The Forestry Forum

I've been making some live edge cutting boards and i would like to speed up my drying process....I'm trying an experiment and want some insight if it'll work......I have an old large freezer that I was able to fit a dehumidifier in along with several pieces of wood that I plan on making boards out of....I cut a small notch in the door seal to put the chord through and stuck a drain hose out the bottom.........work or no work???????????

Put a small 1500 watt electric heater in too. If you can get the temp up around a 100+ degrees it should work pretty well.
 

The species of wood you dry will impact your success.  It's easy to dry wood such as oak and walnut too quickly and cause it to tear itself apart.  Also there is always the potential to case harden lumber if dried too quickly which will result in a dry shell and wet core - that will come back to haunt you later on when using the lumber.  Some species will require a much higher temperature than a consumer grade dehumidifier and fan will operate at to get the final moisture out, so you need to be able to deal with all of those issues to have a successful, stable, finished product. 

If you can put in a monitor that will tell you the temperature and humidity it will give you a much better idea of what is happening with your lumber as it dries and allow you to make any necessary adjustments as you go.  Can it work - maybe with some tweaking I think so, but it's not going to be plug and play.