Yet another turning question....

[Dudley]

Ok, I have this nice cherry (Green, cut on Thursday and sealed ends a few hours later.) I cut one of the four logs into blanks on Sunday. Rough turned three bowls and have enough to rough turn a few more from these blanks, but I have a few questions.

I cut the pith out of the blanks. The wood is pretty wet, it actually showered me a little when I roughed out the bowls last night. Now, I've seen people turn boxes out of geen wood, what precautions do I have to take if I want to try this? I would also like to make a few candle holdes from them too. Is this possible or am looking at probable cracking? I turned a nice little mallet for my Dad from green hickory and it didn't crack (I assumed it was because I got rid of the pith).

Any help is appriciated!

Also, can I put a finish on the green turnings? And should I use something other than walnut oil or wax?

Thanks,

 

[Greg Thomas]

Green Cherry

Here in Arkansas we have a lot of cherry. I never trust it not to crack, no matter how wet it is. I keep a spray bottle of water near by and at the first sign of a crack, I spray the blank with water each time I stop the lathe. As soon as I've rough turned a piece I coat it with sealer, weigh it, and stick it in a paper bag for six months. Then I weigh it, and put it on a shelf until it stops lossing weight. Only then do I stop worrying about it not cracking. End grain hollow forms seem to be less likely to crack, but I can't claim to be an expert on hollow forms.

 

[MichaelMouse]

A lot of people talk about cherry being difficult. I can only assume they are talking about some other kind of wood than what grows in the north woods, which has a better tangential/radial shrinkage ratio than many other common woods. Further, neither one of them is particularly high by comparison.

If the wood's straight-grained, it'll behave just fine. It's relatively dry in the heart compared to the sapwood, so if you leave it in the round you'll often experience radial checks originating at the heart/sap wood junction. Winter cut is an advantage here. If you've slabbed it, should no longer be a factor. Expect the same bad behavior from crotch, reaction and figured wood that you'd get from other woods. I don't think I'd take many liberties with fruitwood cherry for that reason. They've been pruned to grow unnaturally, and are going to be as much fun as apple.

I'm no fan of wax and wish methods, preferring to control the environment around the piece by placing it in different parts of my basement with known humidity characteristics. Under winter rules, with lower indoor relative humidities, you may have to put the roughs under a box initially, or wrap in newsprint. Time to dry? At 3/4" thickness, good for 3/8" walls in 12" cherry, couple months, tops. Less if you push it, but you've got other things to turn, too, don't you?

For long grain boxes, I turn them oversize - 3/8 thick to finish at 1/4 for up to 5 inches, let them dry slowly, with both sides of the bottom and top endgrain open to the air. Minimizes differentials from leaving them sitting on their base to dry. These will take relatively longer to dry than a cross-grain bowl, because face grain takes 10 times longer to lose water than end grain, and if your box is 4 inches long, it's got more wood away from end grain loss than the average bowl.

For getting stuff out of the weather when the crunch comes, turn and seal the ends of the cylinders you get from either side of the heart, store almost anywhere, and treat them, when you use them, as green wood. Years to dry, and seldom equal throughout unless you heavily control the external environment.

For pieces where you'll include the heart, turn as green as you can, as thin as will work, and remember that fresh wood will hold more difference in color between sap and heart wood. Old wood blends.

 

[MichaelMouse]

A lot of people talk about cherry being difficult. I can only assume they are talking about some other kind of wood than what grows in the north woods, which has a better tangential/radial shrinkage ratio than many other common woods. Further, neither one of them is particularly high by comparison.

If the wood's straight-grained, it'll behave just fine. It's relatively dry in the heart compared to the sapwood, so if you leave it in the round you'll often experience radial checks originating at the heart/sap wood junction. Winter cut is an advantage here. If you've slabbed it, should no longer be a factor. Expect the same bad behavior from crotch, reaction and figured wood that you'd get from other woods. I don't think I'd take many liberties with fruitwood cherry for that reason. They've been pruned to grow unnaturally, and are going to be as much fun as apple.

I'm no fan of wax and wish methods, preferring to control the environment around the piece by placing it in different parts of my basement with known humidity characteristics. Under winter rules, with lower indoor relative humidities, you may have to put the roughs under a box initially, or wrap in newsprint. Time to dry? At 3/4" thickness, good for 3/8" walls in 12" cherry, couple months, tops. Less if you push it, but you've got other things to turn, too, don't you?

For long grain boxes, I turn them oversize - 3/8 thick to finish at 1/4 for up to 5 inches, let them dry slowly, with both sides of the bottom and top endgrain open to the air. Minimizes differentials from leaving them sitting on their base to dry. These will take relatively longer to dry than a cross-grain bowl, because face grain takes 10 times longer to lose water than end grain, and if your box is 4 inches long, it's got more wood away from end grain loss than the average bowl.

For getting stuff out of the weather when the crunch comes, turn and seal the ends of the cylinders you get from either side of the heart, store almost anywhere, and treat them, when you use them, as green wood. Years to dry, and seldom equal throughout unless you heavily control the external environment.

For pieces where you'll include the heart, turn as green as you can, as thin as will work, and remember that fresh wood will hold more difference in color between sap and heart wood. Old wood blends.

 

[S. Clark]

My experience with green cheery is that there will be a lot of shrinkage. For the items you mention, I would recommend rough turning them and then allowing them to dry before finishing them off. Otherwise you'll never achieve a box with a proper lid, a straight candle stick, or a bowl that sits flat or has a flat rim. If you ecperiment and identify the tendancies, you can work these into your designs though. Expect to waste some in learning to work with this species.

- Scott