Hey All!
I remember an article on drying small green blocks of wood in the microwave for carving or turning. I just cut some Basswood blocks about 3x5x12 and thought maybe somebody out there might know how to dry it faster than conventional means. I’m not worried about that final colour since this piece will be painted. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Replies
Basswood is one of the easiest woods to dry...since the blocks are pretty thick microwave on low until the core temperature is above boiling point and hold them there until they stop losing weight. Use a postage or dietary scale if necessary. The steam will move through the wood freely.
Lee
I don't have experience with basswood but i've dried lots of other things in a microwave. Generally, you can use a lot more time and power in the beginning but as the wood dries you should slow it down. Basswood is pretty compliant so I imagine you can be fairly agressive.
Microwaves vary in power. Used to be, all the powerful ones were 700 watts and most smaller ones were less. This means "high" is not necessarily the same from one to the next. Also, for what it's worth, they are all the way on or all the way off— what changes with a lower setting is the percentage of the cycle they are on.
When I dry a new wood, I keep track of the weight. When it changes more slowly I slow down the drying. Experiment to come up with a routine. I recently dried 6" cubes of elm (a very tough wood) 5 minutes on one side, then 5 minutes on the other and it worked fine. For more delicate things I would go less. I'd say you could start thick basswood around there. The flipping is a good idea, and I let the wood rest between zaps.
You can also leave these blocks in the oven, no temp, provided you have a gas oven with a pilot light that's always on, this will dry them within a day or two.
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