I have purchased literally a ton of Australian Burl wood, it is gorgeous!!
BUT, it is wet, cut probably about six months ago. (About 13% water)
So, I am looking for input on what you want, when you buy really nice burls.
Please
G'day Ed,
I understand that the situation you are in may be a little out of your league which is OK, your questions reflect your concerns and intentions for putting these burls to the best use possible and provide a product that represents all the requirements to satisfy all your customs, I believe I'm in a good position to give you some advice regardless of the fact that I also sell some of those burl species but not exactly the type of burls you purchased what we call them "caps", these account for 99% of the Aussie burls sold all over the world, the really big high-quality burls have another more valuable market such as the veneers.
Anyway, I assumed the caps/burls have been debarked (water pressured), those 3 burl species are fairly stable and dense so shrinkage is fairly minimal, however, the current MC% content would be important to know to see where we are at.
I really don't recommend you using an oven at such temperatures, the chances are you will be introducing a lot more stress cracks than what you want so if you want to get the most value out of these burls/caps, I suggest you have them kiln dry or any other drying process that will not compromise the integrity of the burls structure, I don't think that you want to shelve all those burls to air-dry for at least 2 years off-course all depending on what MC% they contain at the moment so, if you are looking in process and move those burls quickly and without any other expense, I don't see any other solution than cutting the blanks oversized (22 to 25mm) and specify clearly that the wood may not be dry and supply the current MC% content, customers will then decided what they want to do.
I hope this may help you with some of your questions.
PS: I would be somehow cautious in waxing the pen blanks fully and then put them in the oven, not only is a risk of ignition but also the possibility that the wax as it melts to liquid state to penetrate into the wood contaminating it particularly if the blanks are going to be stabilised later, cooking the wax slowly will cause the wax to continue finding its way into the wood due to the temp the wood will be at.
Best of luck,
Cheers
George