JimJames wrote:

Hi Group, I just finished rough turning a pine bowl blank that's very
green up until now I've mostly worked with dry wood. The blank is very
wet, we're talking water and pitch, down South they would probably call
it grease wood. I've heard of various of drying, brown paper sack, add
sawdust and microwave oven. I'm new to drying so any help would be
appreciated such as to the best method, storage and such. It's winter
here right now and we're having high 30's during the day and 20's at
night right now. I'm doing practice turnings on my new to me Jet 1236.
I've been away from turning awhile. Thanks, Jim

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Jim, it depends on just how impatient you are. Of course considering your
temps, drying is going to be quite a bit slower for you (right now IGoogle
tells me it is 65 degrees outside - I keep telling my brother there was a
reason I retried to Alabama)

The brown paper bag works well, it just takes awhile (this is what I usually
do). If you are going that route, or the sawdust route, get yourself a
postal scale. Weight it when you put it in the bag (I write the weight and
date on the bowl) then weight it every couple of months. When it starts
losing weight slowly, weight it more often. When it stops losing weight,
its as dry as its going to get and ready to finish turning.

As for the microwave (aaaawww, instant gratification :-0 ).
Turn it to nearly finished, nuke it (I run it on the defrost setting for
7min 45sec (its an auto setting on that partucular microwave) and keep
hitting it, with short cool down periods, until you quit getting steam. Put
it on the lathe and do any last minute touch ups with the tools, sand and
finish.

Hope that helps.

Deb