Baking wood

[Leigh Betsch]

Anyone bake their wood? I received a few blanks of wood from another creeker. I don't know if they are kiln or air dried so I figured I put them in the oven for a few hrs at 170F to kill any bugs that may be inside. Anyone else do this? Is the 170 for 2 hrs sound reasonable? I got this idea from a sawyer that said mesquite doesn't need to be dried but suggested the oven treatment to kill any bugs.

[Scott T Smith]

Leigh, for sterilization, you don't need to take it to 170; only 135F. The core needs to be at 133F or higher for 4 hours.

If you heat it too high you'll over-dry the wood, and may significantly degrade it's workability.

[Leigh Betsch]

I did 180 for 6 hrs last night, hopefully it's not too dry. I didn't know how long it would take for the core of a 1 1/2" x 3" x 12" block to heat up so I went a little hotter and a little longer than what I thought was actually needed. The campher put a nice Vicks smell in the kitchen!

[Larry Edgerton]

Long as you don't forget about it.....

I greased up a brand new pair of Red Wing Irish Setters and put them in the oven to get the grease in real good, went outside and started shooting at some targets, them my buddys came over, we shot some more.....

Anyway, once one of them asked me why there was smoke comming out the kitchen window all was lost. My 10" top Setters were now Oxfords......

That was the best pair of boots I never wore.....

[Dave MacArthur]

LOL... at least I only got in trouble for not watching my cooking and letting the corned beef boil over yesterday! I can imagine the hell I'd catch for burning up a pair of boots in there.

I've got a mesquite log about 8" diam and 5' long sitting out back, air drying for two years now... you've got me motivated to go see if it's now an ant farm, or maybe time to slice it up. Wish I'd bought that spoke-shave thing at Woodworker's Source last week, to get the bark off!