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You can control the shape and wall thickness of your turning and you can control how it is dried. But you CAN'T control the Radial and Tangential shrinkage characteristics of the wood itself. And the Tangential and Radial shrinkage values are all over the place. Trying to use them to determine which woods behave well and which ones won't will give you a headache.

But think about it. It's not how MUCH the wood shrinks - it's how symetric it shrinks. It's the RATIO of Tangential over Radial that'll tell you how symetric your wet turning will dry. All other things being equal, the wood with a T/R Ratio closest to 1 (Tangential and Radial equal) is less likely to crack when dry than a wood with a T/R Ratio of 2.7. It's good to try and work with the wood - but why try and work with wood that, by its nature, must work against you?

Look at this chart, and the wood names at the bottom of the chart. Now think of the woods you turned wet and pick out the woods that survived drying - and - which ones cracked up.

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