Hello Jesse,

If you rough turn it to about 10 percent of the diameter for wall
thickness; i.e., a 10 inch diameter bowl would have a one inch wall
thickness. You should be able to then put it on the shelf in a cool
dry place and it should be ready to final turn in three to six months.
There are many treatments that you can use to help prevent cracking
and minimizing warping, but none of them work on every piece of wood.

Steven Russell uses paper bags to dry his rough turned bowls with good
results. He sells a DVD that has his paper bag drying protocol on it.

I've used Cedar Shield (now Turner's Choice) with good results. I
generally soak the piece for a day or two and then let it set for at
least three days before turning it. You can also soak the rough turned
bowl and get pretty good results. The Hawaii turners have been
spraying it on the finished turned bowl and had very good results. It
is a bit expensive however.

The alcohol soak works pretty well and seems to help the wood dry a
bit quicker and with less distortion.

I've also had very good luck with Pentacryl, which helps stop cracking
and checking and I believe helps the wood to dry quicker. I turned a
wet Redwood salad bowl (14" in diameter) with a 1-1/2" wall thickness
that I treated with Pentacryl and it was dry enough to final turn in
three weeks and without any cracks and a minimum of distortion. A
second bowl of the same size was turned at the same time and treated
with Pentacryl. I waited two months to final turn it but is was very
dry. Pentacryl is about the same cost as Turner's Choice. Both help
prevent checking and cracking and reduce distortion.

Richard Raffan rough turns his bowl and throws them in a pile for a
couple of days and then puts them in cardboard boxes with the date of
turning, type of wood, etc. When he gets an order he selects boxes
that have been drying long enough and final turns them.

So there are many ways to handle wet wood, but rough turning is the
safest way to handle it and preserve it. If you don't have time to
rough turn it then seal the ends with something, Anchor Seal is pretty
good. So people use water base paint and one woodturner I know uses
Liquid Nail and claims it is the best ever.

If you do a search on this group, you'll find even more methods used
to treat wet or freshly cut wood.

Welcome to the world of woodturning and good luck.

Fred Holder
http://www.fholder.com

On Mar 29, 3:13 pm, Jesse wrote:
Thanks for the advice on the new tools .It all makes sense so i will
hold off a bit longer before i go and get some new ones.My next question
is: I have access to a fair bit of green wood both cherry and red oak
.How to you guys go about using it on a lathe without it cracking or
splitting?Use a chemical to treat the wood or dry it somehow?
Thanks again for any help .