Creation:
I am a green wood turner.  One of my greatest pleasures is the pursuit of turning stock during the winter months.  My two grown sons and I schedule outings to cruise selected areas of woodland in the middle Georgia area.  We are particularly blessed with hardwood species.  I currently have turning blocks of walnut, cherry, local red maple, pecan, red cedar, persimmon, mulberry, hackberry, hickory, beech, chinaberry, ash, and oak.  My preference is to collect in areas that have been clear cut for timber.  It is not uncommon to find “tops” on the ground that are more than twelve inched in diameter.  You will also find an abundance of crotch wood and the occasional burl since these are of minimal value to the sawyer or others searching for firewood.

Once harvested, I will prepare the wood for seasoning.  The procedure I use is similar to that discussed in woodturning books and on-line articles.  My preferred chainsaw is equipped with a 20 inch bar and a 3/8 inch wide chain.  This combination yields a sufficiently wide kerf to minimize binding while ripping a log segment.  I try to “read” the log so that any unique aspects are preserved in the center of a turning block and the heart of the log is cut out as well.  The size of the turning block is determined by either the diameter of the heart wood or the swing of your lathe (24 inches in my case).  I generally measure the diameter of the heartwood, and then add about 4 inches to establish the length of the flitch to account for end grain checking.   I then remove the sap wood from the blocks and seal the end grain with a commercially available sealer.

Since I like the look of spalted wood, I process most species in a way that allows me to control the degree of deterioration over time.    This is accomplished by sealing the green wood in plastic bags.  The time in the bag depends on the species of wood and the climate (winters are mild in Georgia).  It may be as little as six months to over two years. 

I check on the seasoning process by rebagging blocks every six to nine months.  When the desired “look” is achieved, I move the pieces to ventilated storage racks and store them under tarps until I am ready to turn them.  As the moisture level in the turning block drops the spalting (rotting) process stops.  Learning how to manage this is key to being able to safely process spalted wood on the lathe. 

I have found that bagging turning blocks is beneficial in general.  Six months in the bag seems to improve the overall dimensional stability of the wood – less warpage during drying of rough turnings.

Next installment:  Safety considerations when turning spalted wood.