Cedar bowl

[Lissa Hall]

So that pretty cedar bowl I turned, my first one, got a healthy crack in it after I applied many coats of beeswax to it.. IT has been a number or of weeks since it was made. Can You all explain to me why this would happen so I can prevent it in the future? What did I do wrong? I do plan on just adding some epoxy or resin to seal it up but i am a bit sad that it happened.

Edited May 5, 2020 by Lissa Hall

[lew]

Just guessing here but, probably there was still a fair amount of moisture in the wood. As it finished drying, the stresses changed and resulted in the cracking.

 

I used to follow a turner who went by the handle of "Trifern". He said that if you turn wet wood really thin, it will have less of a chance of cracking.

 

Here's one of his pieces- 

 

 

Here's an idea to accent the crack-

 

 

 

[Gerald]

As Lew said to do a one turn you need dry wood or turn very thin. Even then if turned from wet woo it will warp and may still crack. To reduce this happening we do twice turning.

      First turn is the shape but with thickness of 1/10 of the diameter of the piece, I usually leave 3/4 to 1 inch but if it is less than 5 inches may go to 1/2. Then the blank has to dry. There are a number of ways to do this .Bowl Drying methods

      Second turn is after the wood is dry then we do the final turn. Note that drying might take 2 to 4 months in my shop and will vary on where you are to maybe 10 months.

 

     Now one more thing is wood choice. Oak and Cedar are bad to crack in this process but any wood can do that. Stress in the wood which is released during turning causes pieces to move even while still on the lathe and sometimes this movement causes cracks.

[RustyFN]

The wood was too wet. When I turn a bowl from a tree I cut down I do a rough turn first like Gerald mentioned. Then I stick it in a cardboard box surrounded by wood shavings for around three months. Then I take it out and finish turn it. I have been watching videos where Carl Jacobson has been using rice to dry his and it has worked very good.