Drying wood in the fridge...

[Dan Hahr]

Does anyone have any information or formulas for determining how much water weight a board will lose when drying? I have had a piece of sweetgum in the fridge for a couple of weeks and I am very suprised at how much water it has lost already. I weighed the green board when I put it in the fridge and I have been tracking its weight. It is already down .5 Kg from 2.69 Kg.

All in all, I am very impressed with how well this is working. I tried this with a little piece of holly, and it seems light as balsa now. I dried this for about 2 months, so I took it out tonight and weighed it. I will see if it gains or loses more moisture in the garage. There has been little warpage or color problems with either board, despite the fact that my wife keeps shoving food and stuff up against it.

Obviously, I don't have a moisture meter.

Any info would be appreciated.

Thanks, Dan

192832 192833

[Keith Westfall]

You have a tolerant wife... :D

[Cody Colston]

Without knowing the starting moisture content, there is no way to calculate how much water weight it will lose when drying. What you can do is calculate moisture content from the weight of the wood compared to the oven-dry weight.

Weigh the wood. Now put it into an oven at 215 - 217 degrees. Weigh the wood at regular intervals until it quits losing weight...shouldn't take much more than 24 hours.

Now use the following formula to determine the MC before it was oven dried:

MC% = (initial weight - oven dry weight) x 100
.....................oven dry weight........................

[Bill Davis]

Cody is right on.
To dry wood in a 'knowing' way you need to know its initial moisture content then subject it to a known and controlled relative humidity. If the RH is less than the equlibrium RH of the wood at its current MC, water will be drawn out of the wood.
Factors that will vary the speed of water removal are temperature, air speed over the wood and RH. Higher temperature, higher air speed and lower RH speed up the process. Many times faster is not better as that can lead to more wood damage (cracking, checking, warping etc.)
An easier formula for MC is" MC = ((Current weight/OD weight)-1) x 100. It is easier because you simply divide the current wt by OD weight then mentally remove the 1 and move the decimal to the right 2 places. Easier then it sounds.

[Bill White]

So where are ya gonna keep the moisture meter when you get it?
Can't believe you're takin' up beer room with a piece of wood.
(Just jokin'.)
Bill

[Dan Hintz]

In the fridge?! Seems like a dangerous way to dry stuff... fridges are designed to remove moisture from the air while cooling, so you're putting that wood in a very dry environment. Losing water quickly doesn't surprise me, but that can't be good for keeping cracking/checking to a minimum...

[Marc Myers]

You need to get in touch with Ron Kent on this one. He is a turner out in Hawaii who I believe is credited with freezing wood as a drying method. He is the one who first used dish soap as a stabilizing agent as well. www.ronkent.com (http://www.ronkent.com) is the link to his homepage. Keep in mind Ron only works with norfolk island pine, a native hawaiian species of wood. If you get in touch with him, he's usually pretty willing to tell you what he's learned, but what works for one might not work for all. A moisture meter is the way to go. And get a notebook and write things down! Keep track of what you figure out and you'll eventually know what not to do next time.

[Carl Civitella]

I know if you put bread in the fridge it will dry out faster then leaving it in the bread box. I never thought about wood in the fridge though. I got a small fridge downstairs that we hardly use and it is always running. I am going to try that out and see what happens. Carl

[Dan Hahr]

I would say that the wood was as saturated as it could be when I put it in the fridge. I sealed the ends with latex exterior paint. The logs were cut down to approximately 1 1/8" thick and most boards were put up in my attic. I put the one in the fridge as an experiment. I really wasn't expecting many checks, and there have been none so far. Interesting, since it has lost over 18 ounces of water.

If it wasn't so hard to get in and out of my attic, I would have tracked one of those boards also. I'll check them out next spring. I can't get away with putting two logs worth in the fridge.

Thanks, Dan

[ray hampton]

you need a walk-in freezer or store the wood in the cellar

[Kyle Iwamoto]

Umm, correction, Norfolk Island pine is named after, and is endemic to Norfolk Island, which is not in Hawaii. Lots of people here really enjoy turning it though.