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Help needed : wood too dry ?

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Les Symonds:

--- Quote from: Bill21 on September 12, 2020, 10:47:45 AM ---... 400 year old oak ... as you would expect very dry. 

--- End quote ---
I just don't go with this. Oak and any other timber put into any environment will adjust its moisture content to match that of its surroundings. Most modern homes have a moisture content of 10% to 12%, and it doesn't matter if you keep wood in them for 400 hours or 400 years, it will be the same moisture content as the room that it sits in. As Steve (Seventhdevil) said, get your tool technique right. Use a shearing cut and if your tool-handling skills are not yet up to it, then practice, practice, practice. Washing up liquid is not a short cut! Soaking seasoned timber in water for several weeks is just about the weirdest thing I've heard of.

One other thing to consider......all trees absorb minerals out of the ground through the water that they capiliarise. When timber is processed and dried, those mineral-rich fluids start to dry-out and eventually the minerals begin to solidify, or even to calcify. In many respects, this is the very earliest stages of fossilisation and it is why very old timber is sometimes said to be like stone. Washing up liquid does not reverse this process, but whereas several weeks of saturation will soften the remaining, uncalcified wood fibres, it will also do untold damage through the uncontrolled expansion and subsequent contraction of the wood.

Forget Fairy Liquid....work on your tool technique. Seek out a fellow turner who knows how to perform a shearing cut and learn from that turner.

Les Symonds.

bodrighywood:
I agree with Les on this. never heard of wood beng 'too dfry' before. Every piece of wood you ougt on the lathe neds to be treated individually as different woods will retain moistire indifferent ways and to diffferent levels. Keep your tools sharp and if you are getting tear out as bad as that depicted here then you sort ot the tools and the angles. Very punky, rotten wood can bde a problem but that has nothing to do ith the amount of moisture in it. This pieceof silver birch was so soft I could literally cut it with my thumb nails but for various reasons decided to go for it. No CA glue, no sealer  just sharp tools and very careful use of the tools. Sorry but kit all boils down to jusing the rifght tools the right way


Pete

Bill21:
I don’t really care what “you go with” Les, the wood I was given was extremely dry and soaking it in the mixture I mentioned did the trick. I would suggest to the OP to give it a try, what have you got to lose?

https://www.awgb.co.uk/awgbforum/index.php?topic=2403.0

https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/threads/washing-up-liquid.35455/

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