Microwave drying wood pen blanks

The method I use to dry green pen blanks is microwave drying of the pen blanks.

When I need to dry pens blanks in a very short time, I use the following method.

I have a small Microwave oven I use only for drying wood. I do not use the microwave in the kitchen. I don't think my wife would be very happy if I did.

1. I cut the blanks into blank size usually 3/4" X 5" long.

2. I stack these in a way the air will flow freely around the blank.

3. I weight each blank and write the weight on the side of the blank. I use a digital postal scale. I picked up a scale off ebay for about $25

4. I place 8-9 blanks in the microwave in this fashion.

5. I microwave the blanks on low heat for 2 1/2 minutes.

6. I remove the blanks and the set on top of the microwave to cool.

7. They need to cool for 7-10 minutes.

8. I then weight the blanks again and write new weight on side

9. I go through this process a minimum of 3 times or until these is no longer a weight lost.

10. At this point I let set over night before processing the pen blanks.

Note; the microwave will set the blanks on fire, from the inside.

As you can see from the picture at the right. This blank caught on fire from the inside. I cut it apart and you can see how it burned.

Microwave drying will work must be done with care.

I used this to dry wood for 200 pens. I used this on maple wood blanks that had just been cut.

Please visit my web site for more woodworking infromation. http://nokeswoodworks.com

Pen Project with Cross Clip for Church

I just finished doing a project for a church. The church was expanding and had to cut down a Maple tree. They contacted me and wanted me to make 200 pens for them.

I used a slimline kit for the base. I added a fancy center band and a cross clip from Woodcraft.

I made a sample and we agreed on a price, the church shipped the wood to me. It arrived on a banded pallet, which consisted mainly of cut up logs. I had to take the logs and cut the logs into pen blanks.

As you can see from the picture at the right, the shipment basically looked like a load of fire wood. Some of the logs were pretty big. I split the logs and then used my band saw to cut the wood into rough pen blanks.

The rough pen blanks were dried by stacking them and air drying along with the use of a micro wave oven to air dry the blanks.

Once the blanks were dry, there were cut, drilled and turned to shape. There were sanded and finished with a protective coating.

The pens were assembled and packed in plastic pen cases and shipped to the church.

The church was very please upon receipt of the pens. There was a lot of work involved in making 200 pens at one time but I enjoyed the project.

If you have a project you would like made from a special piece of wood or any custom project, please contact me.

Also visit my web site at http://nokeswoodworks.com/