Yes I turn from green to finish all in one process. The green wood has been cut anywhere from 4 hours to 6 months ago. From there I just turn my project. The lathe helps in throwing a lot of the moisture out of the wood while you are turning. I normally try to turn to 1/2" thickness or less. The main thing is that the whole thing needs to be turned the same thickness. To turn a bowl for example with 1/4" walls and then leave a 1" thick bottom can cause problems from the different parts drying different rates. By thinning the bottom to the 1/4" all the wood is the same thickness and dries more at the same rate. Now when I start sanding. I have tried starting at 100 grit but seem to have problems. I get the bargin boxes of sandpaper from Klingspor, and there is some heaver grit in the boxes. Using the 80 grit type stuff I start my sanding. This loads the sandpaper up a lot from the green wood , but seems to dry the surface of the wood too. Once I go to the finer grits I don't have near the problems with the sandpaper loading up. I normally sand up to 400 grit. Once sanded I apply a coat of Arm-R-Seal. Then let it sit and dry. I do get some warp on some peices but that may be too from the fact that I use trunk wood and limb wood. The majority of the items look fine sitting on the table. If you pick them up and really examine them close you may see some of the warping. If it came from the tree it is wood and I use it letting the grain and stress in the wood do what it wants to. As for cracking maybe 2% of the turned items crack. I have tried the soak soak method and have slowed down using it. Many bowl blanks have went in rough turned and come out of the soap with cracks. So I am not convinced that this method is as effective as I thought it was. I have about 100 bowl blanks from the soap method and will finish turn them someday, but right now turning green to finish as my regular method.
