Thank you, all, for the great information. I knew it wasn't simple, but this is even more complicated than I thought.
I have part-turned a couple pieces, but for the most part I'm too far into instant gratification to want to part-turn. And I'm at the opposite end of the spectrum from a production turner, so how fast I can turn out multiple pieces isn't a consideration.
I DO have a moisture meter, but the moisture content 1/4" into a large chunk doesn't really tell me anything about the moisture content in the middle.
For weighing wood, how far apart do the measurements have to be to be reliable? Obviously two measurements, an hour apart, don't tell you if it's stabilized. But 24 hours? 72 hours? a week? two weeks? two months?
Thanks again, ya'll!
Mike.......
Roughed bowls will lose weight quickly at first, but the weight loss will taper off as you near stabilization. I use one month intervals between weighings, but that's just my choice. You will also see results in a week, two weeks, month, two months, etc.
If you go with less than weekly weighings, the roughed bowls won't stabilize any quicker.......but, if you wanted to weigh every day, that would work, too......just spending a lot of effort. I suppose it all depends on how you feel about it.....but, for me, monthly weighings work.
Right now, I have about 50 roughed bowls in various stages of the seasoning process.......it would be more work than I care to do, if I weighed them more often.
My suggestion is for you to get yourself a bunch of kiln dried blanks and have fun making bowls.......all the while, roughing and seasoning wet blanks. It will only take four or six months and you will have a nice rotating stock of seasoned blanks to work with. Although I concentrate on unseasoned blocks of wood, I have a nice supply of kiln dried blanks that I continue to use.......I NEVER run out of wood blanks to use.
I can certainly understand about your desire for "instant gratification", and you can have that, all the time, by using BOTH kiln dried blanks, and wet blanks........
ooc