The Forestry Forum

hi there, i just had a talk to a guy who is part of what we call a machine ring here in germany and he brings people together with different types of machinery, so he asked me if i could do some milling for him and have the wood dryed too.  no i can´t but then we kept on talking and had the idea that we build a container for drying and bring it to the place where we set up the mill.  then he had the next idea that he works for plants who produce electricity out of bio gas, say they have a small plant that turns either animal [I have typed a profane word that is automatically changed by the forum censored words program I should know better] or degraded corn etc. into gas and burn it for making elektricity..   and they mostly have to get rid of the heat into the plai air,  we could set a fitting to them and use the heating the provide. 
does anyone ever build a kiln into a normal sea container, i thought of an insulated old freezer container and jut put the rails and the vents in there........
maybe a little bit plain thinking but maybe there is someone who has done it.
ulf Germany

Greetings,
                I live on the West Coast in Oregon. My dad and I bought an old freezer type shipping container that contains a Nyle L200 in it. We have yet to use, but I am just weeks away from drying my first load of Alder lumber. I hope that it comes out OK. The Kiln chamber was well put together and the previous owner had no problems. As far as I can tell this type of container works very well for drying. I hope this helps.

                                              Mike M.
                                              Noti, OR.

Just Google "container kilns" , there is a lot of info.  They work great.
Example

http://www.firewoodkiln.com/firewood/Reference/122E284F-C93C-4B32-8907-264764FAFD8F.html

Ulf, I have a kiln that I made from an old shipping container.  In my instance, it is not very portable because I built a chamber in the side of it to house the dehumidification unit (the chamber adds about 30" to the middle of one side).

One potential downside to drying at a customer location is that you really should check your kiln load every day.  If you weren't on site every day, you could experience quality problems.

Neat idea though.

Scott

Someone calls in with this idea about once a month. It isn't too practical because of electrical connections, monitoring the load, cost of moving and so on. It is less expensive to bring the lumber to the kiln than to bring the kiln to the lumber.