We had to cut down last winter some trees from the garden, two 40 yo cherry and walnut, as they were endangering the house when there was storm, wind,

A Solar Kiln to dry wood. Overview, design and build (I)

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2023-02-04 17:30:04

We had to cut down last winter some trees from the garden, two 40 yo cherry and walnut, as they were endangering the house when there was storm, wind, ice etc. So I have managed to save few usable trunks and large branches and went to a local sawmill to make some 25 mm (1”) thick lumber and ended up with circa 0.4 m3 (170 bf) of cherry and a few boards of walnut. I would have get more wood from those trees, but the base trunks were full of nails, wires, even a damn horseshoe was inside that cheery :)

Having no kiln in my area to dry this wood properly I decided to build one myself, mostly for experimentation and the satisfaction to make my own workable wood from the beginning of laying down the tree and having it properly cut and dried in your workshop ready to make a project from it.

The solar kiln is based on the well know Virginia Tech design, adapted for my own needs and materials I could find easily on local hardware stores. Mine is a small one, with a gross storage space inside of about 1.5 m in length, 0.85 m wide and 0.65 high (~5’ x 2.75’ x 2’ ). Why this small, first, I do mainly small projects, so 1.5 m (5’) long boards are more than enough for me, second, at this length I can easily transport with a small car some trunks to the mill, take some trees from peps who cut down theirs from the gardens etc, and maybe third reason, storage space after drying, once you have it dried to 7-9% you must keep it somewhere inside, or use it, otherwise leaving it outside the MC (moisture content) will return to 12-14%.