Baking my driftwood.

rufioman

rufioman

"That guy"
Aug 16, 2010
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Northern Arizona, USA.
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Heath
Hello, again. My question today is about baking driftwood in the oven. I bleached a ton of 16-18" pieces that'll fit in my 55g and after soaking them for 24 hours in dechlorinated water and changing the water many times, I want to be sure the bleach is out 100%. I've read 350 for 30 minutes-2 hours so that is where I'm starting. The wood is soaking for 20 minutes before going in.
 
HuH? Baking wood! If your worried about chlorine just add alittle prime or other declorinator/water conditioner to your soak bucket after soaking in bleach. Soaking in extremely hot water(boiling) will take care of any contaminates without the use of bleach.
 
I don't have anything large enough to boil the pieces in. I've read around that this is a popular method as long as you watch it. I'm just trying to dry it out enough to make sure the bleach is out before I soak them again. I just want to be 100% sure.
 
Baking wet wood stinks to high heaven IME. I soak bleached wood in generously Primed water for a day or 3 & call it good. Baking can also dry wood out enough to float again, a PITA.
 
The only reason to bake driftwood (gathered in the wild especially) is to make sure you have killed any critters living in it--ants, termites, beetles down to fungus and other microscopic stuff.

Baking it to remove chlorine will just give you wood with hot chlorine. :)
 
Yup. Bleached it first then boiled it and now it's soakin' away again. I don't mind, I wanted to be safe and it worked out pretty well. Just gotta wait for it to log and I'm in no hurry :)
 
If you go with baking it (which I have done), I would stick with a lowe temp like 225-250...and back a few hours. It can and most likely will dry it out some and it may float. When I did mine it was to kill off anything that may of been alive on it (it was found outside), then soaked it in a big tub with boiling water that I added a box of kosher salt to (to draw out impurities).
 
I did the bleach first then baked it for 25-30 at 350. Next time I'll get smaller pieces and just boil them. How long does it usually take for them to soak through enough? A week? I might just anchor them with silicone and slate...
 
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