I build musical instruments so my work pieces are small and I consume relatively small amounts of board feet. That said I like to salvage dead trees and have a ready supply of dead cherry trees since they tend to live only until they are 10-14 in diameter here. I have used some blown down trees rough sawn by eye with a chainsaw and then milled at home on a 14" bandsaw.

I have been surprised that the planks seem to dry pretty fast just sitting in the shop, but as I do more of this I think maybe a small kiln might make sense. My work never requires finished pieces more than 3' long and most are less (most of it is ultimately sawn into thicknesses of 0.090-0.125"). I could see a kiln as small as one accommodating only a couple dozen board feet and a maximum length of only 3-6' working for me.

Has anyone used or seen a kiln that tiny? Is there any reason it is an especially bad idea?

Solar sounds appealing, but I am not sure if I can find an acceptable spot that gets more than a few hours of sun per day. I am in Tallahassee so the sun is pretty hot, but I just don't have a place with long hours of sun.

I wonder if something quite small with a small muffin fan and a light bulb or two for heat would be at all practical.

Thoughts on any of that? I have only had a minimum of experience with this and probably have done everything wrong so far, but I have been happy with being able to produce small quantities nice useable stock despite my crude approach.