How to quick dry wet Cherry?

[jwavem]

I have a customer that wants two pedestals turned from wet Wild Cherry that she is furnishing. Each pedestal will support an antique candle holder, so it needs to be solid wood with as little warping as possible. The blanks need to be approximately five inches square. Here is the problem. How can I dry this wood? I've used the microwave and alcohol methods for drying rough turned bowls and hollow forms but this time I need to quick dry solid 5" X 5" wet Cherry. Completion date Christmas 2005. HELP!

 

[Joe Herrmann]

Cherry is notorious for cracking in rough turned bowl forms with sidewalls no thicker than 1". I don't know of any method that is going to allow you to dry a 5" square by Christmas. Please let us know if you find a method that works.

Regards,

Joe

 

[roger dunn]

glue up

With cherry and a short time frame, try to convince her that glued up KD cherry is the only short term answer.
Good luck

 

[MichaelMouse]

I'm like Joe, interested in any success you might have. Failure I think I can ensure on my own.

In my experience, once stuff gets 3/8 or thinner, it seldom cracks. Had you considered hollowing? If long grain, this would even include thinning the ends, then making sure they can dry from both sides. The goblets you see here, and other end-grain cherry work was elevated on blocks for the first week to allow the bottom to dry equally with the top of the base.

Here's one possibility,though it's not square. Perhaps something similar to a compote would do for her?

 

[hockenbery]

Hi JW,

If you had more time you could try kiln drying the 5x5 pieces.

Obviously you must use this wood regardless.
Here is how I would approach the task.

Make the pedistal in several pieces. the top of the pedistal should show face gain to be pretty so I would turn this like a small platter. the base for the pedistal I would turn as a spindle. The very bottom of the pedistal could also be face grain and match the top.

you may have to make the pedistal column in sections. Plan each joint to be hidden by a bead or vee.

I suggest you rough the top and base to about 3/4 in thick.
Rough the spindle base to within about 3/8 of the finished dimension and bore a 1" hole through the center. These pieces can then be mirowaved. I suggest using 30% power for 3 minutes and a 30 minute rest between cylces. you will likely need 10 to 20 cycles.

turn the warped pieces to finished size join the tops and bases to the column with a tenon on the ends of the column.

CAUTION WOOD burns and may catch on fire in the mircowave or from the flame of a candle.


happy Turning,
Al

 

[Mark Mandell]

J

You seem to have left something out. You state the stock is 5/5, but how long is it? Since these are pedestals, not the actual candle sticks, I would not be concerned about the wood, but cherry do like to dance as it dries. Does the profile of the pedestal lend itself to hollowing to a fairly even thickness after turning it round? That will reduce the movement.

M

 

[jwavem]

Hi JW,

If you had more time you could try kiln drying the 5x5 pieces.

Obviously you must use this wood regardless.
Here is how I would approach the task.

Make the candle holder in 2 pieces. the base for the candle I would turn face grain like a small platter. the pedistal I would turn as a spindle.

I suggest you rough the candle base to about 3/4 in thick.
rough the spindle base to within about 3/8 of the finished dimension and bore a 1" hole through the center. These pieces can then be mirowaved. I suggest using 30% power for 3 minutes and a 30 minute rest between cylces. you will likely need 10 to 20 cycles.

CAUTION WOOD burns and may catch on fire in the mircowave or from the flame of a candle. Wooden candel sticks are a a bad Idea unless they are just for show.

happy Turning,
Al

My thanks to everyone who responded. As I thought No easy way if any way at all.
Here is a little more info: The dimensions of the pedistal will be approximately 5" dia. base X 3 1/4" tall. The top will be 2" dia. There will be a inward curve from bottom to top narrowing to 1 3/4" dia. I'm thinking that it could be rough turned to about 5/8" dried in the microwave and than finished turned.
If I can do this sucessfully I'll have to add weight for balast. The candle holder is a glass plate and glass chimney two pieces and fragile. Any suggestions for adding weight? I want it to look nice when one looks inside.
Thanks again.

 

[jwavem]

J

You seem to have left something out. You state the stock is 5/5, but how long is it? Since these are pedestals, not the actual candle sticks, I would not be concerned about the wood, but cherry do like to dance as it dries. Does the profile of the pedestal lend itself to hollowing to a fairly even thickness after turning it round? That will reduce the movement.

M

Mark the blank is 5" X 5" X 5". Please see my response to the next message.

 

[Mark Mandell]

Mark the blank is 5" X 5" X 5". Please see my response to the next message.

If the blanks are reasonably straight-grained, I'd rough-turn to within 3/4" of final shape, then sink'em in a container of alcohol for a week. Remove and let dry for a week then final turn & finish. No guaranty, but a fair shot. If it's crotch stock, all bets are off.

 

[underdog]

Well that's an interesting approach... I've never heard that one before.

Suck all the water out with alcohol... Hmmmmm...

 

[Andy Hoyt]

Rough turn it in bowl fashion. Do the alcohol thing. Finish turn it, to include a rabbet just inside the rim. Epoxy (or whatever) your ballast to a piece of turned scrap that will fit inside and below the rim, and against the rabbet. Epoxy this in place.

Turn bowl upside down. Voila. Weighted pedestal. Proceed as needed.

 

[Bill Boehme]

I have turned bun feet (about 4 1/2" tall) out of somewhat green post oak (the worst splitting wood that I know of). After turning the oak (with the grain oriented vertically), I quickly sealed it with thinned shellac to slow down the rate of moisture loss. After a couple days, I sprayed them with a couple coats of polyurethane. This appears to have sufficiently slowed the rate of drying so that there has not been any cracking since this was done about 8 months ago. It is hard to judge warping on bun feet, but I haven't noticed any. I don't think that post oak warps much anyway so it would be hard to correlate these results with what you might expect from cherry.

Bill

 

[Mike Cunningham]

Here you go Underdog:

http://www.woodcentral.com/cgi-bin/readarticle.pl?dir=turning&file=articles_473.shtml

 

[Ron Sardo]

I've soaked cherry in alcohol many times, it works well.

Usually I let a roughed out turning soak overnight, when I pull it out of the alcohol I let it drip back into the bucket. Then I close it up in a brown paper bag for a day. Now I wrap only the outside of the turning in a few layers of newsprint and let it sit with the opening facing down on a rack. It's ready to turn in a week or two.

DNA will dissolve expoy, so use medium CA glue instead.

 

[underdog]

great idea!

Thanks for the link on the alcohol drying Mike. That was excellent information. I'll have to try that with a couple of things this winter.

My Dad was a Chemist, and once told me that the thing about alcohol (especially denatured) was that it was a water sponge. (I forget the technical term) That's why you use rubbing alcohol (isopropyl) as a gas drier when you get water in your tank....

 

[MichaelMouse]

My Dad was a Chemist, and once told me that the thing about alcohol (especially denatured) was that it was a water sponge. (I forget the technical term) That's why you use rubbing alcohol (isopropyl) as a gas drier when you get water in your tank....

I'm sure if you replayed that, you'd find he was referring to the fact that water and alcohol mix in any proportion, and alcohol / water mixtures are more combustible than water alone. Also much lower freezing point, so it doesn't block the fuel line. Water is so polar it mixes poorly with gasoline, but wonderfully with semi-polar alcohol, after which it can find its way to the engine rather than lying there in the low spots.

The gas dryer of choice used to be ethyl ether until newer seal material vulnerable to it brought on ethyl or propyl alcohol as a substitute. With the ether, you also got an easier winter start!

When you soak wet wood in ethyl alcohol, you get mutual dilution, which does nothing to get water out.

 

[Barbara Gill]

Denatured alcohol works very well for quicker drying times. You can read about it here.
http://www.woodcentral.com/cgi-bin/readarticle.pl?dir=turning&file=articles_473.shtml

 

[underdog]

Well I spoke to my Dad last night... We started talking about methyl, ethyl, propyl, pentyl, and hexyl alcohols.... Something about the way the atoms joined up in the "something or other" ring.

I couldn't remember the word he used yea many years ago until I jogged his memory by saying... "The words anaerobic and aerobic are for "without air" and "with air", whats the word for "with water" and "without water"? And that's when I felt really stupid when he said "Oh, that's hydrous, and anhydrous." Well duh...

Makes perfect sense now... He did tell me that Isopropyl alcohol is a bit different the regular alcohol because of the way the atoms joined..

Anyway, he related that when they wanted beakers to be really dry they used an alcohol rinse after washing in soap and water, then they used an ether (either?) rinse to get rid of the residual alcohol then blew air on them.

Rather than saying that water "sucks up" alcohol he said that it displaced the water. He stopped short of saying it was a solvent, but somehow I get the feeling that it combines (not chemically) with water. Of course if the wood sap (water plus other stuff) is displaced, then the alcohol dries out pretty quickly.

To get really anhydrous alcohol (100%) it evidently takes some pretty special treatment... Most commonly alcohol will be at around 95% alcohol and 5% water. If you want this kind of dryness (95% water) then you could always use "Heet" gas dryer, which is methanol... I somehow got the idea that ethyl alcohol had a higher percentage of water. I'd have to check my facts on this...

Denatured alcohol is probably ethyl alcohol and the denaturant is some kind on poison (toxic substance) that should make you sick if you drink it. (Think Listerine) This helps stores to avoid the heavy taxes and fees and regulations that come with selling alcoholic beverages....

Just imagine the possiblities of drying your work in say..... fine bourbon, or champagne....

Reckon you could get extra $$$ from advertising your work as "dried in fine bourbon"... (I don't know a thing about alcoholic beverages so can only guess at what you might try...)

 

[MichaelMouse]

Sounds like the first night in my Physiology classes, where we begin with the a or an at the top of the list of Greek and Latin prefixes and suffixes.

Ethanol forms an azeotropic - that a and two Greek words, BTW - solution of 95% alcohol and 5% water. This solution boils at a lower temperature than pure ethanol. In order to dehydrate the ethanol to absolute, benzine, ether or other agents are used. Since alcohol normally contains water, indeed, many are hygroscopic, it can hardly displace it. It does mix, however, which is why it's in the tank.

Alcohol is also used to dehydrate - a Latin/Greek combination - things by taking advantage of this capability. It mixes with the water, the dilute solution is discarded and replaced by fresh alcohol, and the cycle is continued until almost pure alcohol remains. Of course, the object must still be dried, because one thing soaking won't do is dry something.

Alcohol is used in wood conservation to dehydrate, and to carry material into wood which aids in preserving the wood's shape, as you may read here http://nautarch.tamu.edu/class/anth605/File6.htm , following the procedure detailed above. Easy to conclude that the alcohol itself does not displace anything nor stabilize the wood, else the secondary treatment would not be required.

The denaturant is stuff designed to make you puke, so you won't drink what is actually booze, and deprive the government of its excise taxes. Bums - or should I say "the homeless" have their own folklore about being able to remove the denaturant by straining through various media not including wood. Here's where ethanol actually does some replacement, because methanol poisoning is treated by administering ethanol, for which the body has a greater affinity.

 

[underdog]

Ah.. good... another piece of the puzzle...

Dad was a chemist a LONG time ago... back in the dark ages. And now he's reverted.. He a re-enactment Blacksmith circa 1840's...
So perhaps his memory or understanding of what actually may be taking place is a bit fuzzy...

hy·gro·scop·ic (hgr-skpk)
adj.

Readily absorbing moisture, as from the atmosphere

So the alcohol actually mixes. I suppose that means it does actually act as a solvent?

Just trying to puzzle out a bit what actually happens during this drying...

 

[jwavem]

Alcohol soak

When using the alcohol soak method for drying wood how long should the wood soak? I've read any where from one hour to one week. Should a turning one inch thick soak longer than one one a half inch thick?
Thanks

 

[Bill Boehme]

Michael,

Since the alcohol has a strong affinity to water, what happens to the water in the wood if a rough turned bowl after it is removed from soaking in alcohol? Does the water mostly remain in place while only the alcohol evaporates or will the water and alcohol both evaporate at a more or less a proportionate rate? I have not tried alcohol drying, but I get the impression from those that use it that the process greatly accelerates the drying of the wood. I would not think tht the wood needs to be bone dry, but reasonable stable before final turning. I did recently use 99% isopropyl alcohol on a bowl that I turned from live oak. There had been some small hairline cracking starting before doing this soaking, but it seems to have stopped since. By the way, "soaking" in this case meant filling the bowl with alcohol.

Bill

 

[MichaelMouse]

The alcohol/water solution behaves in accordance with Raoult's law. http://www.chemguide.co.uk/physical/phaseeqia/idealpd.html

The alcohol, with its lower boiling point, leaves to the atmosphere proportionally faster than the water at a given temperature. Which is nice, because we may have added a lot of alcohol by long soaking of a porous piece of wood from which we had spun a lot of the unbound water. The alcohol has displaced the air.

After we've undone what we did by adding alcohol, we can get to the water which is actually bound to the cellulose/hemicellulose structure of the wood by hydrogen bonds. It's loss of this water which causes the wood to shrink, and almost none is lost until all the unbound water, or in our case, liquid has left. There just isn't enough energy available to debond this water until the relative humidity (vapor pressure of water) is quite low.

In a dry kiln (microwave) we add energy with heat, which also lowers the RH. We can also lower the atmospheric pressure, which effectively increases the ability of bound water to evaporate. Or, we can play lazy and store our piece in a relatively high RH for the first few days - or weeks, if the wood is extremely thick - then move to where it will reside. It's having a big difference in moisture between inside and surface that causes problems, so the alcohol folks wrap the piece in newsprint - a good choice, because, as you know, it's also wood and tends to stay close to the FSP until the moisture from the wood diminishes. Inside of the piece is left open to the atmosphere, because the wood won't crack there, being under compression.

One more interesting concept, the inverse square law. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse_square_law While it does not apply perfectly, it takes almost three times as long to dry a thickness of 2X as X. So if you want to dry fast, start thinner. Also serves you in that thinner is less inclined to gross distortion.

The last two paragraphs are part of the process referenced, and in my view account, along with continuous monitoring, for all the gains claimed in the name of alcohol. The watched pot may seem as if it never boils, but if you watch it continuously, you'll catch the very moment the first bubble bursts.

 

[Mike Cunningham]

Jwavem

I always soak for 24 hrs, remove the item and either shelf it or finish turn. I've never soaked for a longer or shorter period of time. That doesn't mean that you can't or shouldn't, simply what I've done and I've lost very few bowls, though I have lost a few and those have been cherry.

Mike

 

[dkulze]

So, what michael is saying would be that the alcohol actually draws the bound water out of the wood, vs. the unbound water that basically hanging out in the wood spaces and cells, right? One trick folks haven't mentioned is the effect this has on the wood cracking. When you wet wood, the grain swells. This is part of the bonding process, I'm pretty sure, where the wood actually draws in water, binds it to the cellulose, and adds volume in the process. Now alcohol, on the other hand, does not bind to the cellulose. See where I'm going with this?

As the alcohol litterally "sucks" the water away from the wood due to it's higher affinity while in concentration, you de-stress the wood by causing it to collapse to a degree. It's exactly those stresses that cause the cracking as the still wet wood pulls against the dry wood. So, in effect, a piece of wood that has been soaked in alcohol sufficient to penetrate to the core has been slightly collapsed, allowing some wiggle room as the remainder of the water eases out during drying.

Now, two more things real quick. If you've alcohol soaked and wanna dry it, be careful in the microwave. Alcohol vapor is purty flamable and the microwave going "poof" would be a bad thing.

Also, does the wood your using have the pith still in it? If not, you've gotten rid of most of your problem right there and you can dry it just about as aggressively as you want with much reduced chance of cracking, especially if it's turned rough first.

Good luck,
Dietrich

 

[MichaelMouse]

So, what michael is saying would be that the alcohol actually draws the bound water out of the wood, vs. the unbound water that basically hanging out in the wood spaces and cells, right?

Definitely not. Didn't say it, and wouldn't because it isn't true. Alcohol is less polar than water, so it can't replace the water in the influence bonding (bound water) fraction.

Only thing alcohol can do is dilute the water. If you perform successive soaks and replenishments, you can end up with near absolute alcohol in the physical openings. You have dehydrated the piece. Now you need to dry it.

Since your premise is invalid, the assumptions based on it are invalid. Where alcohol is used to dehydrate waterlogged wood, as in the URL I gave and you should read, care must be taken in drying or some actual bulking material provided to prevent collapse, because the alcohol can't do it.

 

[dkulze]

Sorry, Michael. That's basically what I meant. With the alcohol diluting the water, it seems that the effect would be to "draw out" the bound water. I didn't mean that it replaces it, as that is exactly the effect it doesn't do. IN using the term "draw out", I only meant that this is the perceived effect brought about by successive dilutions and reductions caused by the affinity between the alcohol and water. It would seem that, without this effect, the "bound" water would remain largely untouched and require the slower evaporation process we all deal with.

And, yes, the collapse you speak of in waterlogged wood would seem to also be the effect we are pursueing in using alcohol to "dry" wood without it cracking. Am I mistaken in thinking that this exact collapse is what decreases tension in the wood and so decreases cracking?

Also, please excuse if I use incorrect terminology in my descriptions. I'm not a chemist or engineer and so will describe stuff with the wrong terms at times. Don't mind corrections at all, though. If the terms or concepts are incorrect, feel free to correct.

Thanks,
Dietrich

 

[pfduffy]

DNA to dry wood

Just one small observation that went against all the wonderful applications I have seen of the Dave Smith method. I recently was given half a cherry tree that had been standing, dead, for some long time. In that pile some of it was rotten, some punky, some weird looking wood, while the rest of it was wonderful. I ruff turned a couple bowls of the cherry that I thought were OK and put them in the DNA bucket. The next day, removed same and wrapped to dry. A week later I re-mounted the bowls and the wood looked peculiar, as if it was bone dry. In a couple minutes the first bowl blew up for no apparent reason. The second did the same thing a few minutes later. Since I have been at this turning business for more than a decade I thought I knew what I was doing but this pair made me think that the wood had gotten over-dry and, coupled with some spalting, it just could not stand the preassure of the gouge. I still think that Dave's DNA method is wonderful! Phil

 

[MichaelMouse]

It's imprecision in scientific language and extrapolation from imprecision which pretty much defines the entire process. Dehydration has become "drying," which it isn't, and miscibility has become "drawing out," which is also incorrect. So we have arrived at alcohol "drying" of wood by "drawing out" water. What really works, of course, is diluting with that truly infinite amount of solvent known as air.

Perhaps another analogy would help. Take a gallon of black sand and a gallon of white sand, and pour them into a five-gallon bucket. Mix, discard half the result. Now add another gallon of white sand, repeat and repeat until there's only 5% black sand left. Describes dehydration by solvent dilution.

Now take the same five-gallon bucket and coat the sides with glue before you put in the black sand. Let dry. Some of the black will become bound to the bucket. The unbound portion will become more and more dilute as you perform the process, and the energy applied by the mixing might knock the occasional grain loose, but by and large, even after we pour out our nearly white mixture, we'll have a lot of black bound to the bucket.

Now take the next step in your imagination. No longer a bucket, we've a container out of fiber -sandbag- which is expanded and stiffened by the glue and black sand. If we get the black sand out carefully, allowing the glue to stiffen the fiber as it's lost, we can still hold some sort of shape.

 

[dkulze]

Excellent description, Michael. Clarifies the whole process.

So, to work from that analogy, the treatment with DNA does not significantly reduce the bound water? If so, I've been misunderstanding the process.

thanks,
Dietrich

 

[Ron Sardo]

You sure are a whole lot smarter than I am MichaelMouse. Truthfully my head hurts just trying to understand what you are saying. But I did finally figure it out and I'm sure you are right. At least I'm going to take your word on it.

Please explain to me why soaking in alcohol works, from experience it seems to work.

 

[underdog]

So just wondering what happened with Jwavem's drying/turning project?

 

[Mark Mandell]

You sure are a whole lot smarter than I am MichaelMouse. Truthfully my head hurts just trying to understand what you are saying. But I did finally figure it out and I'm sure you are right. At least I'm going to take your word on it.

Please explain to me why soaking in alcohol works, from experience it seems to work.

Good Question!

We've had all (or nearly all) the reasons why it doesn't or can't work, but not a single alternative to account for what is actually happening to give the results being obtained by so many turners.

I won't argue the chemistry (or the physics) of water-bearing organic materials, but when a roughed turning (maple, walnut, or cherry) starts at 30% MC ("bound water") and winds up at 10% (which is EMC in my area) as measured by meter and weight loss after an 18 hour alcohol soak and 10 days' drying, there is clearly something happening to the drying/dehydration/whatever of the wood. Since I don't happen to believe that pixies are sneaking into my shop and sucking the extractives and alcohol-laden water out of my wet turnings, I'll just call it "drying" until someone comes up with a better term.

M

 

[Jeff Jilg]

I have only used the alcohol soak for one thing (I mean besides when I was in college). I successfully used it to nuke a bunch of grubs in mesquite roughouts this summer. Worked great! And I also did a test piece to compare it with. I soaked more than 20 pieces. No grubs. On the test piece, the grubs continued their work.

I believe this process worked by having the grubs drink or inhale their fill of alcohol. Then they all got so drunk that they forgot they were supposed to eat the wood to live and they eventually died. Not a bad way to go compared to other methods of demise!

On a serious note the alcohol got real dark brown, almost black from the tannin or at least from the mesquite. It seemed to soak into the light colored sap wood on some of the soakings. As a result I used fresh alcohol on some of the pieces where I wanted to ensure that the wood stayed light colored.

 

[Ron Sardo]

On a serious note the alcohol got real dark brown, almost black from the tannin or at least from the mesquite. It seemed to soak into the light colored sap wood on some of the soakings. As a result I used fresh alcohol on some of the pieces where I wanted to ensure that the wood stayed light colored.

I have soaked walnut and mesquite in alcohol. Then with the same dark brown "soup" I soaked some holly and maple. The brown tannin was only skin deep and turned off easily and did not effect the final color of either wood.

Jeff, image how happy the worm was from a bottle of tequila?

 

[MichaelMouse]

Good Question!
I won't argue the chemistry (or the physics) of water-bearing organic materials, but when a roughed turning (maple, walnut, or cherry) starts at 30% MC ("bound water") and winds up at 10% (which is EMC in my area) as measured by meter and weight loss after an 18 hour alcohol soak and 10 days' drying, there is clearly something happening to the drying/dehydration/whatever of the wood. Since I don't happen to believe that pixies are sneaking into my shop and sucking the extractives and alcohol-laden water out of my wet turnings, I'll just call it "drying" until someone comes up with a better term.

M

An engineer is out walking in the park and sees a wild-eyed man hitting a strangely painted block of wood with a stick. The engineer's curiosity gets the better of him, so he asks the wild-eyed man, "Why are you hitting that block?"
The wild-eyed man replies with a bit of a crazed smile, "The sound keeps the elephants away."
The engineer, now fully intrigued, digs deeper, "But why? There are no elephants here."
As the wild-eyed man continues to make his noise with renewed vigor, he says, "See! It's working."

Similar results, less the soak at ~3/4 wall thickness on cherry and maple at my house. Y'think it might be what's common between our two approaches rather than what's different?

 

[Jeff Jilg]

Ron - I'm thinking that worm in the bottom of the tequila bottle has it made, the whole bottle to himself!

Some of the pieces I was soaking in the "new" alcohol baths had very little sapwood on them. I agree with you that the dark color probably doesn't go very deep. On those particular pieces I didn't have a lot of sapwood that was going to get turned off the final piece when they are dry. And I think some of them might be dry enough to use for Christmas turnings! So now I will be finally forced to finish turn some items....instead of being in permanent roughout mode!

 

[Mark Mandell]

An engineer is out walking in the park and sees a wild-eyed man hitting a strangely painted block of wood with a stick. The engineer's curiosity gets the better of him, so he asks the wild-eyed man, "Why are you hitting that block?"
The wild-eyed man replies with a bit of a crazed smile, "The sound keeps the elephants away."
The engineer, now fully intrigued, digs deeper, "But why? There are no elephants here."
As the wild-eyed man continues to make his noise with renewed vigor, he says, "See! It's working."

Similar results, less the soak at ~3/4 wall thickness on cherry and maple at my house. Y'think it might be what's common between our two approaches rather than what's different?

Don't think so as my wall thicknesses on roughed bowls run from 1-1/4 to 2-1/2" (diameters 18-30") translating to a whole lot more MC to deal with. Prior to use of alcohol bath, my dry times with sealed end grain and controlled atmosphere (paper bags) run to several months minimum, especially for cherry and maple. Total shrinkage rates are the same, naturally, but deformation, (as in asymmetrical warpage) is reduced by an easy 50%. I turn some woods to final in a single session, especially Sycamore, because I'm looking for those wild surface textures that result. Thus they're cut to 3/8" or so, sanded wet, bagged for control, and revisited in a few of months. Some make it, some don't, but I am actually seeking the deformation and warpage, so I don't soak them to reduce it. Finish is then several applications of Waterlox and the re-turning of a stable foot ring.

But speaking of engineers:

Q: When does a person decide to become an engineer?
A: When he realizes he doesn't have the charisma to be an undertaker.

Q: What do engineers use for birth control?
A: Their personalities.

Q: How can you tell an extroverted engineer?
A: When he talks to you, he looks at your shoes instead of his own.

Q: Why did the engineers cross the road?
A: Because they looked in the file and that's what they did last year.

Q: How do you drive an engineer completely insane?
A: Tie him to a chair, stand in front of him, and fold up a road map the wrong way.

You might be an engineer if ...

... choosing between buying flowers for your girlfriend and upgrading your RAM is a moral dilemma.

... you take a cruise so you can go on a personal tour of the engine room.

... in college you thought Spring Break was metal fatigue failure.

... the sales people at the local computer store can't answer any of your questions.

... at an air show you know how fast the skydivers are falling.

... you bought your wife/girlfriend a new CD-ROM drive (or a Palm Pilot) for her birthday.

... you can quote scenes from any Monty Python movie.

... you can type 70 words per minute but can't read your own handwriting.

... you comment to your wife that her straight hair is nice and parallel.

... you sit backwards on the Disneyland rides to see how they do the special effects.

... you have saved every power cord from all your broken appliances.

... you have more friends on the Internet than in real life.

... you know what “http://†stands for.

... you look forward to Christmas so you can put the kids' toys together.

... you can’t resist trying to change a good design.

... you spent more on your calculator than you did on your wedding ring.

... you still own a slide rule and know how to use it.

... you've already calculated how much you make per second.

... you've tried to repair a $5 radio.

 

[Ron Sardo]

You might be an engineer if ...

I'm in trouble Mark.
I'm guilty of ten out of 18 what if's
and I ain't no engineer

 

[Mark Mandell]

I'm in trouble Mark.
I'm guilty of ten out of 18 what if's
and I ain't no engineer

You also ain't alone