Preparing for the AAW Symposium Hurrying the Drying Processfiles.constantcontact.com/c38abb3f001/40fb8dc2-c284-409a-81de-c… · down to 10%, before any further turning. Weighing

From David Marks StudioPreparing for the AAW Symposium

Hurrying the Drying Processby David Marks

David Marks has been a studio furniture maker in Santa Rosa, CA for nearly 40 years and was the host of the popular woodworking television program WoodWorks on the DIY network. He also has been a contributor to Woodworker West, since 2004.

Over seven seasons, David produced 91 episodes of WoodWorks, featuring step-by-step instruc-tions for building contemporary studio furniture. He has secured a licensing agreement, re-edited them, and Seasons 1-6 are available as complete DVDs, with the full 13 episodes from each season. Individual episodes also can be downloaded. Visit David’s eStore at: www.djmarks.com/estore/.

David has announced his 2016 teaching schedule. Classes taught in his Santa Rosa, CA studio are:

July 8-10 Gilding & Chemical PatinationJuly 22-24 Marquetry & InlayOct. 6-10 Creative Bowl TurningNov. 10-13 Bentwood LaminationDec. 2-4 Gilding & Chemical Patination

Class details are available at the website: www.djmarks.com/classes.asp.

I will be a featured demonstrator at the American Association of Woodturners’ 30th annual symposium, which is being held, June 9-12, in Atlanta, GA. I decided to turn a 30" tall Maple hollow vessel with my signature metal leaf and patina finish to have on display in the Symposium Instant Gallery.I began with a freshly cut green Maple log, which initially weighed close to 300 lbs. It was so heavy that I needed an engine hoist to lift it up into place between centers on my lathe.

Over several weeks, I rough turned the log to the appropriate shape—both exterior and interior—to a wall thickness of 1". Between turning sessions, I stored the workpiece under water in a 50-gallon drum, so it didn't crack.

The original log weighed close to 300 lbs., with a moisture content so high that it wouldn’t register on my moisture meter.

Rough turning the 30" Maple hollow vessel, supported on the lathe with a shop-built center steady.

By mid-January, the rough turning was completed, but before I could go further, I needed to reduce the moisture content. With the symposium less than 5 months away, I could not afford a slow drying period. Instead, I wanted to speed the drying process

Page 36 Woodworker West May-June, 2016

From Woodworker West magazine, May-June 2016 — www.woodwest.com

along. My goal was to bring the moisture content down to 10%, before any further turning.Weighing is a good method to observe the rate of drying. An indication that the piece is close to being dry is when it stops dropping weight. In this case, the initial weight, after rough turning, was 55.2 lbs.The first step in this drying process is to boil the wood for 1-2 hours. The objective here is to rupture the interior cells that contain the “bound cell water.” Weigh-ing it after boil-ing it, I found that it gained water weight and was up to 58 lbs. At this point, I usually would let a turning drip dry for a month before continuing, but being in a hurry, I only waited 4-5 days.The next step is to soak the piece in denatured alcohol to replace the water content with alcohol. The chal-lenge with alcohol drying is to try and minimize the amount of gallons of alcohol that you use. Denatured alcohol runs approximately $15.00 per gallon, so in order to use the least amount, I placed the turning in a 42 gallon, heavy duty, 3 mil plastic bag and placed it in a 50-gallon barrel. Next I pack sawdust around the outside of the bag to push it up against the ves-sel. This minimizes the space that needs to be filled with alcohol on the outside of the vessel. I also placed another 42-gallon plastic bag inside the vessel and inflated it with compressed air and tied it off. This minimized the amount of alcohol needed to fill the inside of the vessel.In most cases, I would leave the wood in the alcohol for 24 hours, but with such a large piece, I let it soak for 3 days. After remov-ing the vessel, I turned it upside down to let it drain out onto the concrete, then I brought it in-side my shop and placed it upside down on two sticks of wood and made a large bag out of some brown

paper and placed that over it to slow the drying. The idea is to slowly dry the piece, so it doesn't crack. At this point, the weight had dropped to 52.2 lbs., and one week later, it was down to 48.9 lbs. By the end of February (a month later) it had dropped to 32.9 lbs., with a moisture content of 18%.My good friend and fellow Bench Doggs guitar Mae-stro Tom Ribbecke—who is used to working with dry, flat wood in crafting his amazing archtop gui-tars (www.ribbecke.com)—stopped by when we were ready to remove the vessel from the alcohol bath. He was very impressed with the crazy science that I was employing: “Did you figure this out yourself?,” Tom asked. “No,” I replied. “I have done a lot of research over the years on the Internet, as well as talking to other turners, and came up with this process for rapid drying with minimal checking.”With time running out before the symposium, I repeated the alcohol bath and placed it in my dry-ing/finishing room, where the heater kept a constant temperature just above 75°. By the first week of April, my moisture meter registered my goal of 10% to signal the piece was ready to proceed to final turning, gluing on the rim, and applying the finish.

My shop assistant Dan Neff and good friend Tom Ribbecke removes the vessel from the alcohol bath.

As you can see below, there have been some small cracks developing. When noticed, I apply thin cya-noacrylate in the crack and medium viscosity cyano-acrylate over the crack to strengthen the holding power. Fortunately, all these cracks will be removed, as I do the final turning.This has been quite a dramatic weight loss. I know what you are thinking... if I drink 15 gallons of alcohol, maybe I could lose 6 lbs. in a week! Don’t do it! It only works on trees, not humans!

Weighing the wood to see when it stabi-lizes and stops losing weight is a good method for judging the dryness. Using a moisture meter gives more precise information and assurance. Here, the wood finally reaches 10%, allowing me to continue to finish the vessel.

Success. . . Now, time to complete the vessel for AAW.

May-June, 2016 Woodworker West Page 37

David Marks has been a studio furniture maker in Santa Rosa, CA for nearly 40 years and was the host of the popular woodworking television program WoodWorks on the DIY network. He also has been a contributor to Woodworker West, since 2004.

David is happy to announce the release of videos from Season 7 of WoodWorks. They are available as a complete DVD with all 13 pro-grams or as individual downloadable episodes. These videos, along with the 78 episodes from Seasons 1-6, can be purchased from David’s eStore at: www.djmarks.com/estore/.

He will be giving a presentation to the Wine Coun-try Woodturners on Sept. 17 in Cotati, CA. For info: www.westbaywoodturners.com.

Upcoming hands-on classes, conducted in his Santa Rosa, CA studio, are:

Oct. 6-10 Creative Bowl TurningNov. 10-13 Bentwood LaminationDec. 2-4 Gilding & Chemical Patination

Class details are available at the website: www.djmarks.com/classes/2016-classes-schedule/.

From David Marks StudioAAW Piece Wrap-Up & Question

by David MarksIn the May issue of Woodworker West, I shared with you the process of creating my latest piece, Sensei, for debut at the 30th annual AAW Symposium in Atlanta, GA, last June. I am happy to report that the piece was completed on time, though I admit that it was not until the eve of our departure that I finished applying the Renaissance wax.The vessel itself was turned and hollowed from a recently fallen Big Leaf Maple, and I previously detailed the steps that I took to reduce the moisture content of the green 400 lb. log, through boil-ing, soaking in alcohol, and drying. In the end after turning, the final piece weighed 11 lbs., with a moisture content of 10%.As everyone knows who does any type of woodworking, sometimes the project takes on a life of its own. This was definitely the case with “Sensei.” Yes, I named this hollow vessel “Sensei,” because it means teacher in Japanese, and this vessel became my teacher and taught me a tremendous amount of new knowledge.Some of the things I learned along the way were:1. Not to use stainless steel screws

on the faceplate, because they are too brittle and half of them broke off in the wood when I tried to remove them. That experience led me to a local hardware/lumber store that serves contractors, and I pur-chased the strongest construc-tion grade screws they had.

2. I needed a longer lathe bed, so I ordered an extension from Oneway.

3. My old inline skate wheels on my center steady weren’t rigid enough, which caused vibra-tion issues. That led me to Steve Sinner’s site to purchase some of his rigid plastic wheels, which performed very well.

4. Logs soaking in water become a great way to incubate mos-quitoes, so I began adding soap to the water to break the surface tension and drown the little “you know whats.”

SenseiBig Leaf Maple, African Blackwood, Quilted Mahogany, Snakewood, Holly, Ebony, Wenge, Maple, Betel nut(57" h, 22" dia.)

From Woodworker West magazine, September-October, 2016 — www.woodwest.com

Page 36 Woodworker West September-October, 2016

5. As time passed and the summer heated up, strange slimy things begin growing in stagnant water bar-rels. I thought, a little bleach (chlorine) would cure this. It did but eventually over the course of a year or so, it broke down the outer layer of wood into soft white cellulose that was tough to cut through, but once I did, I got right back to clean wood.

To decorate the top, I decided to create some segment-ed rings, which led me to Jerry Bennett’s video and his “seg easy wedges,” which minimize the com-plicated math involved. Liking the idea of a spiral segment, I decided to join Ebony with thin lines of Holly. Making spiral segmented rings is a new technique for me. I also applied my recent lesson in thread chasing from Mike Mahoney.

To display the vessel, I constructed a bentwood lami-nated stand, which drew upon my furniture making skills. I made 3 segmented Wenge and Holly rings, which I laminated together staggering the glue joints for strength. I love the way that I was able to tie in the pattern of the top rings with the spiral pattern for these lower rings that the bentwood laminated tapered legs are joined to, holding the vessel. Then, I made a ramp and milled 11 pieces of Wenge and Maple and ran them through my planer and drum sander to taper them. The laminates are 1/32" thick at the feet.

It’s been a long but very enjoyable process. From the first day of harvesting the logs to the last day of put-ting finish on the vessel, I have estimated well over 1,000 hours of labor. The excitement of exploring new techniques and seeing things come together, out-weighs my sense of exhaustion. Do let me know if you are interested in this piece.

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