Soaking wood in water to cure it... :rotf:
Don't let the wives tales lead you too far astray.
Turning/carving green wood will lead to checking, cracking, warping, etc as the finished product dries - period, and may also cause finish flaws. Bowl turners get away with it somewhat by turning to over-sized bowl dimensions to remove some excess wood (which helps make drying time shorter), then cure before turning out the flaws to final dimensions. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't - depends on the wood, the starting moisture content and the methods they use. But they still have to cure the wood eventually to prevent later wood or finish flaws from cropping up in the finished product.
Properly curing wood is basically the REMOVAL of most of the moisture from the cells of the wood using methods that help prevent (or lessen) checks, cracks, draw or deterioration of the wood as it dries.
All wood (especially burl) needs to be dried slowly and thoroughly over a period of time to be stable and long lasting (how long determined by the starting moisture content, block size and environment it is cured in). Even here in the arid southwest, it has taken anywhere from 3-12 years for some of my hardwood blocks to air dry to an acceptable moisture level for turning/carving to a stable finished product. In your cooler/wetter NE location the time would be much longer with like woods. I prefer air dried wood, but curing can be shortened by kiln or hot house drying... fairly quick with the first if you have a kiln, 2-3 years on average with the latter. But you still have to be patient.
There are products sold that replace the water in wood cells by soaking the wood in it, then drying. Helps cut down on drying time, but these products are costly and do not work at all on some tight celled hardwoods and burls. Wood stabilization with a non-water based product is even better, especially if done under pressure and heat. But this process is also expensive and only maginally successful with most of the hardwood burls because of the haphazard alignment of the cells in burls. So soaking in water (even mixed with some other product) is counter productive IMO, will not be long lasting and does not remove the need to still thoroughly cure the wood.
FWIW, I have actively turned/carved regional and exotic hardwood/burls for nearly 5 decades, including as a business for many years. I imported my woods from around the world and cured them myself (mostly air dried, but also some hot house and a very little in kilns). I built my own wood stabilizing set up, but only used it on certain wood species and seldom on burls.
Anyway, hopefully some food for thought to help your project turn out well enough to still be around for a few dozen generations.
