drying wood quickly

G

Gene Martin

Joined
Feb 5, 1999
Messages
1,068
I ordered some wood to put on a customers knife that turns out to be green. Since I prefer not waiting 3 years for it to dry like most of my woods do, are there any suggestions on a basic kiln dry with a low tech kiln? I've heard of using a microwave for repeated short bursts, but haven't really tried it.

The wood will be cut up tomorrow into 1x1.5x5" blocks and dried from there. Using the paperbag allows the wood to check, as does the plastic bag/turn it inside out regularly.

Someone here has no doubt messed with a home setup for a kiln, using steam or high temp water to boil the water out, or even a microwave.

To those with suggestions: HELP!?!

Thanks,

Gene
 
Hi Gene, I don't know anything about kiln drying, but I do know that some people find that wood checks really badly if they microwave it. If you try either process, you might want to work out the details on a piece of scrap.
 
DO NOT NUKE YOUR WOOD!


If you want to dry it, you can use your kitchen oven.

The points to remember are low and slow.

You (obviously) can't try and bake the wood at a temperature that's gonna char and smoulder it.

I would say, put the wood on the center rack of your oven at room temperature, then set it to heat up to say, 200* F. Let it equilize there for a half hour (after it comes up to temp) before raising it 50*. Give it a half hour at each temp in 50* incriments until you hit 350. Give it two hours at 350 then turn off the heat, and wait for it to come back to room temp.

Bear in mind this is NOT professional advice. This is just something I put together from the bits and peices I picked up. If the wood you're working with is very expensive or highly figured, or of a species that give professionals a hard time, you may not want to screw around with home drying. There are some woods out there that almost always heavily check while air drying.
 
if i'm not mistaken, wont putting the wood in a vacuum chamber dry it out? i'm stabilizing my own wood and have a good size chamber that will take a good size piece of wood.
 
The problem is not 'drying' but drying without cracking or warping. Microwave drying has been done on a large scale commercial system. Vacuum will also do it. Heat will also do it. Slow is the way whatever method you use.
 
I have dried large amounts of high end burl in the oven - overnight at 200 degrees (F). Losses were expected and did ocurr. I cut the blocks to oversize pieces before hand, so a crack in one piece would not travel all along a long axis through several pieces. I lost about 1/4 to 1/3. The rest turned out excellent.

Your experience may differ.

Rob!
 
This may not be the fastest way, but is probably the safest way of drying somewhat faster. Place the wood in a rubber made storage container. Cut a hole in the top to put a 60W light bulb through. Be careful to mount the light bulb so that it doesn't contact the plastic storage container. Leave the light on for as long as it takes to get the moisture level down. This will create a lower temperature bake than the oven and result in less cracking and checking.

I call it the Easy Bake Oven method of drying out handle material.

Ickie
 
Hey Gene, I don't know anything about cooking any darn wood but do know a good way to prepare a carp. You nail the carp to a 2 X 4 (pine, fir, or hemlock) doesn't matter. Place the carp nailed on the 2 X 4 in the sun for a couple days. Remove the carp and eat the 2 X 4. :D Think I saw that in Field and Stream.
 
I would have to agree with 1 Vacuum, and 2 oven slow cook with the exception of do not get it over 200F Water boils at 212F, sap will boil slightly higher than that, when the water boils it turns to steam, that will cause a steam explosion that blows your wood apart on a microscopic (or with enough heat/moisture grand scale) I would personally try 150F and more time as opposed to higher temps
I have not tried any of this, but common sense, what I remember from apprenticing to a cabinetmaker when I was 14, and a basic knowledge of science all contribute to my opinion.
YMMV

-Page
 
has anyone used a food dryer to dry wood? It has a low-heat source, screened shelves, and a fan. I've used it to dry mushrooms and other foods, and wondered if it might work for knife wood.
 
I had a good friend/sawyer that built his own kiln for house logs and he said the secret was moving lots of air to remove the moisture so the home food dryer might not be a bad idea...I agree that 150 degrees is probably best other wise ya get steam checks...it just takes time...there is a product that woodturners use called Pentacryl wood stabilizer that works in some situations to help stop checking cuz us turners tend to work the wood a little greener some times to rough it out then let it dry.
 
Raymond Richard said:
Hey Gene, I don't know anything about cooking any darn wood but do know a good way to prepare a carp. You nail the carp to a 2 X 4 (pine, fir, or hemlock) doesn't matter. Place the carp nailed on the 2 X 4 in the sun for a couple days. Remove the carp and eat the 2 X 4. :D Think I saw that in Field and Stream.
Click to expand...

"Remove the carp and eat the 2 X 4."

nice....
 
probably don't want to use Pentacryl in this case. I've tried it before when I was experimenting with stabilizing. It is basically some kind of oil/wax stuff that seeps into the pores of the wood to replace moisture and keep the wood from checking. It's oily, goopy stuff that is good for wood turners but probably not suited for knife handles.
 
I've always wanted to try soaking wood and bone for that matter in Isopropyl
for a day or two or in a vacuum
covered of course

since it's used as a fuel dryer ( dry gas ) to soak
up water the Isopropyl being alcohol would then disperse from the material faster than the water would.

(Napa Thermo-aid is 99.9% Isopropyl )
kind of like how a steam kiln works replacing sap with water and then the water dries faster than the sap would. just a pipe dream :)
flammable also..
 
I like Scott's Idea, I would add aluminum foil on the inside, shiny side up, for extra oomff.
 
Adding .02 cents worth to the cutting 'way' over sized and slowly bringing it up to the lowest a kitchen oven will go, mine is 170 . Convection ovens will do a faster job, but there is really no way your going to prevent some cracking/checking.

Dan, I think an idea behind the steam kiln is how far apart the water molecules are in steam, displacing the concentrated water in the wood. Steam bending wood dries almost as fast as it cools. I like the isopropyl idea, hitting the iso with a lot of pressure maybe wood penetrate faster, then vacuum?
 
My understanding of steam drying is this:
It is not a final drying, but a lowering of moisture and oils content prior to shipping. It reduces the years often spent waiting for wood to become dry enough to put in an oast.
The steam atmosphere allows the wood to be heated up to near the boiling point of water, without creating an atmosphere where the outer surface is dryer than the inner core. Wood normally dries from the outside inward, thus creating stresses that show up as splits and checking. Since the atmosphere around the wood, in steam drying, is mostly water in the form of hot steam the wood does not split and check as much. The wood gets dryer since the water inside the wood is liquid and the water outside is steam, and the water moves to create equilibrium.The liquid water moves through the wood much faster through the softened and pliable wood fibers , thus avoiding splitting. When the steam is removed and the wood cools down, the amount of liquid water in the wood has been greatly decreased (steam is much less dense than liquid water).The wood at this point has reached its fiber saturation point (FSP). It still has water in the fiber and some inside the lignum cells, but the liquid water has been removed. The wood can then be kiln dried if a lower moisture content is needed (and we need it much lower for knife handles).I believe this method is used on resinous and softer woods, like fir and pine.
Stacy
 
"Dutchman" up on Beech Mountain, NC used to make some awesome grandfather clocks. he does a lot of wood inlaying with some very rare woods. He keeps all of his fine wood (used for inlay) in a "light box".....wooden box lined with foil except for on top. Need to make sure moisture can escape....40 watt light bulbs on at all times. Tommy McNabb and I use this technique even for our so-called stabilized woods which occasionally showed some shrinkage when being finished as knife handles. Question re a fast process has been passed along to the "National Wood Collector's Assoc." Treasurer.....I'll post his response ASAP.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top