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.

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