G'day,
As soon as I read your post, I knew exactly what happened and to be honest it did happen to me and many others that may or may not want to admit they did the same mistake and yes, the important thing to remember for blanks like these is to allow the wood to drip for as long as possible before "cooking", the position of the wood fro dripping and cooking should be positioned down with the lower spots and any other crevasses that you want to cast, this allows the resin to drip out of the wood before and while cooking.
Drip tray in the oven is a must, covering it with foil paper make the cleaning up a lot easier.
One point to mention just as a note of caution, cooking wood that has been soaked with CJ without wrapping it with foil, is prone to smoke more and the most important thing is to prevent at any cost to set the oven past the 100° Celsius (90°C as recommended), the possibility of fire is real if the elements get red hot and ignite the CJ, I not that, the mistake can happen by not checking the temp dial before turning the oven on but, most commonly, by turning the temp dial right up (200°C or higher) to warm the oven quickly and then forget to turn the temp dial back to the suggested temp of 90°C
These are points of interest in my view, for anyone that stabilises their on wood, these things are rare to happen but they do happen reason why Custis have made the great decision to offer the "fireballs" as a just in case situation, the risk is real particularly to new wood stabilisers, however, you don't need to panic or be scared of this possibility, becoming aware of what can happen is a great way to prevent an accident.
PS: heating the blanks again will make the resin softer and easier to remove.:biggrin:
Good luck,
Cheers
George
