What I have now undertaken to do whenever I receive new wood, exotic or domestic, that is not known to me to be kiln dried, a rare situation by the way, is to label the wood with common name, date received, and supplier. Had I done this with the Dalmata I would at least have realized that the wood had not been in stock for as long as I presumed and I would have been much less likely to assume it to be dry and to cut it.
The second step that I am now taking, on the advice of my Dad, is to weigh each piece, mark the weight and date on the blank, and then reweigh the piece over time before cutting it. If the wood ceases to lose weight over months of time it is likely to be dry. Air-drying some very dense hardwoods can take many years, so if you want to work with some of the very hard species you might need to start air-drying them up to five years, or more, before starting your project. That really requires thinking ahead.
Lately I have also experimented with green turning and I have written about that elsewhere. For our purposes here I will only note two things: I have noted the date and weight of the rough turned piece in wax pencil on each rough turned item, and I completely sealed each rough turned piece in AnchorSeal to help slow and control the drying. That said, even AnchorSeal may not be able to prevent checking in all woods, especially in very slow drying dense hardwoods. There is always a risk in green turning or in seasoning wood in any other way, by air or in a kiln.
I decided that my choices regarding the heavily checked Dalmata were to chuck it in the trash or to try and see what I could make of it since the damage was already done. As my readers likely know, I am extremely reluctant to discard wood because it is less than picture perfect and some of my favorite pieces feature checking as an added bonus instead of a drawback. I really think it all depends on your perspective.
So, I mounted the piece on a face plate and turned it completely round and then cut the divot in the bottom of the piece that would hold the Nova Chuck. As usual, almost all of the cutting was done with the carbide tipped Easy Wood Tools.
The Dalmata cuts slowly, as would be expected, and very sharp tools are required to achieve a nice cut, but once you have nice sharp tools and a controlled cut the wood cuts extremely fine, except on the cross-grain sections where the grain is lifted by the action of the tools. Extremely light passes will go a long way to reducing this problem but ultimately the nature of the cut, or rather I should say scrape, of the Easy Wood Tools, as opposed to the true sheer cut of, say, a traditional bowl gouge, will always leave cross-grain areas in need of cleanup sanding.
With a softer wood, this presents very little difficulty as the wood will sand quite easily, but with a wood as hard and dense as Dalmata be prepared to put in a great deal more work. If you are willing to put in the time, effort, and frankly the multiple pieces of sandpaper required due to the paper quickly gumming up with deposits, then you can be rewarded with an excellent highly lustrous finish. The wood is so hard that even the most extreme of sandpaper grits won’t make too much of an impression, so be patient; you will get there in the end. The use of a rotary sanding attachment on a power drill or a purpose-made attachment for your air-compressor will greatly assist you in this process.