Drying green wood pen blanks???

[CV Wood]

Need Help on Quick Drying Wood?

I have a friend that ask me to make some pens from a magnolia tree. It had been cut down about six months ago. I thought it would be dry but when I cut off a 6" end piece I could see it was still moist. When I cut the end piece on the band saw the saw dust stuck to the sides of the cut it was so moist. They wanted these pens for Christmas. I am sure it would be 6 months or so to air in the dry shop. Will peg work on wood that is that moist? Or can I dry it in a small over. I have never dried wood other than solar air drying it. The piece I want to dry is about 4x4x4 inches. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

CV

 

[ctubbs]

I have a small table top charcole grill that houses a 100 watt lamp in the bottom controled by a Variable transformer. The grill lays in place above the lamp and the blanks rest on the grill spaced and crossed for venting. I place a dial thermometer in the top vent and monitor the temp. That is controled by the transformer. As the wood dries the temp will start to raise so the voltage on the lamp is slowly reduced to maintain about 125 F. My 3/4 by 3/4 blanks dry in about a week. YMMV. I hope this helps. For more info, you may pM me.
Charles

 

[David Keller]

Nuke them in the microwave for sessions of 30 seconds to one minute... Repeat until you reach the moisture content you desire.

 

[Mark]

I've used the microwave with some success recently. I too did 30 second intervals till dried. Good Luck.

 

[Wildman]

I would tell those people will take another couple month before wood dries enough to make a pen once you cut into blanks size.

I definitely would not use PEG! PEG will not allow you to apply any finish.
You could cut wood into pen blank size and try microwaving. I have tried microwaving bowls and decided it was just busy work. Other turners swear by using a microwave or oven on low heat for several hours.

You also have turners that believe in boiling, soaking wood in soapy water, or DNA.

Check out this link on drying wood:
http://www.woodturningonline.com/Turning/Turning_articles.html#drying

 

[Fred]

I will suggest that you boil the blanks. I have boiled my green 'stuff' and have had absolutely no problems with warping, checking, etc. Boiling also kills any undesirables that may be lurking in larger hunks of wood.

Simply boil for one hour for each ninch of thickness. Remove from the boiling water, pat them down and let them air dry in a paper bag for several days.

Here is an article on the process written by another IAP member who developed the process and wrote up his findings ...

http://www.woodturningvideosplus.com/boiling-green-wood.html

Good luck and have fun!

 

[CV Wood]

Thank you all for your replies. I will try boiling them. The tree it came from was taken down because of bugs. It sounds like boiling the wood would be a good way to cover that.

 

[IPD_Mrs]

We put our blanks in a five gallon bucket with saw dust and let them sit for a few weeks. To speed yours up I would cut them a bit oversize before putting them in saw dust.

 

[Dan26]

A dehydrator also works well. Takes about a day depending on moisture in the blank and in the air.

 

[robutacion]

Well, the common quick drying processes have already been mentioned, I would go for the microwave for these pen blanks but, whatever the process you endup using remember, the smaller the piece size the quicker the drying process will happen so, cut that wood chunk in oversized pen blanks, a couple of m/m over is good. BTW, the microwave will take care of any bugs of any living creatures in the wood also...!

Good luck

PS: If you don't have a MC (moisture content) meter gauge, weight the blanks in a digital scales before you put it in the microwave, and re-weight after every 30 seconds bursts (let it cool down for 3 minutes before repeating...!). The blank will be ready when it stops losing weight!:wink:

Cheers
George