It's been a while since my last entry and I am regretting it. The past couple of weeks have definitely been interesting and of course, there is much to report. I guess I should start with shop news. I delved further into the world of bowl turning, and so far it has been quite the education. I have been experimenting with green wood turning, and while I love this technique, it has one major drawback; the wood cracks and splits terribly if it isn't properly cured. I have been searching for curing methods beyond the old-skool hit-or-miss and lengthy process of "controlled" air-curing.
I've tried microwave curing and it seems to work fairly well, but the results are definitely inconsistent as the timing and power levels must be inferred based on wood species and size of the piece. I've had good luck with walnut, but my recently harvested honey locust seems to require an increased cooking time due to it's higher density. A definite advantage of the microwave techinique is that it kills fungus and insects; both serious issues when selecting recently felled timber from wood piles.
Another classic curing method is to soak the rough piece or blank in PEG (polyethelyne glycol) which chemically "dries" the wood. Evidently this method works well, but PEG is rather costly at tens of dollars per gallon. I did a bit of searching online, and discovered a very promising alternative- concentrated dishwashing detergent. The detergent seems to do the same job of displacing water in the wood as PEG, but it is far less dollar intensive and reports indicate beneficial wood condiditioning properties. In addition, the process of rough turning, soaking, finish turning and finishing can be accomplished in one full shop day. Fantastic! I think a combination of microwaving (to kill "bugs") and soaking should produce the results I seek- a cheap, quick way to condition and stabilize turning stock.
** EDIT **
We picked up a 90 ounce bottle of dish washing detergent this afternoon, and whipped up a batch of 3:1 water to soap solution. A few test pieces are soaking now, and we'll se how things turn out. I suspect we should up the amount of soap in the mixture, but we'll see what happens. After all, the only advice I've seen on the process recommends a 1:1 ratio, but that comes without any observations or experimentation to support it. That said, there are factors that will affect my current test. Some of the pieces are rough turned and have been air-drying. Others are finish-turned and have been insufficiently microwave cured. My goal is simply to stabilize the wood to prevent further degredation.