Woodturning: Check Drying Progress

Video Transcript

"So over the next six to twelve months, you want to take that roughed out and drying bowl blank out of the bag or the box and check it periodically. You want to make sure that you've got nice even drying, no cracks have shown. And this is a piece of ash that I had roughed out a couple of years ago. Here's a piece of rock maple that I roughed out about four years ago and here's an example of cracking that occurred that I really couldn't do all that much with. It was a piece of bark inclusion, where it was a branch union where you had two branches heading off in opposite directions and the bark was allowed to grow and the tree actually grew around it. But when I roughed it out, it was all solid, but as it dried and shrunk, the wood pulled away from the bark. And even though I did seal it with some CA glue, it still pulled away. So when I finish turn that, I need to be aware of that and take proper precautions for that. And as you can see, the date, I have various pieces here that were turned, rough turned at various times, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007. A lot of pieces because I identified them I know when they were turned, and I've got a pretty good idea that they're going to be dry enough to finish turn."