Dehydrating Dowels

[Jim Summers]

Hello All,

I was getting ready to glue up some pieces of a project I have working on for a couple of months. The joints are dowel joints, using expansible dowels. Dry-fitting has been no problem over the last couple of months. Last night I was going to do one final dry-fit. I could not push the dowels in. I am suspecting that we have had an increase in humidity and it has caused the dowels to swell a bit. Could that be the problem? I think I read somewhere that you could microwave the expansible dowels to remove some moisture??

Ideas / suggestions?

TIA

[Joe Scharle]

I keep mine in the fridge.

[Jim Summers]

I keep mine in the fridge.

So if I was to put them in a fridge now, then by tonight they may be back to size?

Thanks

[Mike Henderson]

Put them anywhere there's mild heat. Close to a light bulb will work fine, but any other mild heat source will work. If all else fails, pre-heat your oven to maybe 250*F and then turn it off and put the dowels in on a cookie sheet. By the time the oven cools off, your dowels should be dry.

Mike

[Joe Scharle]

I don't know how long it would take to dry them out from where they are now. I have a shop fridge that I keep dowels, plugs, sandpaper, manuals etc. Anything that I want to keep dry. I've read on one of these forums of nuking wood parts for a minute or two will do the job, but I haven't tried it.

[Steve Nouis]

Microwave will work fast, just don't smoke them. Steve

[Bill Huber]

I have mine in a jar and left it open for a few days and it was raining those days. So I had the same problem as you. I set them in the sun for awhile with the lid off and then put the lid back on and that took care of the problem.

The Texas sun is really hot right now.....

[Bruce Wrenn]

I can't say about dowels, but for biscuits, I keep a couple of zip lock bags on the dash of the truck. Put biscuits in bag and seal. Place in direct sunlight. In couple of hours, condensation forms on bag. Remove biscuits, and place in other bag. Turn first bag inside out to dry. Repeat as often as necessary.

[Bill Huber]

I can't say about dowels, but for biscuits, I keep a couple of zip lock bags on the dash of the truck. Put biscuits in bag and seal. Place in direct sunlight. In couple of hours, condensation forms on bag. Remove biscuits, and place in other bag. Turn first bag inside out to dry. Repeat as often as necessary.

Bruce, why not put them in an open bag and then you would not have to use 2 bags. Leave the bag open do the moisture can get out and then after a 2 hours seal it up.

[Bruce Wrenn]

Bruce, why not put them in an open bag and then you would not have to use 2 bags. Leave the bag open do the moisture can get out and then after a 2 hours seal it up.Free moisture was condensing on the bag. That's how I figured it out- by ACCIDENT!

[Mike Cornelsen]

I put my dowels in a plastic food container from Walmart and threw in a Silica Gel Absorbent Pack from Hartville Tools.

[David Keller NC]

Guys - Here's an easy, and nearly free way to make your own dessicant:

Place about a 1/2 lb. of dry rice onto a cookie sheet (and spread it out). Heat it in the oven on "warm" (about 150 F) for about 20 minutes. Open the oven door to allow a quick air exhchange - you will notice that the air coming out is very humid. Close the oven back up, wait another 10 minutes, and do the same thing. Repeat one more time.

Take the hot rice out of the oven and seal it in a mason jar or a metal cookie tin - the rice must be hot when you do this. Allow it to cool in the jar or tin. Once cool, it works very well as a dessicant, and you don't have to heat your dowels or biscuits and potentially introduce distortion.

You can re-cycle the rice dessicant many times - just repeat the heating and sealed cooling procedure.

By the way - the interior of a refrigerator is not always dry. In fact, it can have nearly 100% relative humidity. Whether it's dry or not has to do with how many times it's opened and how long it's been since it was opened.

When first opened, the air from the room gets exchanged into the refrigerator. Unless you live in a desert climate, the absolute humidity in the room air (lb H2O/lb dry air) is more than enough so that it will be near 100% R.H. once the air cools down to the refrigerator temperature.

If the fridge stays sealed, the humidity in the air will gradually be removed by the water condensing on the cooling coils as the refrigerator cycles on/off. Depending on how warm the room is, it may take 12-20 hours to go from near 100% R.H. to 20% R.H. or so.

So the point here is that putting wood items in the family refrigerator will probably not dry them out - particularly if you have children.:D

[harry strasil]

Next time you get any new electronic stuff, save the little gel pac packages in them and drop in an air tight container with your dowels, they are designed to absorb moisture. For temporary use, use a small cloth bag with Baking Soda inside and put in your sealed dowel container, or soda crackers or flour or sugar, anything that will absorb moisture. Those cheap SEE THRU, kitchen counter top containers for Flour, Sugar, Salt, etc would be good for dowel storage as you can see what size is in them and when to reorder, and they are airtight. The new ziploc vacum bags is another alternative too.

[John Lucas]

microwave works fine. Place in MW and "cook" for 2 minutes. Let cool and test. Do the same again. cntinue until dried out. then seal in jar.

[Jim Summers]

microwave works fine. Place in MW and "cook" for 2 minutes. Let cool and test. Do the same again. cntinue until dried out. then seal in jar.


Two minutes was "smokin" time for me. SWMBO was not pleased! I found that about one minute was safe. Then check them for fit. Then do 45 seconds, and repeat test fit, then 30 seconds. Repeat until satisfied.

HTH