Zu Visit to Thuringia. Shared walk in the forest. Talking shop about green wood turning. Unfortunately, I have to admit to my friend Manfred that I haven't had much practical experience with it so far.At public woodturning demonstrations, the wet wood turners are usually rightly considered to be a particular crowd puller: first, the huge rattling that occurs when roughing the usually huge, freshly cut blank due to the weight and the associated imbalance makes the visitors sit up and take notice. Later, the consistently cutting peeling technique required by the wet wood makes it possible to let wide chips fly through the hall as meter-long streamers! Then the quick way of working that is possible with this technology is fascinating, but also necessary, because hesitant work or even longer interruptions in work would lead to the areas of the workpiece that have already been turned thinner drying and shrinking much more quickly than more voluminous areas. (Additional moistening of areas that dry too quickly can counteract the risk of cracks forming and/or warping.) Step by step, the long unscrewing hook now pulls the chips out of the rapidly growing cavity! The massive blank has already become a delicate hollow body! WOW! Wall thicknesses of 2mm for portable wooden hats or even 1mm for lampshades that allow pleasantly warm light to shine through are no problem for the experienced greenwood turner. Wood dust? -No report! Green wood processing is certainly healthier for the lungs and eyes.
My friend Manfred is not only a competent conversation partner and attentive listener during joint technical discussions, but as a forest owner he is also my most important wood sponsor! So who is surprised that a few weeks after our walk in the forest there is a sizeable assortment of freshly cut wood lying on my terrace, which Manfred has kindly already cut into pieces that I can easily process further with my hobby machines! Now it's time to hurry, because the short trunk sections quickly dry out over the end grain and form cracks! Storage in plastic bags as a countermeasure can easily lead to mold formation! Coating the end grain surfaces with wax or white glue is probably only worthwhile for really valuable wood, as it costs time and money and of course does not offer an absolute guarantee. The partial removal of the bark, the so-called "squaring", a traditional method for preparing and caring for freshly cut wood, is intended to enable more even drying from all sides. I haven't yet checked how accurately a simple wood moisture meter from a discount store really works. However, if you carry out a reference measurement when the wood is delivered, you can estimate the progress of the drying process quite well through later measurements. However, a bathroom scale that is available in many households is sufficient. You can then use this to check whether dragging the wet wood and chopping the blanks into shape has at least caused you to lose a few pounds!
Before I start processing my donated wood, I still owe an explanation: I have raved so much about green wood turning and at the same time emphasized that I have little experience with it. Where's the catch? Itinerant calculators of earlier times who bent down the crown of a thin birch tree somewhere on the edge of the forest in order to use it as a return spring for the primitive rocking lathe that they carried around with them in order to carry out all the jobs on the spot that they had to do while canvassing all the households in a village received, probably worked exclusively with the abundant fresh wood. This remained the case for a long time for wood turners living in the countryside, who mainly produced agricultural implements. However, for wood turners who had settled in larger cities, the situation was different: the wood had to be transported from far away, storage options in urban areas were limited, and processing whole logs is considerably more complex than using pre-manufactured logs in a sawmill Planks and also creates significantly more waste, which cannot be easily burned because of the high moisture content. In addition, the urban population demanded completely different items than the rural population. All of these facts play a more or less important role when, as a hobby woodturner, you decide on a certain direction. In addition to personal interests, the size and equipment of the workshop, sources of material procurement, transport options, storage options (possibly outdoors) are important considerations for a decision.
Done! Manfred and I take a selfie together to proudly present our new wooden hats Holzhüte. I have to dispose of the bulging chip bags quickly so that the humidity in my small workroom doesn't increase any further! As a precaution, I will also check tools, especially my sculpting chisels, for any rust spots that may appear and lightly oil them. My conclusion: turning green wood is incredibly fun. However, this technique will probably never reach full bloom in my hobby workshop, which is otherwise focused on "dry cutting".