks are then left to dry out naturally, seasoning will take up to a couple of years depending on how thick the pieces are.

Blanks should be stored in a cool dry place that has a good air flow around it but not be in direct sunlight or near any source of heat. I store small blanks in old cardboard fruit boxes with a loose cardboard cover blanks should be stacked with enough space between each other to allow a good air flow this will help reduce the chance of mould growing on the blank.

About 2 years ago I seasoned some pieces of white thorn from a big thorn bush that grew in my back garden it would have been about years old and I turned as much usable pieces as possible as i would be unlikely to be lucky enough to get hold of large bits of white thorn again. These pieces are now nicely seasoned and are proving to be very nice to work with.

Turning green wood is kind of a messy affair as depending on the wood and its density can leave you soaked in sap that gets flung out by centrifugal force when the piece is spun on the lathe. Large pieces of wood can be very off balance when mounted on the lathe and may should be spun at the lowest speed until they had been trued, green wood is very soft and cuts like butter but until the blank is truly round be aware that bark or large pieces could fly off while cutting.

I have about 12 species of hard wood trees that grow in the hedges of my land and I intend to use as much as I can for my wood turning projects. I have even turned some Castelwelland Gold a soft conifer that someone gave me but it was way to soft and seriously full of sap that is a skin irritant for some people. For anyone with the time and space to store green timber blanks this can be a source of free hardwood, so if you are out and about and see someone cutting large trees its often worth asking if you can have some of the branches as quite often they are just going to dump the wood.

Thanks for looking and I hope that all you wood turners find this post of use. I am very new to turning and have access to a lot of wood some on my own property but many other places as well but don't really know where I would store bowl blanks, logs to be seasoned, etc. Question 1 year ago on Introduction. I also have several large pieces of cherry wood, felled 18 mths ago and left outside with bark on in 12 inch lengths, up to 14 inches diameter.

Showing signs of cracking on exposed ends. Can I rescue this by turning down? Tip 2 years ago on Introduction. To speed drying wood when possible I use a tip passed on to me from a friend who sells firewood for a living. In the spring after the leaves are out fell the tree and leave it.

Come back in a couple months. The leaves will pull most of the moisture out of the wood. A tree felled like this in the spring is dry enough to burn in the fall. This should work as well for limbs as it does for the whole tree. Question 2 years ago on Introduction. Thanks for the article. I'm have just rescued pieces of an old eucalyptus tree that Id like to try and fashion into a coffee table- first attempt.

How will i know that the timber is adequately seasoned before I begin? I was wondering if someone might have suggestions to save as much of the cedar as I can. The biggest branches are about 4 inches in diameter. Reply 2 years ago. Cedar would make some nice needle holders, or knitting needles just because of the color variations in the wood.

Cut it into manageable rounds then map out what you plan to make with it. I use a lot of cedar in my shop. I use it to make plates, bowls, goblets and wands. Hang them in your car or in your bathroom. A word of caution. Cedar is toxic to breathe.

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