Wood Stabilizing #2 Out of the resin and into the oven
When the wood came out of the resin. I used blue gloves, and wrapped the pieces in aluminum foil, with at least one layer of foil between each piece. I did the little packets of wood “flat” so they would heat more quickly.
For the 24 pieces of wood, I ended up with five packets, which I piled into the toaster oven. I tried to make sure air would be able to circulate between them and turned on the convection fan in the oven.
Curtis says in a hurry, you can check the wood after an hour or two, but I'm not in a huge hurry. Half-cured wood will be junk, as you can't re-bake it to finish curing it if you pull it out too early and let it cool, so I plan to give it at least 3-4 hours, which will mean resetting the oven in a couple hours.
As I was wrapping up the wood, the thing I noticed (sorry, no pictures – didn't want to risk getting resin on my phone) was how some of the wood got a lot darker (pine, butternut, redwood, maple, birch), while other looked almost untouched (holly, hickory, hackberry and the elm, which really surprised me). The real test is how it looks and works once it's cured, but I can't help speculating about how things are going to come out as I sit here waiting for the heat to do its thing.
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