Links North Shore Woodturning Guild

Allegedly, the alcohol "replaces" or "displaces" the water in the wood. Very difficult to do, given that the two are completely miscible. Personal opinion is that the author of the method took a course in Histology, where alcohol is used to dehydrate specimens prior to sectioning. Note that dehydration is not drying. What happens is that the specimen is soaked in alcohol, which is then decanted, fresh alcohol added, and after a few cycles, the amount of water in the specimen is minimal. Similarly, it is used for dehydrating waterlogged wood http://nautarch.tamu.edu/class/anth605/File6.htm

Principle is the same as if you took a quart jar, put in a cup of black sand, followed by a cup of white. Shake to mix, pour off a cup. Put in another cup of white, mix, repeat enough times until there's almost no black sand left in the jar. This is not what the soakers do, however. They soak, cover, monitor. Of course the cover and monitor has always been a reliable method, because it does control the relative humidity around the piece, slowing the rate of loss from the surface to that which can be replaced from the interior.

That's how wood dries - losing water. Until approximately 30% water by weight, there is no distortion or loss. This is "unbound water" loss. Below 30%, the piece begins to lose "bound" water. Bound to the celluloses themselves by influence bonds. Even when wood is dehydrated by alcohol, the bound water must be evaporated afterward.
In the analogy, put some glue in the quart jar and shake black sand before beginning the mix. Even after the same number of cycles, there will be "bound" black sand to be removed.

To get information on how wood dries, try http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fplgtr/fplgtr113/fplgtr113.htm chapter 3. Good stuff

Newsgroups

There are two catagories of woodturning groups: public and private.

The biggest public group I know of is rec.crafts.woodturning, which is very active indeed.

If you do not have a proper newsreader, you can use your web browser to read messages which are posted on this group, but it is nothing like as good as a dedicated programme. I strongly recommend downloading a newsreader, e.g Agent, which is free if you install mindfully (if you install carelessly it will expire after 30 days ) Then you will have access to around 20,000 newsgroups. A whole other world, connected to but separate from the "Internet" you are used to.

I am sure there are many private groups on line, the two I have discovered so far are WOW (World of Woodturning) and Nova Owners, both accesible with your conventional web browser - no special newsreader needed.

WOW runs a very well managed (private) site, with a wealth of information. For instance, over 4,700 photos of turnings, many .pdf and .doc files of useful "How To" information, interesting polls and reviews. A North American feel to the community.

The other dedicated group I know of is Nova Owners, which is slightly different - it is far less active, and of course more orientated to Tecknatool lathes.

If you know of other, please tell me so I can include them

Meanwhile, here you can read postings to rec.crafts.woodturning, even without a newsreader , here you can write to Bob for information on joining the Wow group and here you can join Nova Owners

And here you can read highlights from the past - some very, very funny posts and numerous stories any wood worker can relate to

On line woodturning magazines

Woodworkweb.com - Lots of good stuff, American

Creative woodturning English

Supplies in New Zealand

Wood turners sites

A really big list of woodturners sites here

Robbie Graham's favorite woodturning sites here