Drying wood--

[Raven]

the apple wood i chose was already dried (dead on the tree)
wood is supposed to have 20 % moisture in it to prevent dry rot.

[seabuggy]

I have tried to dry blanks in a home made kiln, with not much luck. When I used a moisture meter, they didn't show much improvement. My friend Thom got some white cedar blanks that work great. I was surprised that the demonstrators at the show were using plain old pine right out of Home Depot.

[Johnny C]

does ash work well?

[Raven]

ash is used quite often for tool handles and can be found for free if you look for broken tool handles in the trash on the side of the road, and in that case its long since been dry.

[seabuggy]

I once read that Stan Gibbs worked in a shipyard during the war. His plug making was in its infancy, and he used ash from tool handles. The article said all the shovels, rakes, etc were best suited to very short people because Stan confiscated the first two feet from each. His turned out OK, so should yours.