[irpgal]

I have ordered some dry, partially dry and green wood pieces for small wood carvings. First is ebony at <8% moisture. Buckeye burl, leopard wood and canarywood at unknown dryness. And maple red curly burl that is green. I have heard of pentacryl and wood juice and have some ordered. Does anyone have expert advice on the pros and cons of this stuff? Does the ebony need any stabilizers?

[dutchmanmk3]

Especially Ebony. Most Ebony is quite green, and heavily waxed when it's imported. Once that is milled or cleaned the seal has been broken and it can check Rabidly in under a week. I favor Pentacryl !

Many resellers will finish or clean a side for photographs or show, and may not reseal the piece.

What type of Ebony ?

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

I would like to know more about "stabilizing" wood, I know pen turners stabilize different woods for turning into pens, I think this info might be good for woodcarvers to know too?

[dutchmanmk3]

Hi Ho, While I agree it's useful information. The subject is too diverse to deseminate in great detail on a board.

It is also one of those subjects that tends to be tedious, and none of us really aspires to be good at it.

There are a few good books that have proven to be invaluable over time. The titles escape me at the moment.

This is an international board, and enviornmental conditions will vary almost as much as the multitude of wood types, and figure.

One thing I personally find useful is to buy particular lots of Stump cut hardwoods. This gives me some control over the internal stress, and load of the wood. Limb woods grow with a preloaded tension to support the weight of the limb, and battle gravity. Once that load is removed, or the wood is released from it's bound structure that tension WILL release !

The other thing to be wary of is the experience of the Sawyer. If the wood is improperly cut and quartered the rate of shrinkage will be unbalanced, and the wood will eventually split, check and delaminate.

Unfortunately the resale of exotic hardwoods, and premium domestics is a very competetive business, and I'm hesitant to ever say a supplier is disreputable or bad. The turn over rate is very high, and they are forced to supply inventory for market, and this doesn't always allow them the luxury of properly seasoning the wood.

Just the simple act of transporting the wood will subject the wood to astronomical variances in climate it might never experience in it's natural enviornment.

Establishing a long term relationship with reputable suppliers is essential to your own peace of mind, but the occasional treasure we may run across, or native woods at our disposal will accelerate our own education in the handling of wood.

Working with low, and medium density woods will make it a bit easier on yourself.

While Natural oil finishes tend to offer less protection. They do allow moisture to permeate at a given rate ! No finish is ever 100% sealed so the key is to find a finish that allows you to control a "Balanced" rate while offering a direct incidental barrier, and embellishing the wood to it's best advantage.

I'll dig out the titles of those books, and point someone in a direction.

[irpgal]

I will be very interested in the book titles. Thank ya'll for the feedback.

And the ebony is African Gabon: pitch black through and through

[dutchmanmk3]

Originally Posted by irpgal

I will be very interested in the book titles. Thank ya'll for the feedback.

And the ebony is African Gabon: pitch black through and through

This is precisely why I asked. I use alot of Gabon, and it tends to be very wet. I would be truelly amazed if it was 8% depending on the humidity where you're at, If you can work the piece in 2 to 3 days. Have at it and use the Pentacryl. If not I would keep the end grain heavily sealed, but bare the sides, and let it sit for a few weeks. What type moisture meter are you using ?

Every time I plane the stuff my shop ends up looking like a retread factory.

[irpgal]

I don't have a moisture meter; I was quoting the seller on the moisture content. I live in Utah, so its pretty dry here.

Its amazing to me just how BLACK the wood is.

[dutchmanmk3]

O.K. I'm gon'na go with the short answer here so as not to overwhelm folks out of the gate. The very first book I'd recommend is Bruce Hoadley's "Understanding Wood" this gives a pretty well balanced assortment of useful information without myopicly over concentrating soley on stabilization.

The other extreme is the USDA handbook #528. This of course list an in depth analysis of curing and stabilizing hardwoods with thorough shrinkage tables.

For many of us it comes down to a good moisture meter, knowledge of projected shrinkage, and only a few worthy products to fascilitate, the process, and conserve our own resources. I personally have some antiquated shrinkage tables that have proven to be quite accurate, but I'm cautious of any CR infringement ??? HTH

[brian bailey]

Here's a link to probably more than you might want to know about wood .

http://www.woodweb.com/knowledge_bas..._Handbook.html


WoodWeb also has a shrinkage calulator for most woods. Here's the link,

http://www.woodweb.com/cgi-bin/calcu...ator=shrinkage

Here's a link to the US Forest Products Labratory Home page.

http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/

Click on the Publication link, then go to Notable Publications, just about everything you need to know about drying wood is here.

If you have an accurate weight scale that reads in grams or ounces, just keep weighing the piece of wood until it stops losing weight. At that point the wood is now in equilibrium with the moisture content of the surrounding air and needs no further drying in most cases.

You can speed the process up by heating the wood but some caution needs to be observed when this is done.

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

When I posted that we might find "stabilizing" wood useful, I wasn't talking about "drying" wood....take a look at this site http://rrpwhite.com/stabilizing%20page.htm