Bowl blank moisture?

[Rcd567]

My source for bowl blanks went out of business. Am trying to find reasonable priced exotic blanks and am having trouble finding dry wood. At what moisture content would a person consider the wood to be dry?

Lots of stuff says sealed green, or moisture content 13% or 20%, or freshly cut and sealed. I've got the sealed green and freshly cut and sealed as wet. Just not sure what is dry enough to remain stable once turned.

Thanks.

 

[David Keller]

Not sure about the moisture content number, but most of the turners I know use weight loss to determine when a blank is dry enough to return. I assume anything that comes wax sealed is wet enough to move, so I twice turn most of my stuff.

Isaac Rapelje on this site sells some domestic and exotic bowl blanks, and his prices are as good as any I've found. Nice guy and great wood to boot! He's got a listing in the individual classifieds right now for pen blanks, but I've bought much larger stuff from him.

If you're looking for cherry burl, I'd try TurnerJohn74 on this site. It's all green wood, but it's really nice looking stuff. He gets some other domestic burls from time to time as well.

 

[Donnie Kennedy]

10 to 12ish% here in Arkansas. Around 8% in a dryer climate.

 

[greggas]

8 % is the target I shoot for

 

[gallianp]

I have turned 1000's of bowls -- 99% of them were green -- wetter the better rough turned then soaked in DN-alcohol for 24-48 hours, placed in brown bag for a couple of weeks then returned to lathe for final sizing and finish. Those that crack were either filled or placed in fireplace. Love GREEN wood.

Sorry I could not help you finding a source of dry blanks.

 

[Kalai]

I have turned 100's of different woods into thousands of bowls and it depends on the wood, I have turned Milo wood wet, start to finish and never had a problem, but that is because Milo is such a stable wood, the best thing to do is to weigh the bowl blank and write down the weight and then weigh it each week and when it stops loosing weight then it is ready to turn, or if you have a moisture meter then you can bring it to 10% and it should be fine.
The best thing to do is to rough cut the bowl blank into the basic shape you want and make it 1 inch thick consistant and then let it dry, I paint the outside of the rough cut bowl with a wax or oil based paint, it helps to prevent checks. I hope this helps, aloha.

Chris "Kalai"

 

[louisbry]

Good advice above on turning green wood, but if you want dry blanks one good solution is to glue up boards that have the correct moisture content. These can be either simple or complex segmented designs.

 

[Rangertrek]

I typically look for about 8-10% for the final turning. I turn green wood when I can, then let it dry and finish.