Flexible Kiln Baffles

[Larry Lindberg]

Several years ago at a West Coast Dry Kiln Meeting Jon Burnett from Idaho Forest Industries talked about flexible kiln baffles that they had installed in their dry kilns. They were made out of a high density polyethylene brush material. I was wondering if anyone else out there has ever experimented with this type of baffle ? And were the results positive? And what supplier did you find that had this type of material? In revisiting the article this type of baffling seems to show positive merit. If any of you are currently using this type of baffle or know of an operation that is please reply.

[MichaelM]

Hi Larry,
From what I have heard, the material did not hold up well at kiln temperatures and users ended up with black strings all over the place as they degraded.
Maybe an actual user can make a first-hand comment,
Mike M.

[GeorgeCulp]

I have no working experience with the brush type baffles however I have done some airflow checks in a kiln where they were being used and 400 ft/min was leaking through and this kiln had about 700 ft/min through 3/4" stick slots

[rfosters]

Jon developed the idea at IFI back in the ninetys IFI let him patten the idea but I think he sold the patten.
I worked with Jon during this time and up until he retired.  But A few of the Stimson mills still use this type of overhead baffle.  Priest River stud mill is one of them and it has to be done correctly or you wont be happy with the result.  Double thickness works best and you can get the baffle brushes from Motion Ind. but make sure you get the high temp stuff or the planer will scrape the melted remains off the top of the units.
Most of the Stimson mills were heading in that direction.  Personally I wouldn't use anything else. maintenace is almost nonexistent and the brushes conform to any layer height differences.