1st time microwave drying green bowl

[Joe Meirhaeghe]

Today I tryied my 1st atempt at microwave drying a green bowl.
I turned a small 3 1/2" dia 3" high 1/4" thick walled Green Pecan bowl. I placed it in microwave for 2 mins. @ high power. Let it cool, then another 2 mins. @ high power, let it cool. Next i did 1 min. it had burn marks on it when I took it out. Thought I'd try one more cycle @ 45 seconds.
This time it caught on fire!!! It was literaly on fire flaming and all!!!!
Guess I kinda over did it for such a small bowl.

[RL Johnson]

Joe
I was alway told to never nuke it at high power. The center always gets hotter that the outside and you need to drive the moisture out but not turn it to steam. I would place it in a plastic bag and zap it for 30 seconds at low power. Take it out and see how much moisture was trapped. Turn the bag inside out and zap it again. Keep repeating until you see no more moisture trapped by the bag. Just take it easy. Good luck.

[Bill Stevener]

If you use the search block that's provided, "microwave drying", or similar wording. This should never happen again.:)

[Bill Stevener]

Joe
I was alway told to never nuke it at high power. The center always gets hotter that the outside and you need to drive the moisture out but not turn it to steam. I would place it in a plastic bag and zap it for 30 seconds at low power. Take it out and see how much moisture was trapped. Turn the bag inside out and zap it again. Keep repeating until you see no more moisture trapped by the bag. Just take it easy. Good luck.


Take the bowl out of the bag. Throw the bowl away and eat the bag. :D :D :D

[David Wilhelm]

When we were doing this the first burst was longer to get the wood hot. temp setting depends on how hot the oven gets as some do not heat up as other do. We were using news paper and very gently folding and tucking it under the blank. 30 sec burst at lower pwr. watching the news paper turn color with moisture. then change it. So on till it stayed dry. I think I like RL's plastic bag a little better.

[Dale Gregory]

I recently turned a green walnut bowl from start to finish. Microwaved it to dry and it worked ok. I developed several small 1/4 cracks radiating out from the foot. I thought it might have been thicker in that area causing this. I'll try a lower setting next time based on everyone's suggestion. Other than that it worked good and I really enjoyed turning green wood, sanding, and drying in one extended session.

Dale

[Bernie Weishapl]

Joe I do the defrost cycle the first 3 to 5 of times. Then I go to the high cycle for no more than about 45 seconds to 1 minute. The key is to let the bowl cool completely before the next cycle. That means it should not feel warm any place on the bowl. Never burned one yet and they dry well plus I haven't had a lot of checking. Some woods when dried on the high cycle are more likely to crack such as cedar so I just use the defrost cycle on these woods.

Joe here is a article on microwave drying I have used.

http://mgorrow.tripod.com/microwave.html

[Ben Gastfriend]

Here's another. Before I went to the DNA method, I used the microwave, and never went above defrost.

http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~rhaslip/Rex/workshop/microwave/microwav.htm

[William Bachtel]

I have l0 power settings on my microwave and never do I go past 5; usually I stay around 3 or 4 and always let it cool completely down before zapping it again. l/4 inch thick bowl should not need microwaved, it will dry on its own. Keep at it and you will learn a lot. Most of us don't use the microwave that much, as we have grown or learned other ways. Like turning ruff and drying and then returning. I like turning my green wood thin and it will dry on it own. 3/8s inch will dry nicely.