using old refrigerator to dry turning wood blanks

[Doug Herzberg]

Doug,
I found that air movement inside was not needed. The purpose of loading if full was to get the humidity high inside to slow down the initial drying of the blanks. The same concept of keeping them in paper bags initially. By not opening the cabinet for the first two weeks the humidity could gradually vent out as the blanks became dryer and this reduced the cracking factor. Usually I don't open it for three - four weeks. By then they are usually ready to pull out.
Cabinet # 2 is actually an upright clothes dryer (for hanging clothes to reduce wrinkles). I had never seen one of these before but a friend was going to sell the thing on Craigslist so I got it off of him. It has built in temperature and fan controls but the cabinet is not insulated. When I put stuff in this cabinet with the air movement things dried too quickly and I got a lot of failures. This could have been because I didn't have enough inventory turned to load it full.
I'm going to experiment by putting things into the dishwasher cabinet until they get down to 13-14% and then try the dryer cabinet to finish them off. It will require some trial and error but I'll find out if a bowl develops any problems from the moving air after they are mostly dry.
Search youtube for dishwasher kiln. It's not the best video but it's where I got the idea and basic information to start. I just loaded the cabinet with a batch of bowl, most of them oak that were 25-30% moisture. I'll try to report back in several weeks on how they do.

Thanks for the reply, Don. I was growing mold on a couple batches, which is what led me to buy the humidistat. I just haven't gotten around to hooking things up. Life intervened.

[Doug Herzberg]

Oh, yeah, you can also get ceramic heating elements that fit into standard light bulb sockets. They're usually sold as reptile lamps.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017RCQ4JO/

That's a lot easier than a dishwasher element. Thanks.

[Tony De Masi]

I run two old upright freezers for drying rough outs. Incandescent 150w bulb plus fan. I use this dimmer switch, link below, which allows me to change the output of the bulb without opening the door of the freezer. I run for seven days on each setting thus resulting in a 28 day cycle. I am able to reach temps of 138* which is sufficient to eradicate any little critters that survived the rough out.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1