Will my hole shrink

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bitshird

bitshird

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Joined
Aug 27, 2007
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Adamsville, TN, USA.
OK Get your mind out of the gutter!! And as for no such thing AS A STUPID QUESTION, watch this!! If I drill a hole in wood that still has a pretty high moisture content, (nearly fresh cut, maybe down a few weeks) Will the hole become larger, or smaller in Diameter as the wood dries, the wood is hickory, My guess is the moisture is around 15%, but this stuff will make some fantastic handles, unfortunately there are no commercial kilns around here just saw mills, The heartwood is really wet so we sealed up each stick, the sap wood will work pretty well, but OMG some of the heart and heart/sap wood are beautiful, Nice thing is we have a constant supply at a reasonable price. So back to the question, which way bigger or smaller???
 
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I know that for many woods such as snakewood, when you drill a hole for a pen blank it will get smaller. Easy way to tell is cut a small pen blank size and drill the same size as a tube. If you can't put the tube in a few days later, it is getting smaller.
 
Not sure of the answer to your specific question but I do know that there are woods where the hole will get smaller after it is drilled (is that shrinkage or expansion, hence "get smaller") and that necessitates having to redrill the hole at a later time. Notably purpleheart.

You may have to provide empirical evidence for the rest of us.

Lee
 
Whenever I turn a bowl from green wood, it pretty much turns oval shape..
so if I was to venture a guess, I would say that it doesn't depend on the hole shrinking or enlarging...but that the wood around the hole will dry and will most likely 'oval' as do bowl shapes, so your answer IMHO, is that it will do both...larger in one axis and smaller in the other...just my pennies worth :)
 
Ken -- flat sawn it will tend to become oval - with shrinkage as the radial movement occurs -- unless you saw it quarter sawn which will have much less movement.

Answer -- depends on how the wood is cut.
 
KenV said:
Ken -- flat sawn it will tend to become oval - with shrinkage as the radial movement occurs -- unless you saw it quarter sawn which will have much less movement.

Answer -- depends on how the wood is cut.
Click to expand...


Not only might the hold become oval, larger or smaller... It might also pick up a curve.

Ken hit it. It all depend on the grain pattern and cut.

The direction the hole is drilled in relation to the grain will also have an effect.
 
Ken,
I'll admit I was hooked on the title. I'm leaning towards a smaller diameter hole myself. As for no commercial kiln available, I seal up whatever I want to dry out and stick them in the attic. It gets wicked (that's for all the New Englanders out there) hot up there and works pretty good-no size limit. I cure my PR casts up there too. Good luck.
 
GColeman said:
Ken,
Do you know about Azbill's Sawmill Company? The do their own drying. I doubt they would dry for you, but it wouldn't hurt to ask. I have bought lumber from them before. They were great to deal with. The son even stayed late to sell me less than 50BF.

http://www.azbillsawmill.com/index.htm
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link, I'll give them a call, we have been using 6/4 ash which =has been harder to get but we just found a saw mill that cuts nothing but Hickory and gets us 2x21x20 for .50 each which is great price wise, but I need some dry wood and fast, I have a lot of Brazilian cherry and Sapele that is nice and dry but at 4.50 a board foot I need something cheaper for plain old woodchuck tool handles,
 
of course the hole will shrink. Will other things happen too, perhaps, but the hole will shrink. It used to be standard practice with making handles for anything, you drill a hole just a touch smaller than the tool and then you soak the hole with water. The water will not expand the hole, it will actually swell the hole to be even a little smaller again than the already too small hole, but it will soften the wood at the same time which will allow you to smash the tang into the slightly too small a hole without splitting the wood handle in half. Then the water dries up and the wood shrinks and the handle is permanently attached with no glue.

From what I've heard about the other hole..well once it gets expanded enough times then it does not shrink back and simply becomes a life long leaker. :eek:
 
Or...maybe in the old days all handles where turned with wet wood to begin with and just rammed into the tang and then the entire handle would dry itself to the tool and become permanently bonded. One or the other, it's kinda all the same theory and practice. I wasn't around in those days, but I know the old tool handles are naturally shrunk to the tangs.
 
Thanks Jeff, The wood is plenty wet, I remember seeing something that put the end of the handle in Hot dry sand and the hole would expand then when the natura / ambient moisture took over it would swell the wood sort of like what a door does but man this wood is awesome, plus I get all the cutoffs for my grill, Yummmm Fresh hickory flavor on cheap under aged over priced streaks. the shop even smells like hickory, the white sapwood isn't too wet, it takes a nice finish, I can't wait to get into the heart wood some incredible grain in it.

And about the slow leak :eek:Astronauts and Truck drivers are depends best customers :biggrin::biggrin:
 
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