When it comes to woodturning, & getting wood blanks, being aware of the type of blanks on the market will help you decide what you want it to look like. One of the things to consider when shopping or even looking for blanks is the difference between fresh-cut ones & kiln-dried ones. Now, as it says in the name kiln, dried ones would have been cut to the size that is required & dried with other blanks within a temperature-controlled kiln. When it comes to fresh-cut blanks, there are a few things that you need to consider one; of them is if it isn’t already sealed, that is something you will need to do. Sealing fresh-cut blanks can be simple if you know what you’re doing & understand the materials that you are using, whether it be PVA glue, wax or end seal. I use a mixture of wax or PVA glue depending on the moisture content of the wood & how long it has already been drying before I start the sealing process. One of the things that I have done from the very start, whether kiln-dried or a fresh cut, is marking the wood with the date & the type of wood if I know what it is. By doing this, I can tell when I bought the blank & what it this is; because as the wood dries, the makeup of the wood, for example, the grain texture & other things, can change so; by writing the species of wood on the blanks you will know what it is. Therefore, even though I go between the two sealers, I do prefer to use & have done from the start to use wax. There are a few reasons, being that wax pillars are pretty inexpensive & I can do multiple blanks without suffering financially. Therefore, after marking up a fresh cut blank with the date & what species of wood it is, I will move to the next step is sealing all the live edges with wax. to do the next step, I will melt the wax right down & taking an old paint brush start brushing the wax on but, you must let it dry between layers. However, if there’s one thing I have learnt is that as the wax cools & starts to solidify in the pan that you have melted in or container, it becomes a lot easier to apply the wax. Therefore, the sealer has begun to cool in the metal container to help retain the heat for longer this is the best time to put down multiple layers of the wax sealer to the fresh cut blank without worrying too much about drying in between the layers.
