That sounds harsh! And I might point out dangerous.

The seal on a microwave is critical and one of the federal requirements.

Litton had a lock on it for years due to the background and precision.

A bag in the crack would or could let those waves out of the cracks
or through the plastic.


I microwaved wood bowls and preforms on low heat. I had an old workhorse
600 watt and could turn it down to 10%. Steam can crack wood and explode
trapped liquid areas.

I was able to dry with fewer cracks - and smaller cracks by doing it slower.

I never put it in a bag - put it in a glass dish.

Martin

Bill Noble wrote:


"John" wrote in message
...
In message , coffelt2
writes


I didn't search the newsgroup, but I did a small test a few months
ago
with some small, green curly willow branches. (too small, really, for
most turning projects) but the unpeeled 1 1/2" or so branches were
splitting rapidly and far up from the ends. I tried heating them in the
microwave three or four times over a week or ten days, and it seemed
to really reduce the splitting. I didn't leave them long enough to do
any
real drying, just to heat them up so they were too hot to handle bare
handed.
Boatbuilder friend said heating the green wood loosens the
lignin bonds so many of the stresses in the uneven drying wood
are relieved, reducing the splitting forces. He cited the steam bending
of wood as an example. Not so much the moisture, but the heat.
Does sort of make some sense to me.

Old Chief Lynn
I did some playing earlier last year with some pieces of wild cherry.
As I was using the household microwave. I placed the pieces in a
plastic food bag, with the open end trapped in the door. The microwave
is a deltawave so no turntable.

Switched on for 2 minutes till the water was steaming out. Carefully
removed the bag and drained surplus fluid, repeated the operation 10
times, each time weighing between. Was loosing about 2% weight each
heating. None cracked, compared to pieces that were left to air dry,
which would make nice toothpicks

Hopefully this year I will experiment with some large pieces
--
John






when I tried this with Olive, and some other mystery wood, my results
were massive cracks - boiling in water closed them back up