If you’re determined to dry your wood quickly without damaging it, your best option is an oven. Air-drying might be easy, but drying it in an oven can be the most effective way.
So in this article, our woodworkers will discuss how to dry wood in an oven. Keep reading to know more about this process, along with some safety precautions and tips.
Benefits of Drying Wood in Your Kitchen Oven
Using an oven is your best alternative to air or kiln drying. Aside from being the most effective wood drying process, using an oven offers some benefits to your woodworking.
- You can have your wood dry quickly and evenly without retaining moisture and reducing its durability and defects.
- It keeps your wood resistant to pests and insect eggs that cause its decay and rotting.
- With the quick dryness of the wood, the drying process can prevent mold formation.
- Getting a conventional oven could save you money and time rather than finding an industrial kiln. But both ovens can shorten drying from months to days.
Steps to Dry Your Wood in a Kitchen Oven
Supplies You’ll Need
- Kitchen ovens
- Your wood or timber of choice
- Thermometer
- Wood moisture meter
- Measuring scale
- Sealant
- Cooling racks
- Fire extinguisher
- Wire cooling racks
Step #1: Prep the Oven
While preparing the common kitchen oven, place the center rack wherein the green wood can be placed with plenty of space, and the air can circulate.
Then, preheat the oven by setting the temperature to 200 to 225 degrees F (or 95 to 100 degrees Celsius).
Make sure that you place a large sheet pan on the bottom oven rack. In this way, the small wet wood won’t slip from the oven rack.
After 15 minutes, check the oven temperature using a thermometer or look at the built oven thermometer, which most digital kitchen ovens have.
Step #2: Put the Wood in the Oven
Then, you can put the damp wood in the kitchen oven. When doing this, small pieces of wood should be piled up over the larger wood to prevent them from falling from the center rack.
Bigger wood should be piled using a firewood splitter or a timber-splitting axe. Then, small pieces of wood should be placed vertically into the oven-centered rack grid to keep everything inside the oven.
You should also place a tray with water in the bottom rack to equalize its moisture levels.
Step #3: Allow it to Dry
Wait about an hour to ensure it has been dried to our ideal moisture content. Regularly check the wood’s moisture level. We highly recommend using an electric moisture meter to do this. Also, keep the fire extinguisher nearby.
Step #4: Check Your Wood
You can check how much moisture level every 10 minutes for small-sized wood. For large-sized lumber, you have to wait for 15 minutes, a little longer, or until it has no excess moisture.
Step #5: Unload the Wood and Let it Cool Down
After an hour, adjust the oven settings. Then, remove the wood pieces and place them in the wire cooling rack. You can use a convection fan to speed up the cooling process.
Once the wood is cooled down or has low temperatures, you must recheck the moisture. The desired moisture level should be below 8%.
Safety Precautions and Tips to Note
Our experts recommend following the safety precautions and tips while drying wood in an oven. Keep in mind that accidents are beyond control, so be aware of the safety precautions.
- Use mittens or fire-resistant work gloves to open the oven door and remove hot, cooked wood from the oven.
- No smoke should come from the oven, so turn your oven off if you see even the slightest sign of smoke and flames [1].
- Make your fire extinguisher ready if the woods catch fire in the oven. If it does, keep the oven’s door closed and put out the fire using the extinguisher.
- If the fire ceases, call 911, open the doors and windows, and evacuate immediately.
How to Determine if the Wood is Dry Enough
You can check the dryness of the wood using a pinless and pin-type moisture meter, a tool with two metal contact points.
A pin-type moisture meter should be inserted in the wood to measure dampness with its electrical resistance. You can tell it is dry if the resistance is below 6% to 8%, so you must insert the tool deeper for accurate readings.
On the flip side, a pinless moisture meter does not require penetration to measure the wood’s moisture.
You just need to place the sensor pad on the hot wood surface, which can reach half an inch underneath it. Unlike pin-type, this meter can get readings of moisture quickly.
How Do I Keep the Wood from Splitting?
Too much heat can split the wood surfaces and edges, so most woodworkers prefer to air-dry the lumber. However, with time constraints, kiln-dry wood has been the best option for drying firewood.
The standard and effective way to prevent splitting is by applying latex paint on the wood’s ends.
A few coats of latex paint slow the moisture movement, which can prevent drying defects, resulting in splitting and cracking while drying lumber in the oven. You can also try a traditional method or cutting the ends of the wood to see if there’s a crack.
FAQ
How should I dry freshly cut lumber?
You can dry fresh-cut lumber using an oven. Oven wood drying is a drying method that accelerates moisture movement, delivering dry wood in less than a day.
You will also need a wood-stabilizing solution for your fresh lumber to replace water molecules and makes the wood dries evenly.
How should I dry kindling in the oven?
You can dry kindling or dry firewood in the oven by cutting and splitting the wood into small wood pieces before putting it in the oven. Our experts prove that enough air movement in the oven draws moisture out of the season firewood.
Conclusion
Now that you know how to dry wood in an oven, you can achieve the ideal moisture content for your wood. Wood drying in an oven is the fastest but it would be more reliable to use moisture meters.
Though it may come with risks, it can be safe for most wood species, as long as you follow our experts’ safety tips along the process.
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