Preparing new wood

[Phil Fouracre]

Thought I’d come to the ‘font of all knowledge’🙂 for advice - just got into turning and have asked questions before and got fantastic advice, which is very much appreciated.
I’ve just had the opportunity to cut down a quince tree! and am cutting it up into manageable pieces for future work🤞
It appears to have been fairly abusively pruned, with knots and changes of direction of growth.
I’m cutting out the best looking sections of wood, but, also thinking I might experiment with the ‘knottier’ sections as well.
My question is - how is best to treat and store the individual pieces of wood to prevent cracking and any deterioration?
I was planning to just seal the ends with beeswax, but, am wondering if I should seal the whole ‘log’
Secondly should I prepare each piece by turning while green to ‘manageable’ pieces and then coat the whole of the surface?
I hope this makes sense
Phil

[Paul Hannaby]

Seal all end grain to slow down drying which should in turn reduce the chance of cracking. With larger diameter sections, you can cut then lengthways to reduce the stress when drying.

[Phil Fouracre]

Fantastic! Many thanks for prompt reply
I thought it was the case that it would dry ‘from the ends’ not through the bark, but, wasn’t sure what would be best.
That’s my job for today sorted!🙂

[Wood spinner]

On average it takes 1 year per inch of thickness to dry naturally.

[Phil Fouracre]

Does the bark stop the wood drying out ‘laterally’, if that’s the right word, so that’s why you only seal the ends?
If I roughly turn a piece to size, ie remove the bark, should I seal all of the piece?
One other question - as I’m only working with small pieces, what do people think about micro waving to reduce water content?
Thx

[BrianH]

Whatever else you do make sure you get rid of the pithe, which is the epicentre of all drying problems.
Think of your log as a bunch of paper drinking straws wrapped in knobbly cling film. Initial drying is the straws emptying and rarely causes cracking. Secondary drying is the moisture within the walls of the straws, which then shrink, restricting the loss from deeper inside the wood. My advice is to work on understanding what's going on rather than ape other folks techniques  Lastly there are no guantees whatever methods you go for so expect some failures.
All the best with it
Brian

[Phil Fouracre]

Brian
Hi!
Many thanks for that!
Been watching good old YouTube for endless vids on every technique, which is great, but, confusing🤔😂 Appreciate your comments about others, it’s just that I’ve got so much to learn and so little time!
The straw theory makes a lot of sense, and yes, will keep experimenting👍

[BrianH]

Weii Phil I believe every learner-turner everywhere will have fallen into the gaping trap of expecting black and white/ right and wrong when everything about this damned addiction is actually in some tone of grey. There's a famous saying that if you give the same problem to 15 woodies you'll get 15 different answers and 15 people who are convinced there's only 1 thats correct. It doesn't help when us more  experienced woodies give the impression that if they believe something hard enough it's bound to become a fact when common sense says it's still only an opinion.
My advice is to listen to everyone, try anything you feel  happy about and then plough your own furrow wherever it may lead.
All the best
Brian

[Phil Fouracre]

Brian

Thanks for some great support - I think my wife is getting a bit concerned about me ploughing my own furrow!😂
I do appreciate what you’re saying and am trying hard to learn as much as I can - this is why I thought I’d ask for advice on here, as well as trawling around You Tube.
Because I had the offer of this amount of wood I thought I could, as you say, learn a lot about ‘what’s going on’ - treating this one batch of wood in as many ways as I could find to improve my knowledge. As you say any number of people will have differing ideas, which is great, and why I would like as many suggestions, no matter how correct or incorrect.
Thx again
Phil

[Twisted Trees]

Have to say I disagree with Brian, if you ask 15 turners any question and get less that 17 answers that would be amazing and also not wrong! As there are many ways of achieving the end result, each of which is affected by many factors. Type of timber, your storage facilities, air temp and humidity, age of timber when acquired and sometimes blind luck. All these things come into play. I use a fan powered kiln and I actually add trays of water to the kiln especially in the summer as it works quicker with high humidity than just dry air. 

The straw analogy is 100% correct though in at least 93% of circumstances, that is why you seal the endgrain but not the side grain because you do want it to dry... and also good to keep in mind when cutting, you will hear "cut down hill" "cut with the grain" and various other terms, if you visualise that bundle of straws you always want to cut against supporting fibres (straws) so visualise that bunch in different orientations and look for where the supported cut direction would be. Obviously when cutting a burr or even a crotch there will be issues with the cut down hill ideal, but at least you will know where to expect problems.

[Phil Fouracre]

Thx for great advice👌

[Bill21]

I quite like working with branch wood sometimes. I’ve bought Yew logs that have had the ends sealed and these have dried just fine. Someone gave me a yew log without end sealing that was supposed to be dry. Two or three weeks later it had cracked down it’s entire two foot length. Sadly only useable for small stuff now.