Hi Steve, Welcome to woodturning where cracks are inevitable. I won't
say "relax and enjoy them", only try to make them a challenge instead of
a turn off. Problems with multiple solutions don't have a "best overall"
answer. As others have said, your best drying method depends upon your
timber and environment and the time, money and space you devote to the
craft and your plans & expectations for it.

It's thought that cracks are mostly owing to unequalized stresses
imposed inside relatively unyielding wood by loss of water from
different surfaces or interfaces at different rates. If so, then it
seems logical that drying without cracking is mostly about equalizing
water losses by impeding the loss at one interface (axial end grain
-air) and/or aiding the loss at another site (cell -interstices -
circumference -air).

Many ways are suggested to do this. The archives can bring you up to
speed and proponents can explain and defend their best way here, but
there won't be a consensus of "best overall". Until there is, I mostly
compromise with a simple natural method; benign neglect. I saw off the
end of logs after they crack or split the log along a big single
lengthwise crack. For wet/green bowls I either turn them thin or I put
them in a paper bag to help them dry evenly. I'm not 100% successful,
but then anything I do rarely is.


Turn to Safety, Arch
Fortiter



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