Hi Rex. Some ideas... 1. Rag in a can oiler is great for most things but for sawing through insulation, a can of silicon spray is best. When I was an upholsterer, we used it on blades for nice clean cutting through all grades of foam, even thick dense crumb foam would cut perfectly. 2. An old tall larder fridge (no chill or freezer compartment) that you can get for nothing works as a kiln body (doesn't matter if the fridge works or not because the refrigeration will never be used; all you need is the fridge cabinet intact). It will already have slots where shelves would fit that can be used for dowels to put drying bits of wood on - AND - it will seal shut. 3. For my home brewing, I use an InkBird temperature controller, which keeps a temperature within any range you set. It will heat or cool when brewing but you'll only need the heating outlet for a kiln. It has a temperature probe and electrical outlets for heating and cooling (you won't use the cooling outlet when used for a kiln). 4. I use a small 25 watt tube heater that is mostly used for greenhouses and conservatories (just to take the chill off the air) as the heater element in my brewing setup. Controlled by the InkBird, it gently warms the interior of the temperature controlled appliance (appliance - because it's not a fridge any more) to a pre-set temperature range. NOTES: Silicon spray is widely available and used extensively in upholstery manufacture, as well as other trades. InkBird (or other brand) Temperature Controllers and Tube Heaters are available on Amazon; both inexpensive. Any old throw-away larder fridge will do; no cost. Take some junk to your local recycle centre and grab any suitable fridge you can see, as long as it seals shut (it doesn't need to be in electrically working condition, you can cut the power cord off for use as a kiln). Hope this helps...!
For what it's worth and your milage may vary but: I've used this foam, a lot, for shipping - building boxes out of foam. I found a razor blade and a straight edge is really great at cutting this stuff. You can score and crack it pretty easily. And even with the mentions of needing square cuts I think this method is worth sharing. Its a lot cleaner. I actually made something similar but with the intention of having a place to let paint cure during the winter months. It worked great and I'll have to give this a try for wood.
Okay, I'll admit it, I like you and your channel so much, I just liked the video before watching it and now I'm going to sit back, watch it and like it a second time.
Depends on location and what concessions you’re willing to make. I’m on 10 acres, but I’m 30 minutes from a Walmart, and there’s barely any restaurant options beyond a couple fast food places. And no REALLY good fancy places (compared to when I was stationed in Colorado Springs). In rural MN now, and you couldn’t pay me to move to any large city again. All about what you’re willing to sacrifice.
You can make a much smaller version using insulated ducting for AC & the like. Instead of a box, you'd have a tube to put the wood in, & if you get flexible ducting you can fit the light in one end & bend it down so it's below the wood. The heat will rise up and along the ducting nicely, & if you're concerned about it getting too hot you can just wrap it in several layers of normal kitchen foil & tape it up; the air pockets between the layers will keep more of the heat in. Bit harder to seal the "door" but you can use the same method as in the video & just cut two circles from insulated board.
The key with hide glue is the gram strength. The higher the better. Luthiers use probably 350 and stronger. I’ve got pieces that used hide glue that I’m now restoring. If I need to disassemble the joints, I can do that. And I’m putting back with hide glue in the manner it was done 100 years ago. It’s not so bad of a glue type.
@@paulpennington816 Also in Tucson, tried to dry some tree branches for me and my daughter to carve magic wands out of... they dried too much in Tucson and have big splits. Hopefully there are some wand sized blanks in there somewhere, haven't checked yet, as this is a back-burner project. :)
How does the moisture in the wood get out of the kiln? Seems like you would end up with a very moist interior as you heat up the wood. I would think you need a way for the moist air to escape and drier air to get in.
I think the idea here is just for warming up small parts in order to get them bone-dry, like with the chair tenon shown at the beginning. Since the box's volume is so small, the heat will probably enable diffusion (of moisture into the surrounding environment) without any help from air circulation. Hot, moist air will sort of 'spill out' of the kiln and onto the ceiling, just as a melted ice cube inside of it would spill out and onto the floor. You probably know this already, but for any practical wood-drying operation (like when milling a log), using a little kiln like this would be untenable. In such a case, you'd likely stick-and-stack your lumber, and then allow it to cure instead by diffusing its moisture into the surrounding air over time. As such, the featured kiln in this video is super small scale, and thus a rather specialized project.
Water vapour finds its way through any little gaps, but you could fit a vent in this too by cutting another hole in the back, slightly down from the top, putting a length of PVC waste water pipe in there (doesn't need to be very long), & somewhat loosely stuffing it with wool type fluffy insulation. That should keep the heat in whilst giving the vapour a path to escape. There is something to be said for making this with foil-backed foam board (foil to the inside) and sealing up all other holes with silicone so it's airtight apart from that PVC pipe; will save significantly on electricity if you intend on using it a lot.
Guys, its 2024 not 1994, time to junk the incandescent fire starters. Look into PTC heaters. They are designed with a target temperature and they will limit their own power draw at that temperature. That way you can still use a temperature controller to limit the temperature to where you want, not waste power making light, and know that if your temperature controller fails on, the max temperature will be safe by design. They are not expensive, and MUCH safer.
Rex, since the kiln isn't a hand woodworking project may I suggest that an electric jigsaw is by far the easiest way of cutting it. You can use a straight edge to guide the cut if you're not experienced and there are no problems with friction. I won't go into how I found this out, frankly even working with this material haunts me but I was reusing scrap and it was necessary.
LEDs do make heat, you just need more watts than the normally equivalent incandescent. I don’t know where the heat equalization point is, but trial and error is king. I got one of those LED garage lights with 4 panels, sort of like flower petals. It’s rated for 15,000 lumens and each panel gets REALLY hot. Grabbed one of the panels to adjust its angle without a second thought because I too thought LEDs didn’t get much heat and burned my fingers.
Heat is measured in watts, and if you don't let any light out all the power the bulb uses becomes heat. You just need to find an LED that consumes the same amount of power as the incandescent you're replacing, in this case 40 watts. Just be sure to ignore the 'equivalent' wattage, an LED consuming 40 watts is probably putting out as much light as a 300 watt incandescent.
If you cut in the other direction with a ryoba (handle over the uncut part of the line) it won't really wander, even if you're not particularly precise with your hand motions. The blade'll flex left and right when your hand drifts/wobbles, but as long as your hand is pulling towards the line on average, the cut stays quite straight.
Hey Rex, a small advice about incandescent light bulbs: It's better not to handle them barehanded, or at least to wipe them before you turn them on. If there's any grease from your hands left on it, it will burn and damage the glass. I doubt it will set something on fire, but once it burns, it's stuck to the glass and there'll always be an area which is hotter than the rest, which ideally you want to avoid
Rex, unfortunately I can't get this kind of foam here in Brazil... And I've been looking for it for years! Because it's a fantastic material for building rc airplanes! But either way, here goes a tip: that thing sands better than wood. Any issues with the cutting and you can easily sand it back into shape. Anyway, stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
The green woodworking stuff is interesting to me because I work in an area where there's just tons (literally) of green wood of many varieties just sorta lyin' there. My exploratory journeys into woodworking have been first and foremost about milling wood into things that look like lumber and less like a log.
The refrigerator kiln has been around the woodturning world forever it seems. Another word for it would be convection kiln as in hot air rises. Since I once turn my bowls, I have no use for one, but for those who twice turn their bowls, it can really speed things along. Same idea, old fridge, hole in bottom and top, incandescent bulb in the bottom, and hole in the top. The racks of the fridge generally are wire, well the older ones were, so the hot air moves around them easily. Too hot and you get a lot of cracks/splits/checking. Too cool, and you get mold. Just right and you get slow dried lumber that works like air dried lumber.
It would be cool to see a video on how to break down a decent sized slab into usable lumber. In my area, if I want exotic wood or anything other than hardware store material than I would have to buy a slab and mill it down into boards😂
He simply used branches for the posts leave the bark and wrap them to prevent them from drying for a few days.while he worked on the ronds. the chairs look awesome and seams to hod grate.
I used foam insulation for my living room walls and found a simple ofal knife was the best, but a fresh blade was necessary. Every few cuts I'd need to change blades. Also used a 4ft clamp cutting guide to get nice straight lines
plug the lamp directly into an uncontrolled power outlet and let it run constant, and WATCH THE TEMPERATURE with any outdoor thermometer or oven thermometer etc., and if it goes much too high without any control method, buy a lower wattage bulb and try it again. 40 is common, but so is 25, and you can get even smaller bulbs by looking for the types that go inside appliances, such as fridge bulbs, oven bulbs, stove vent hood bulbs etc. Experiment until you find a wattage that WILL NEVER get too hot in your kiln even if left on constantly ... and THEN add the thermostat. This way, if something happens and the thermostat stops working but fails on instead of off, or the sensor falls out (and is sensing room temp, not kiln temp), or someone messes with settings, or settings get messed up, or any other possibility arises, the kiln wont get dangerously hot.
For some wood species, you can dry it faster by (counter intuitively) putting it underwater, like in a small creek, with something like a stone to keep it sunk. One or two months underwater, then a week in the shade, it'll be dry, unlike when allowed to dry naturally. Keep in mind that some of the characteristics of that wood will change, like density, strength or color. It'll crack a lot less also.
Basically the guts of a low-temp oven. I could see wrapping it in a simple plywood crate to create a robust version that would be protected from dings.
I did find that a compact fluorescent would keep a old dead mini fridge warm enough to keep my glue from freezing out and incandescent made it almost too warm
In the EU you won't get incandescent bulbs any more. You could probably substitute something putting out roughly 40 watts of heat, like a warming mat or something similar.
Drying pottery too quick gives you cracks or it will warp. The quickest I´ve ever managed to do was 3 days from wheel to kiln. That required turning the pieces every few hours and some of them still cracked. I only do it quick if I fuck up a firing but heave a deadline for delivery. Otherwise quick drying isn´t worth the effort and the risk.
You can dry pots in your kiln as well. Just take the temperature up very slowly towards boiling point but stay below and hold for several hours. I think it works because the atmosphere around the pots is very humid and uniform so it keeps the drying stresses to a minimum.
Hi Rex, I was watching the video about squares... I am from Costa Rica if no one else had ask you would love you to put the flag of my country in your flag collection... Thank you for the content!
As a modern alternative, if you can fit the wood in your car, crack a window, and park outside on a hot day, you'll definitely cook some moisture out. It takes a couple of days, and your car is going to smell funny, but it does work. Edit: I need to really emphasize that you should crack your windows if you try this, and don't over do it with the wood. I did this once with too much wood, and forgot to crack a window on a 10 hour work day. It was like opening a steam room. I had to wait for 5 minutes with the AC on full blast before I could stand to be in the car.
I don’t feel like this would work in a humid environment but please correct me if I’m wrong because I would def use this trick if super high humidity isn’t an issue.
@romeotango5597 I live in the upper Midwest US, and our summers get stupid humid (I know I'm gonna catch flak from some southerners for that comment). I'm in lake country, so as soon as it gets above 80⁰F, it gets sticky. I try to watch the weather when I use this method, and shoot for a lower humidity day (hot, sticky weather makes surprise thunderstorms around here, and I don't want my car seats soaked). The way I use this method is pretty unscientific, but I've had success with it. Perfect conditions are a hot, sunny day, with a good cross breeze running through the window cracks, but those can be tough to come by. I'll maintain that it's at least worth playing with.
Hi rex, I am novice in woodworking and I 've recently purchased a new hand saw, the spear and jackson you made a video about to upgrade it. So I was following your instructions, but i stumbled across the phase where you rework the handle of the saw. I unfortunately neither have the drill to enlarge the holes that keep the handle in place nor have access to those nickel plated nuts to replace the brass ones on the actual saw. My questions are, do I really need to remove the handle to modify it? And why should I replace the original saw nuts? thanks for any help you can give me.
i ahve some small apple wood chunks that i want ot make into pipes wonder how long it would take to dry them out to the right temp. interesting seeing this small of a kiln usually just see the larger ones and they have fans in them
@@ehisey I have never had problems controlling the temperature of my solar kiln. A small solar box kiln is really easy to control. Just open the vent a little bit when it's getting too hot.
I assume there has to be *some* (small) gaps in the kiln edges, or how would the moisture escape? I suspect it would even be optimal to have bigger gaps, so long as the bulb could still maintain the temperature inside the kiln, because more air flow would lead to faster drying.
@@truist7 Yes, but moisture will still escape, the same way it will escape from the wood inside the kiln. Also, I imagine that the rungs will also wick-away moisture from the inside.
A 40w incandescent should put off the same amount of heat as 4 10w LED bulbs, so you could probably do the same thing with only LEDs by quadrupling the fixtures.
Just a thought, could a cheap space heater with a builtin thermostat be used instead of the bulb+separate thermostat? That way you end up with all bigbox store components.
Foam board and heat makes me nervous. What about some rock wool kind of stuff? Of course, that's more fiddly than a rigid foam board. Edit: ah, ok, thermostat, looks better! :)
woodcraft in toledo is closing for good so i bought a new woodcraft no 62 for $40. i assumed it was good for messed up grain but not the case. did i just buy a paperweight
I'm not sure that welding table would help much. If something "got going" you would quickly have globs of molten, flaming polystyrene dripping off the table and hitting what looks to be a wood floor. Good idea though.
Any idea how the buildup of humidity affects the drying? I could see both: - the drying slows as the atmosphere is saturated - the drying speeds up because the moist air moves the heat better I'm curious if adding bulk, refreshable silica-gel beads to pull the moisture from the air would help or hurt the process.
Look up how to build a sauno kiln. Here in Sweden a common way of constructing a kiln where we even add water if the wood isn't freshly milled and very green. Drying becomes a two step process with first step to steam the wood at about 70°C for a few days. Makes the wood have a more even moisture content throughout. For the second step you drain any remaining water in the kiln and then dry the wood at 40-50°C for about a week (or longer for thicker wood). It'll come out at 6-8% humidity easily after this. This sort of makes the wood dry inside-out, rather than potentially case hardening when drying the outside and keeping a wet inside. Also helps with flatness, but mostly it is a drying method that really reduces risk of cracks in the wood.
I gotta ask Rex, did you go to the Homedepot in Severance? If memory serves me that homedepot isn’t the greatest, I tend to forgo the one closest to me which is in Maple and will go to Macedonia or Streetsboro all for better service.
That EPS foam is going to get too hot with the metal lamp on it, it will off-gas nasty stuff and also deform and melt eventually, the lamp will probably fall out, it may even cause a fire, this isn't a good idea.
Yes, LEDs do make heat, you just need more watts than the normally equivalent incandescent. I don’t know where the heat equalization point is, but trial and error is king. I got one of those LED garage lights with 4 panels, sort of like flower petals. It’s rated for 15,000 lumens and each panel gets REALLY hot. Grabbed one of the panels to adjust its angle without a second thought because I too thought LEDs didn’t get much heat and burned my fingers.
You lost me when he said hide glue doesn't hold vert well. I've been a joiner for 45 years and worked as a furniture restorer for the last 25 years. Just how in the hell do we have furniture that is in some cases hundreds of years old, all made with hide glue? Luthiers have been using hide glue for hundreds of years, and they still use it today. I use hide glue everyday, and I can say unequivocally that hide glue is stronger than the wood that I am gluing. Before you run down a product that has lasted for thousands of years, do your research.
Yes, but you're selecting for a strong survivorship bias with what you're saying about the ones lasting a hundred years. I'm sure there are both and that hide glue done poorly doesn't last
"Heat is going to rise".....really? Still thinking that way? Heat doesn't actually rise. heat displaces cold, giving the illusion of it rising. Now, HOT AIR will rise, and I am sure that is what he meant.
@27:41 Am I the only one here to be disappointed that the gentlemen didn't give the most precious tip to succeed this project? Tee-shirt and kaki shorts... yep that's how you make your work perfect!
Foam will absolutely dull straight edge blade, though I don't know how bad it would dull a toothed one. The easiest way to cut foam is with a hot knife. You can get one from Harbor Freight for like $20 on clearance.
The best way to cut that foam is with an 18mm utility knife. Score it about 1/4 to 1/2 way through then fully extend the blade. Angle the fully extended blade so the entire blade is being used to cut the foam and do a final cut right through all the foam. It takes 5-10 seconds to squarely and fully detach 2' of foam at full width with this two cut method, depending on your comfort with a fully extended utility razor.
I've seen guys clamp a rubber 'boot' on the end of bamboo poles connected to an airline. Using a cycle pump to put about 30 lbs of pressure on one end drives out all the sap fairly quickly. They use it to also drive in borax solution for insect protection at the time. I wonder if it would be possible to use that technology to dry the rungs? Maybe you could just blow the sap out of those short sticks in a few minutes?
You can buy a baseboard heater thermostat at the Big Box stores that will do the same thing, only it will have to be inside the kiln not outside, as the temperature sensor is in the thermostat, not on a tethered sensor. they switch 110 volt but you would have to add wires yourself, not just plug in, if you're confident with wiring, and dont want to wait for Amazon/shipping etc.
Hi Rex. Some ideas...
1. Rag in a can oiler is great for most things but for sawing through insulation, a can of silicon spray is best. When I was an upholsterer, we used it on blades for nice clean cutting through all grades of foam, even thick dense crumb foam would cut perfectly.
2. An old tall larder fridge (no chill or freezer compartment) that you can get for nothing works as a kiln body (doesn't matter if the fridge works or not because the refrigeration will never be used; all you need is the fridge cabinet intact). It will already have slots where shelves would fit that can be used for dowels to put drying bits of wood on - AND - it will seal shut.
3. For my home brewing, I use an InkBird temperature controller, which keeps a temperature within any range you set. It will heat or cool when brewing but you'll only need the heating outlet for a kiln. It has a temperature probe and electrical outlets for heating and cooling (you won't use the cooling outlet when used for a kiln).
4. I use a small 25 watt tube heater that is mostly used for greenhouses and conservatories (just to take the chill off the air) as the heater element in my brewing setup. Controlled by the InkBird, it gently warms the interior of the temperature controlled appliance (appliance - because it's not a fridge any more) to a pre-set temperature range.
NOTES:
Silicon spray is widely available and used extensively in upholstery manufacture, as well as other trades.
InkBird (or other brand) Temperature Controllers and Tube Heaters are available on Amazon; both inexpensive.
Any old throw-away larder fridge will do; no cost. Take some junk to your local recycle centre and grab any suitable fridge you can see, as long as it seals shut (it doesn't need to be in electrically working condition, you can cut the power cord off for use as a kiln).
Hope this helps...!
For what it's worth and your milage may vary but: I've used this foam, a lot, for shipping - building boxes out of foam. I found a razor blade and a straight edge is really great at cutting this stuff. You can score and crack it pretty easily. And even with the mentions of needing square cuts I think this method is worth sharing. Its a lot cleaner. I actually made something similar but with the intention of having a place to let paint cure during the winter months. It worked great and I'll have to give this a try for wood.
Okay, I'll admit it, I like you and your channel so much, I just liked the video before watching it and now I'm going to sit back, watch it and like it a second time.
can't wait to have a work space large enough to use one. Owning a home is a massive luxury these days and for the foreseeable future.
Depends on location and what concessions you’re willing to make. I’m on 10 acres, but I’m 30 minutes from a Walmart, and there’s barely any restaurant options beyond a couple fast food places. And no REALLY good fancy places (compared to when I was stationed in Colorado Springs). In rural MN now, and you couldn’t pay me to move to any large city again. All about what you’re willing to sacrifice.
@@Migh7yb00sh as long as theres a Walmart 30 minutes away. not a fan of most people. don't like going out to eat.
@@Migh7yb00shsounds absolutely lovely!
@@Migh7yb00sh when did you move in and for how much, if i can ask?
You can make a much smaller version using insulated ducting for AC & the like. Instead of a box, you'd have a tube to put the wood in, & if you get flexible ducting you can fit the light in one end & bend it down so it's below the wood. The heat will rise up and along the ducting nicely, & if you're concerned about it getting too hot you can just wrap it in several layers of normal kitchen foil & tape it up; the air pockets between the layers will keep more of the heat in. Bit harder to seal the "door" but you can use the same method as in the video & just cut two circles from insulated board.
The key with hide glue is the gram strength. The higher the better. Luthiers use probably 350 and stronger. I’ve got pieces that used hide glue that I’m now restoring. If I need to disassemble the joints, I can do that. And I’m putting back with hide glue in the manner it was done 100 years ago. It’s not so bad of a glue type.
For some reason I think it would be cool to do dovetail joinery with the insulation board. 😊
I live in Arizona. Summer months are a natural kiln…
And fast at 110 degrees Tucson! I dry my bowl blanks this way!
Western Australia 🥵
@@paulpennington816 Also in Tucson, tried to dry some tree branches for me and my daughter to carve magic wands out of... they dried too much in Tucson and have big splits. Hopefully there are some wand sized blanks in there somewhere, haven't checked yet, as this is a back-burner project. :)
Now I know how to dry firewood to make plane bodies. Thanks.
How does the moisture in the wood get out of the kiln? Seems like you would end up with a very moist interior as you heat up the wood. I would think you need a way for the moist air to escape and drier air to get in.
There are holes drilled into the sides.
I think the idea here is just for warming up small parts in order to get them bone-dry, like with the chair tenon shown at the beginning. Since the box's volume is so small, the heat will probably enable diffusion (of moisture into the surrounding environment) without any help from air circulation. Hot, moist air will sort of 'spill out' of the kiln and onto the ceiling, just as a melted ice cube inside of it would spill out and onto the floor.
You probably know this already, but for any practical wood-drying operation (like when milling a log), using a little kiln like this would be untenable. In such a case, you'd likely stick-and-stack your lumber, and then allow it to cure instead by diffusing its moisture into the surrounding air over time. As such, the featured kiln in this video is super small scale, and thus a rather specialized project.
Water vapour finds its way through any little gaps, but you could fit a vent in this too by cutting another hole in the back, slightly down from the top, putting a length of PVC waste water pipe in there (doesn't need to be very long), & somewhat loosely stuffing it with wool type fluffy insulation. That should keep the heat in whilst giving the vapour a path to escape. There is something to be said for making this with foil-backed foam board (foil to the inside) and sealing up all other holes with silicone so it's airtight apart from that PVC pipe; will save significantly on electricity if you intend on using it a lot.
Guys, its 2024 not 1994, time to junk the incandescent fire starters. Look into PTC heaters. They are designed with a target temperature and they will limit their own power draw at that temperature. That way you can still use a temperature controller to limit the temperature to where you want, not waste power making light, and know that if your temperature controller fails on, the max temperature will be safe by design. They are not expensive, and MUCH safer.
🙄
🙄
Nice to hear @Paul Sellers get a shout out for his oil rag in a can!
Rex, since the kiln isn't a hand woodworking project may I suggest that an electric jigsaw is by far the easiest way of cutting it. You can use a straight edge to guide the cut if you're not experienced and there are no problems with friction. I won't go into how I found this out, frankly even working with this material haunts me but I was reusing scrap and it was necessary.
LEDs do make heat, you just need more watts than the normally equivalent incandescent. I don’t know where the heat equalization point is, but trial and error is king. I got one of those LED garage lights with 4 panels, sort of like flower petals. It’s rated for 15,000 lumens and each panel gets REALLY hot. Grabbed one of the panels to adjust its angle without a second thought because I too thought LEDs didn’t get much heat and burned my fingers.
Heat is measured in watts, and if you don't let any light out all the power the bulb uses becomes heat. You just need to find an LED that consumes the same amount of power as the incandescent you're replacing, in this case 40 watts. Just be sure to ignore the 'equivalent' wattage, an LED consuming 40 watts is probably putting out as much light as a 300 watt incandescent.
If you cut in the other direction with a ryoba (handle over the uncut part of the line) it won't really wander, even if you're not particularly precise with your hand motions.
The blade'll flex left and right when your hand drifts/wobbles, but as long as your hand is pulling towards the line on average, the cut stays quite straight.
Hey Rex, a small advice about incandescent light bulbs: It's better not to handle them barehanded, or at least to wipe them before you turn them on. If there's any grease from your hands left on it, it will burn and damage the glass. I doubt it will set something on fire, but once it burns, it's stuck to the glass and there'll always be an area which is hotter than the rest, which ideally you want to avoid
Incandesny dont get that hot. Tungsten bulbs on the otherhand will for sure.
I am really enjoying this series I think it is the best one you have done. Thanks for doing it.
Rex, unfortunately I can't get this kind of foam here in Brazil... And I've been looking for it for years! Because it's a fantastic material for building rc airplanes!
But either way, here goes a tip: that thing sands better than wood. Any issues with the cutting and you can easily sand it back into shape.
Anyway, stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
So that's why those backwoods chairmakers of yore worked outside - so their cameras wouldn't pick up the A/C!
Very informative. I built something similar for proofing bread. It works great. Now I will have to try this method for wood.
The green woodworking stuff is interesting to me because I work in an area where there's just tons (literally) of green wood of many varieties just sorta lyin' there. My exploratory journeys into woodworking have been first and foremost about milling wood into things that look like lumber and less like a log.
Thanks
The refrigerator kiln has been around the woodturning world forever it seems. Another word for it would be convection kiln as in hot air rises. Since I once turn my bowls, I have no use for one, but for those who twice turn their bowls, it can really speed things along. Same idea, old fridge, hole in bottom and top, incandescent bulb in the bottom, and hole in the top. The racks of the fridge generally are wire, well the older ones were, so the hot air moves around them easily. Too hot and you get a lot of cracks/splits/checking. Too cool, and you get mold. Just right and you get slow dried lumber that works like air dried lumber.
It would be cool to see a video on how to break down a decent sized slab into usable lumber. In my area, if I want exotic wood or anything other than hardware store material than I would have to buy a slab and mill it down into boards😂
He simply used branches for the posts leave the bark and wrap them to prevent them from drying for a few days.while he worked on the ronds. the chairs look awesome and seams to hod grate.
I used foam insulation for my living room walls and found a simple ofal knife was the best, but a fresh blade was necessary. Every few cuts I'd need to change blades. Also used a 4ft clamp cutting guide to get nice straight lines
plug the lamp directly into an uncontrolled power outlet and let it run constant, and WATCH THE TEMPERATURE with any outdoor thermometer or oven thermometer etc., and if it goes much too high without any control method, buy a lower wattage bulb and try it again. 40 is common, but so is 25, and you can get even smaller bulbs by looking for the types that go inside appliances, such as fridge bulbs, oven bulbs, stove vent hood bulbs etc. Experiment until you find a wattage that WILL NEVER get too hot in your kiln even if left on constantly ... and THEN add the thermostat. This way, if something happens and the thermostat stops working but fails on instead of off, or the sensor falls out (and is sensing room temp, not kiln temp), or someone messes with settings, or settings get messed up, or any other possibility arises, the kiln wont get dangerously hot.
Could you use a reptile heat lap to achieve the heat? Loving this series
For some wood species, you can dry it faster by (counter intuitively) putting it underwater, like in a small creek, with something like a stone to keep it sunk. One or two months underwater, then a week in the shade, it'll be dry, unlike when allowed to dry naturally. Keep in mind that some of the characteristics of that wood will change, like density, strength or color. It'll crack a lot less also.
Basically the guts of a low-temp oven. I could see wrapping it in a simple plywood crate to create a robust version that would be protected from dings.
Hide glue works well for a long time. Hide glue + kigoroshi might be interesting for these joints.
"DON'T get in the kiln."
I did find that a compact fluorescent would keep a old dead mini fridge warm enough to keep my glue from freezing out and incandescent made it almost too warm
Sip ,,, 🙏🙏👍 terimakasih , om. ,, aku bawa satu paket lengkap ,,,moga ber manfaat om 👍❤
In the EU you won't get incandescent bulbs any more.
You could probably substitute something putting out roughly 40 watts of heat, like a warming mat or something similar.
I don’t see the thermostat link in the description at all. Anyone else see it?
Chicken heater plate would be a much safer option, although it may be a little slower.
i dried a wet board in the oven once before, and i'll never do it again because it will make the house stink the next several times you use that oven
I was just going to say I have a ready-made kiln in my wife’s kitchen… 😂
Reminds me of the time I tried drying out my wet socks in the microwave at work.
It did not work. 🙁
I tried that with some 10mm birch ply, it crumpled like a leaf, real Artsy looking
Have fun couch surfing at night if you use it lol@@codacreator6162
Gonna use this to dry pottery. Thanks, guys!
Aren’t pottery kilns like over 1000 degrees?
@@Migh7yb00sh For firing yes, but drying can be done at room temperature
Drying pottery too quick gives you cracks or it will warp. The quickest I´ve ever managed to do was 3 days from wheel to kiln. That required turning the pieces every few hours and some of them still cracked. I only do it quick if I fuck up a firing but heave a deadline for delivery. Otherwise quick drying isn´t worth the effort and the risk.
You can dry pots in your kiln as well. Just take the temperature up very slowly towards boiling point but stay below and hold for several hours. I think it works because the atmosphere around the pots is very humid and uniform so it keeps the drying stresses to a minimum.
@@ian7819 That might if your pieces have the same thickness all around and are made of a clay with a decent amount of grog or sand.
Hi Rex, I was watching the video about squares... I am from Costa Rica if no one else had ask you would love you to put the flag of my country in your flag collection... Thank you for the content!
As a modern alternative, if you can fit the wood in your car, crack a window, and park outside on a hot day, you'll definitely cook some moisture out. It takes a couple of days, and your car is going to smell funny, but it does work.
Edit: I need to really emphasize that you should crack your windows if you try this, and don't over do it with the wood. I did this once with too much wood, and forgot to crack a window on a 10 hour work day. It was like opening a steam room. I had to wait for 5 minutes with the AC on full blast before I could stand to be in the car.
I don’t feel like this would work in a humid environment but please correct me if I’m wrong because I would def use this trick if super high humidity isn’t an issue.
@romeotango5597 I live in the upper Midwest US, and our summers get stupid humid (I know I'm gonna catch flak from some southerners for that comment). I'm in lake country, so as soon as it gets above 80⁰F, it gets sticky. I try to watch the weather when I use this method, and shoot for a lower humidity day (hot, sticky weather makes surprise thunderstorms around here, and I don't want my car seats soaked). The way I use this method is pretty unscientific, but I've had success with it.
Perfect conditions are a hot, sunny day, with a good cross breeze running through the window cracks, but those can be tough to come by. I'll maintain that it's at least worth playing with.
Jokes on you. My car already smells funny.
Thanks for sharing.
Would you make a video working with hemp wood with traditional tools and techniques?
Fascinating work.
Modern society fears the men who do not fear the cargo short
Great video and great idea for the Kiln. Need a link to the Thermostat
And when you're not drying wood, you can use it like an Easy Bake Oven.
You may have to make a different version of this when none of us in the US can buy incandescent bulbs.
And because the tenon is bone dry, it WILL absorb some moisture from the air, making it swell…. Making it that much tighter
Hi rex, I am novice in woodworking and I 've recently purchased a new hand saw, the spear and jackson you made a video about to upgrade it. So I was following your instructions, but i stumbled across the phase where you rework the handle of the saw. I unfortunately neither have the drill to enlarge the holes that keep the handle in place nor have access to those nickel plated nuts to replace the brass ones on the actual saw. My questions are, do I really need to remove the handle to modify it? And why should I replace the original saw nuts? thanks for any help you can give me.
Very cool stuff!
i ahve some small apple wood chunks that i want ot make into pipes wonder how long it would take to dry them out to the right temp.
interesting seeing this small of a kiln usually just see the larger ones and they have fans in them
Can you use an easy back oven to dry wood for doll furniture?
Fire harden the rungs.
I do wonder whether the setup is leaky enough to allow a sufficient amount of water out since there is no air flow.
Wow, I need that!
Just take some plexiglass and build a solar kiln.
You always have great ideas and tips, however I think this is missing something for humidity to scape, also isn’t this a fire hazard?
There are holes drilled into the sides.
Should have gone with dovetails for that kiln
Using solar and a headlight bulb works well for incubating eggs. So why not wood?
Blue steel
Why not solar?
or just leave in the car in the summer
Betterheat control and not weather dependent.
@@ehisey I have never had problems controlling the temperature of my solar kiln. A small solar box kiln is really easy to control. Just open the vent a little bit when it's getting too hot.
make a vid on a tool cabinet. ive collected all these unwanted antiques and no where to put them
Alec Steele the blacksmith5 made a video on this topic a few years ago
Nice team uniform ;)
I assume there has to be *some* (small) gaps in the kiln edges, or how would the moisture escape? I suspect it would even be optimal to have bigger gaps, so long as the bulb could still maintain the temperature inside the kiln, because more air flow would lead to faster drying.
There are holes drilled into the sides.
But just the ones the support sticks/shelves go into, right? I assumed those were supposed to be snug / no gaps.
@@truist7 Yes, but moisture will still escape, the same way it will escape from the wood inside the kiln. Also, I imagine that the rungs will also wick-away moisture from the inside.
Is that temperature Fahrenheit or Celsius?
Some places aren't legally able to sell incandescent bulbs any more, excepting very low wattage oven or fridge lights.
What about a plain build?
Haven’t had one in a while and I didn’t find them that satisfactory.
So what happens to the moisture? How does it escape?
I thought greenwood shrank. So how does the drying of it shrink?
Or is it such a tight press fit that it stays stable?
A 40w incandescent should put off the same amount of heat as 4 10w LED bulbs, so you could probably do the same thing with only LEDs by quadrupling the fixtures.
Yep contrary to popular belief, LED bulbs definitely do put off heat.
Homemade easy bake oven
Woody's Chair Shop in NC there family has been making chairs with out glue sense the 1800's to the present
Just a thought, could a cheap space heater with a builtin thermostat be used instead of the bulb+separate thermostat? That way you end up with all bigbox store components.
Foam board and heat makes me nervous. What about some rock wool kind of stuff? Of course, that's more fiddly than a rigid foam board.
Edit: ah, ok, thermostat, looks better! :)
woodcraft in toledo is closing for good so i bought a new woodcraft no 62 for $40. i assumed it was good for messed up grain but not the case. did i just buy a paperweight
I'm not sure that welding table would help much. If something "got going" you would quickly have globs of molten, flaming polystyrene dripping off the table and hitting what looks to be a wood floor. Good idea though.
The harder you push, the harder the saw pinches
Any idea how the buildup of humidity affects the drying?
I could see both:
- the drying slows as the atmosphere is saturated
- the drying speeds up because the moist air moves the heat better
I'm curious if adding bulk, refreshable silica-gel beads to pull the moisture from the air would help or hurt the process.
Look up how to build a sauno kiln. Here in Sweden a common way of constructing a kiln where we even add water if the wood isn't freshly milled and very green.
Drying becomes a two step process with first step to steam the wood at about 70°C for a few days. Makes the wood have a more even moisture content throughout.
For the second step you drain any remaining water in the kiln and then dry the wood at 40-50°C for about a week (or longer for thicker wood). It'll come out at 6-8% humidity easily after this.
This sort of makes the wood dry inside-out, rather than potentially case hardening when drying the outside and keeping a wet inside.
Also helps with flatness, but mostly it is a drying method that really reduces risk of cracks in the wood.
Cover art is a little spooky.
I gotta ask Rex, did you go to the Homedepot in Severance? If memory serves me that homedepot isn’t the greatest, I tend to forgo the one closest to me which is in Maple and will go to Macedonia or Streetsboro all for better service.
Did I hear millimeters?
That EPS foam is going to get too hot with the metal lamp on it, it will off-gas nasty stuff and also deform and melt eventually, the lamp will probably fall out, it may even cause a fire, this isn't a good idea.
So, I can use an LED bulb right?
No. LED doesn’t produce enough heat. I’ve used heat lamps in the past. Amazon still sells incandescent bulbs too, if you can’t find them locally.
Yes, LEDs do make heat, you just need more watts than the normally equivalent incandescent. I don’t know where the heat equalization point is, but trial and error is king. I got one of those LED garage lights with 4 panels, sort of like flower petals. It’s rated for 15,000 lumens and each panel gets REALLY hot. Grabbed one of the panels to adjust its angle without a second thought because I too thought LEDs didn’t get much heat and burned my fingers.
we built a TIME MACHINE...
Or you could send them to Phoenix and we'll leave them outside in June for a couple of days. Enjoy the history of no nail furniture.
Hide glue doesn’t hold very strong? Really dude? Next video!
You lost me when he said hide glue doesn't hold vert well. I've been a joiner for 45 years and worked as a furniture restorer for the last 25 years. Just how in the hell do we have furniture that is in some cases hundreds of years old, all made with hide glue? Luthiers have been using hide glue for hundreds of years, and they still use it today. I use hide glue everyday, and I can say unequivocally that hide glue is stronger than the wood that I am gluing. Before you run down a product that has lasted for thousands of years, do your research.
I agree, I use hide glue in my shop every day, and I’ve never had a joint fail.
I think this showcases more that your furniture joints are very good rather than the hide glue being good haha
In a lot of cases and I’m no woodworking guru but I find the old ways are better than the new hiteck be it woodworking or mechanical things
Yes, but you're selecting for a strong survivorship bias with what you're saying about the ones lasting a hundred years. I'm sure there are both and that hide glue done poorly doesn't last
@@jjonsolomon I agree. I make my own hide glue. I also have learned to make good solid joints to give the glue the best opportunity to do its job.
"Heat is going to rise".....really? Still thinking that way? Heat doesn't actually rise. heat displaces cold, giving the illusion of it rising. Now, HOT AIR will rise, and I am sure that is what he meant.
bro you should grow some facial hair
You should grow taller.
Not a woodworker. Why does wavy matter? Looks or structural? Looks should not matter. My opinion.
I use a towel to dry my wood
Don’t you want to put a few holes in the top to let out moisture?
Not in the top, because the heat would also leave that way. I'd put a woolly insulation filled vent in the back, or small holes in the bottom.
@27:41 Am I the only one here to be disappointed that the gentlemen didn't give the most precious tip to succeed this project?
Tee-shirt and kaki shorts... yep that's how you make your work perfect!
Foam will absolutely dull straight edge blade, though I don't know how bad it would dull a toothed one. The easiest way to cut foam is with a hot knife. You can get one from Harbor Freight for like $20 on clearance.
The best way to cut that foam is with an 18mm utility knife. Score it about 1/4 to 1/2 way through then fully extend the blade. Angle the fully extended blade so the entire blade is being used to cut the foam and do a final cut right through all the foam. It takes 5-10 seconds to squarely and fully detach 2' of foam at full width with this two cut method, depending on your comfort with a fully extended utility razor.
You built an EZ-Bake Oven. this is literally what EZ-Bake ovens were.
EZ-Bake Oven FTW!
I have a chair that was built with no glue !
I've seen guys clamp a rubber 'boot' on the end of bamboo poles connected to an airline.
Using a cycle pump to put about 30 lbs of pressure on one end drives out all the sap fairly quickly. They use it to also drive in borax solution for insect protection at the time.
I wonder if it would be possible to use that technology to dry the rungs? Maybe you could just blow the sap out of those short sticks in a few minutes?
You can buy a baseboard heater thermostat at the Big Box stores that will do the same thing, only it will have to be inside the kiln not outside, as the temperature sensor is in the thermostat, not on a tethered sensor. they switch 110 volt but you would have to add wires yourself, not just plug in, if you're confident with wiring, and dont want to wait for Amazon/shipping etc.
So to not use glue, you glued the kiln together 😂