>A few weeks ago at the local dump there was a dehumidifier looking in good condition, it was too heavy for me to just pick it up and carry it home, but since, I have been ruminating with the idea of building a box in a spot of the house where temperature is even, no major changes and have a dehumidifier take the moisture out of that box, which of course will be loaded with bowls.
What do you think, will that work?
Has anybody tried or done that?
An alternative to the alcohol method that will not raise brows when asking for a 5 gal bucket...
>I seem to recall that American Woodworker published plans for a drying cabinet using a household dehumidifier, probably within the past two years. You might be able to locate that issue by searching their subject index.
>Controlling the humidity inside of an enclosed chamber is the way wood is dried commercially. Doing it with a dehumidifier is one way of doing that. Whether it will work for you depends on how much wood you are wanting to dry.
I would jump on it if I lived in a more humid climate and had problems with drying wood. I don't, and am able to accomplish the same thing with a fan, a heater in the winter, and a damper to control the exchange of outside air in my drying room. I used a dehumidifier in FL, and it worked so well that I would use one again if it were available for free.
Having the dehumidifier is only one part of the system. You will have to measure the humidity before you can control it. That can be done with something as simple as a wet bulb/dry bulb thermometer and a conversion chart, or an electronic thermometer that reads both and makes the conversion for you. Neither is an expensive item.
After that you have the choice of turning the dehumidifier off and on manually or installing a controller that will do that for you.
The chamber can be something as simple as a tarp thrown over the dehumidifier and the wood that is on pallets on the shop floor, to an enclosed space with dampers and a heater.
If that unit is still at the dump I will grab it, if not I will keep my eyes open for another. Come spring I will be building myself a small room to house the lathes and I am plying with the idea of a drying cabinet, dreaming is cheap.
>I have a dedicated work shop. I keep my Dehunidifier on all the time. It keeps my shop at constent humidity. The side benifit is that none of my machines form any surface rust and all my wood, including things drying, stay stable.
THe problem I have is remembering to dump it. I am going to run a hose to it this year so that will not be a problem.
>Try WoodMagazine.com. They ran a series of articles on drying and understanding wood. I am almost sure one of the articles was on how to build a kiln using a dehumifier.
>Jorge give it a try, I can't see why it wouldn't work. I have a dehumififier in my basement and it certainly dried the basement up, machine table tops, tools no longer have a fine film of rust and no musty smell down there. I don't have a special drying room for seasoning my rough turnings just a drying racks but I know it certainly speeds the process up a little bit. In this part of Canada you may have a week or two of damp weather (fog) and then get a dry spell for a month or more, the dehumififier seems to level things and keep the humidity constant. Before I got the dehumififier some of my bowls actually took on moisture during a damp or wet period. Good luck on the one at the dump but you no doubt will find it to be nonoperational. Most of the home type dehumififiers have a weak spot, that being the compressor. When the compressor dies, quite often the cost of replacing it and recharging it with refrigerant is close to the cost of a new dehumififier, that's why a number of them end up at the local dump or land fill site. Hope luck will be with you on you find and you will be able to put it to work.
>It will work very well. But !!! It doesn't do everything without your interaction. You need to build a sealed box and I do mean sealed. Fans built in to move the air around. You need a heat source (100 watt bulbs work). You need a thermostat to control the heat. You need a moisture meter to see what is happening in the wood. These are just a few of the things you need to understand to get it to work well. With practice you can dry stuff in about 30 days from wet to dry. Helps to measure the water and you must check it everyday to set the de-humitifer higher or lower depending on how much water is coming out. Once you learn how to control things it does work great. If you are in business then it is worth it, if not stick it on the shelf for 6 months. Just my opinion.
We are next door neigbors so to speak, here in Deer Isle, we have fog many days of the year, and it is very humid. The idea started for a drying cabinet, but you and Dallas tell me that the shop improves with the dehumidifier, and tools do not rust, so now I am thinking of dehumidifiying the shop. It is going to be small, only 12' x 12'. You are right, examining the one in the dump it does not have the compressor.
>Nyle(made in Maine) kilns are just computer controlled dehumidifiers.David Lancaster`s Ebac(?) is the same thing.
Alot of info about home grown kilns can be had by talking to Mac or Pete Asslyn at the turning club Jorge.I believe most of the folks use nothing more than a couple lightbulbs and a small fan hooked up to a thermostat.
BTW-while you`re at the dump look at the old refrigerators.They make an excellent enclosure,already insulated and they seal up tight.
All the info you give me is valuable, at this point I still have to make my mind between a drying cabinet and dehimidifying the whole room, as Bruce and Dallas tell me they have it in their shops and tools don't rust, which would be nice as it is a definite problem here.
I will talk to Peter at the meeting tonight and pic his brains. The fridge is a good idea, but I need something bigger, next year there will be no more carpentry, I finally learn to say no, and all the winter and spring will be for turning... :o)
I would be careful assuming that dehumidifying your whole workshop will solve both problems at the same time. I dehumidify my shop to keep the moisture at 38%-40% relative humidity. It works great for controlling rust and keeping my PREVIOUSLY air-dried and kiln dried lumber ready to work with.
When roughing out bowls I have to get them out of there rather quickly and into the basement of the house so they don�t dry too fast in the beginning and check.
On a kiln drying schedule the boards that are pre-dried before entering the kiln are occasionally treated with steam to condition the wood to the schedule of the wetter woods introduce with the same batch. A kiln treats the wood at high humidity initially and then slowly reduces the moisture to control degrade.
I still use air drying for my larger bowls but have switched to alcohol soaking for the smaller ones. Have you thought about trying that technique out?
You were at Bill Grumbine's BBQ last year weren't you? Well, some of the bowls I brought with me were alcohol soaked. If you show up this year, I'll be sure to have some more with me.
I started thinking dehumidifier, after asking the local hardware store to get me a 5 gal bucket, they gave me "the look" and told me it was not possible, then I went to a near city and asked in the paint shop, they said, we cannot get 5 gal bucket, only 10 gal container, then for several weeks I was told "it is back oredered" finally it down on me that they have no intention of getting it. I must have the looks of a suspect ...
I will be at 5 barns again, looking forward to see you and your bowls.
>The magazine that had the article for drying wood with a dehumifier is American Woodworker Issue #94 June 2002. Cover article. Try WWW.americanwoodworker.com.
Steve Knight of Knight Toolworks did a lot of playing around over the past couple of years with dehumidifying/heating/vacuuming of wood to speed drying of exotic pieces of wood for hand planes. He posted a lot of questions and comments and progress reports over on the main message board. You might want to do a search over there, or drop him a line.
