# Will sealed blanks dry?



## don716 (Mar 1, 2008)

I have been busy making some bowl blanks and rounding them out on the bandsaw. I have also "completely sealed" the rounded blank with anchorseal. Will the wood still dry? 
Donny


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## john lucas (Sep 18, 2007)

Yes, but very slowly. Anchorseal does not completely block moisture movement like wax does. It blocks a lot of it. It might work the same if you put it on really thick.


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## thisnobody (Mar 17, 2010)

I almost always dry my bowl rough-outs with anchorseal on them and a 1" wall thickness comes to EMC in 2-3 months. I would defenitely say it slows moisture loss but not so much it will not dry out quickly.
I chainsaw out the bowl blank and coat all of it with achorseal too, that is until I can rough turn the bowl.


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## thekctermite (Dec 23, 2007)

Personally I just seal the end grain of my blanks. It is hard enough to wait on them when they dry at normal rates, so why prolong that by sealing the entire blank?


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## Barry Ward (Mar 22, 2008)

*Will sealed blanks dry*

Sealing the whole blank will defeat the purpose of drying.You want the blank to dry in an even manner and if you seal the whole blank the moister take forever to escape.I sealed a bunch of cherry rough turned blanks when I 1st started turning and ended up loosing about 18 bowls out of about 22.After that I just seal the end grain and I seldom loose one now.Same with blanks,just seal the endgrain.If you go ever go to a lumber yard you will notice that they only seal the ends of the boards.That is why they do it that way also.


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## jrflat (Nov 2, 2009)

I got some walnut logs and ripped them down into some smaller pieces for turning and I was told to completly seal them with wax for drying, is that bad? Is it just going to take them longer to dry out?


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## john lucas (Sep 18, 2007)

Woodsman Your bowls must not have been dry if they cracked after you turned them. In my area if you completely seal a bowl with endgrain sealer it doubles the time it takes to dry, maybe more. For my larger bowls that would be a year or so. By sealing just the endgrain areas and maybe the lip and foot areas you can prevent a lot of the checking and still have a good drying time. Near as I can tell every area of the country has a slightly different protocol for what works for them. What I do may not work for you.

I have been testing wax treatments to save or dry wood. I find that if I completely cover it with wax (not endgrain sealer such as Anchorseal) then the piece more or less goes into hybernation if you want to use that term. I have had a piece of Apple that I cut into a hollow vessel sized blank and it's about a year and half old with no checks. I guarantee without the wax it would have cracked that week and even coated with Endgrain sealer would have cracked in a month or so. I've turned some of the bowl blanks I cut from the same tree that sat about 8 months in the shop. They turned like they were fresh cut.
When I cut up logs into square blanks for spindles and boxes I coat only the end with wax unless it has some knots or crotch areas. Then I might brush on some wax in those areas.


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## Barry Ward (Mar 22, 2008)

*Will sealed blanks dry*

John,I think you may have missunderstood my response.What I did was seal the whole turned blank the 1st time after I roughed turned them, they didn't crack ,but looked like a bowl that was made of clay the squished before they dried they warped so bad,and yes those suckers were wet.Looked like I was sprayed down with a water hose when I finished.It was here in Tampa.Thats when I was told to just seal the end grain.


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## hdschoedel (Apr 7, 2010)

Is sealer even necessary if you let your rough turned blanks dry in a cool environment in a paper bag with green shavings?


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## Barry Ward (Mar 22, 2008)

*Will sealed blanks dry*

You should seal the end grain,that helps keep the end grain from splitting.That way the moister will escape through the side grain where you shouldn't have cracking.


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## john lucas (Sep 18, 2007)

I do dry some pieces in paper sacs but they can build up mold. Putting shaving in the sack or box makes it worse. Sometimes this is OK but often it will discolor the wood and you may not turn all of the discoloration away when you re-turn the wood.
When I rough turn a bowl I coat the end grain areas with Anchorseal and sometimes the foot and lip if it's a species I've had problems with. I try to put them in a place without a lot of air movement and down low in my shop for the first month or so. I move them to an upper shelf later to increase the speed at which they dry. I never seem to get around to re-turning them very fast so I can't give a definitive answer on how long it takes to dry. I always have bowls and vessel blanks in all phases of drying and usually when I get to them they have been sitting for half a year or more.


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## del schisler (Nov 5, 2009)

don716 said:


> I have been busy making some bowl blanks and rounding them out on the bandsaw. I have also "completely sealed" the rounded blank with anchorseal. Will the wood still dry?
> Donny


here is how to do it from a pro i will give the site And if you do a google you will find more on drying bowl blanks http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=34370 

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=drying+bowl+blanks+with+alchaol


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## john lucas (Sep 18, 2007)

It's interesting that he turns away the small tenon that's left by the tailstock. I leave this. When I rough turn a bowl everything warps while it's drying. You can put the bowl back on the lathe with a piece of rubber over the chuck and the tailstock back in the little tenon. Then you can easily true up the tenon you used for the chuck which had turned into an oval. 
I still leave it there at this stage also because it can make it very easy to align on a vacuum chuck so that you can finish off the bottom and then get rid of the tenon.


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