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I made a lightbulb kiln for drying chair rungs (for Appalachian ladder back chairs) down to 4%.
I want a thermostat to cycle the temperature between 120* and 140*. Any recommendations based on your experiences?
This is one I see on amazon (hope it's okay to post a link?), a Barite BTC201 - is this suitable?
https://www.amazon.com/bayite-Pre-Wi...mostat+plug-in
thanks for any ideas, Mark
Tagging along. A kiln for bowl blanks on my to do list.
Mark,
Looking at the specs and it should work. I've had a hard time finding a DIY temperature and humidity sensor that will tolerate higher temps that are needed for wood drying. The specs on the Bayite thermostat lists 58 F to 230 F temperature range, so your well within the temps needed for wood drying.
Don't know if your concerned about humidity in a small single purpose kiln? If not, a question for others: how are you monitoring and controlling the humidity? With high temps (>100 F) the remote humidity and temp. digital sensors that I've tried, don't work. I've also burned up two home dehumidfiers when the temperature was above 95 F. It doesn't look like a standard dehumidifier will tolerate high temps.
Also for others reading this thread and doing a DIY system, what are you going to use for your heat source? I've been using Oscillating parabolic heaters from Harbor Freight. Seemed to work fine but I'd be open to other ideas.
David Mealey
Milwaukie Hardwoods, LLC
www.milwaukiehardwoods.com
Thanks David, I'll go ahead and order the thermostat.
Right now humidity control isn't an issue for me of course - the rungs go into the kiln between 8 and 12% - but it'll probably be an issue for Greg and his bowls. I plan on doing some bowls down the road so I'm interested to know how to deal with this too.