In The Beginning

The bowl drying adventure continues......

In the beginning, all my knowledge came from books. Isolated in the northern end of the Cumberland Valley and before high speed Internet and YouTube, even written publications on the subject were few and far between. Cheap tools and a cheap lathe were able to produce some rudimentary turnings including some small bowls- of which most cracked. To me drying meant just that- set it up on the shelf and wait.

As fate would have it, somewhere along the line, I was introduced to the idea of bagged shavings. This procedure spared a lot of bowls from disaster. It wasn't perfect, but, having more successes gave me a reason to continue. The biggest drawback was the time involved. Having worked my entire career in the field of electronics and computers, I learned to think in time spans of micro and nanoseconds as a long time. Waiting months for a blank to dry was not in my mindset.

So, my journey to discover a reliable and speedy method of drying bowl blanks began. My successes and failures will be documented, sources will be cited, videos from turners will be posted. My hope is that the reader will find something new and interesting.

So...