fruit dryer

[Duane_Moore]

well here it comes, laugh you heart out, what about using a food dehidrater for a kiln? out here they dry fruit in large dryers, maybe some of you have seen them, they cover many acres, dry fruit at about 140 degrees for xx amount of hours, these bays are about 12' X12' on tracks, 10' tall, any Ideas?  

[Bigdogpc]

If I had access to one of those driers, I would give it a shot.  I imagine if you compared one of them to the solar wood drier plans available on the internet, they are probably very similar.  If the lumber was air dried first then loaded into one of them the results would probably be very good.

My two cents may not be worth a whole bunch since I am just a new guy at all this.  I am beginning to build a solar drier myself and have even looked at some small food driers as a possible drier for small stuff that I might use to build with or turn on the lathe.  My "lumber" is two hours away but I bring "shorts" home with me.

If you do a search for info on solar driers, the results will surprise you.  The food driers and wood driers are very similar.  Good luck and keep us posted!

[Ianab]

Duane
Not a totally crazy idea.. but I guess the problem would be to control the drying to stop wood checking etc. Might not be so bad with easy to dry species like our pine, that basically just needs to be dried as fast as possible. I think that oak and apricots have different drying schedules?
Doesn't mean you couldn't convert one to work like a sloar kiln of course
Never hurts to chuck new ideas around and see what happens

Ian

[solidwoods]

What is it a dehumidifier   boiler what?
What are the specs.  
It most probably could be controlled to run a kiln schedule if it is sized within the moisture removal abilities it has.   Never seen one,  if it's big it's prob.  3ph (not a show stopper but a little more $)
JIM

[Duane_Moore]

 :-[ well let me try to describe one,  they are like a single car garage, doors on both ends, set of tracks that they roll wooded trays stacked up to about 7 ft tall on, these trays are about 6'x4'x1" thick, the fruit is layed out on these trays then stacked trays about 7' tall them serveal trays are rolled it to the garage, doors closed, and fired up with overhead gas burners and kept at a ceatain temp for an alloted time(example prunes, 140degreees for 27 hrs) then removed and on and on, there are about 200. of these dryeres per unit, these cover many acres, wish I could post pictures, they use minature rail road tracks for the moving of these,  Duane

[solidwoods]

Wow a direct fire kiln.  One prob if flame is exposed,  kiln's have allot of air movement from fans.
And you would have to continously vent (for oxygen) which won't work for a kiln schedule.
It could be done, but the exhaust would have to be reworked.
I like the build a woodfired water heater kiln best.
Simple weld job.
Easy to controll.
Heats other buldg's also
But burns wood,,got wood?
JIM