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Walk in cooler== bowl kiln

S

Sam Beagle

Joined
Jan 7, 2017
Messages
24
Likes
6
Location
Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania
i posted this I’ve on SMC and got some great advice. Thought I would post here too

So I bought an old elks lodge. 19k sq ft. Ive turned the stag bar section which is approximately 4K feet into my new wood shop. Im super excited about it. Things are going great so far, I even found out yesterday that we have current 3 phase power in the building.

Anyway. There is pretty large walk in cooler. It’s non functioning as far as I know or even care. It’s very well insulated of course. So I’m gonna install a dehumidifier and couple fans and start slow drying rough turned bowls. Any additional advice would be awesome.
 
You da man - what a great set-up. I do have some experience (and horror stories) that I'm happy to share. Some pertains primarily to large hollow-forms:
  • I've used the large dehumidifiers from Lowes or Amazon for years - works great - always buy the extended warranty and put all records in a zip bag attached to the unit. The chances of you going 3-years at 24/7 is remote.
  • On all species except mesquite, I boil after cutting the "rough" (usually 1.5" thick walls) - I remove from pot the next day (when cool) and then put in a sealed cardboard box with a computer fan PULLING until 20% MC - according to Gene Wengert, saturated to 20% is when most cracks/problems occur - 20% to 6% can be more aggressive (out of the box). You can find his white paper on the Lignomat website - while mostly germane to lumber a lot of it pertains to us woodturners - wood is wood.
  • I didn't like the pins on my Lignomat - I now drill tiny holes (same spacing as pins) and tap a 1" #18 brad leaving maybe 1/8" proud - I can clip onto the heads and take a reading. Takes 6 to 8-mos to get from saturated (>50%) to dry (<6%). Tip: Don't drill too small a hole - breaking a brad creates challenges you want to avoid - "slightly snug" is good.
  • Another Tip: Don't orient the fan to blow into the piece - 1" cracks are hard to repair unless you want to use a butterfly and call it artsy.
Send me your email and I'll send a page from my process book that has pics on the above - can't seem to upload a MS Word doc.
Good luck
John
 
Sam Beagle said:
i posted this I’ve on SMC and got some great advice. Thought I would post here too

So I bought an old elks lodge. 19k sq ft. Ive turned the stag bar section which is approximately 4K feet into my new wood shop. Im super excited about it. Things are going great so far, I even found out yesterday that we have current 3 phase power in the building.

Anyway. There is pretty large walk in cooler. It’s non functioning as far as I know or even care. It’s very well insulated of course. So I’m gonna install a dehumidifier and couple fans and start slow drying rough turned bowls. Any additional advice would be awesome.
Click to expand...

Hi Sam,

I also have a walk in cooler (still functioning) that I use for drying my work. And chilling the wine.... :)
It is running, so temps are about 40 F and there is no dehumidifier or fans (other than the cooler)

So far, this has been the most reliable method of drying my work, while minimizing cracking.
However, I favour letting it dry very slowly. I.e. I frequently coat the roughed out forms in anchor seal.
Then leave them for months to dry out. Then do a final turning.

Any attempts at speeding this up has resulted in a larger ratio of cracked pieces.
So resolved to just keep turning and letting them dry slowly.

Good luck with the new place, sounds awesome
 
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