Well, in an idea to help find a way to speed dry some cane shafts, I have decided to try to bake them. I looked up the combustion point for paper and found it to be 450 degees F. I am using 225 right now. I am trying one shaft right now. I weighed it at 30 grams which converts to 462 grains. It is 29 inches long, which is the longest my oven will hold. I put it in the oven at 12:58 AM. I will pull it out in 30 min to check weight loss. And continue to do so until weight loss stops.
30 minutes later.... The shaft is now down to 24 grams or 369 grains. I havent seen any splitting yet, though it is for sure warping a bit. Will require straightening, but it needed that to start with. Back in for another 30 min...
After another 30 min... Its now down to 20 grams or 308 grains. It seems that moisture loss is slowing down after the first 30 min.
Another 30 min later... after the last 30 min I took the shaft out the oven and noticed it started to turn brown a bit. Just slightly. I put it on the scale again and no weight was lost. Still right at 20 grams/308 grains.
I know this was just one shaft, but off this little test I will say that a person could reasonably expect to dry bamboo shafts in the oven inside an hour. I would recommend bundling them together in groups tied with a natural fiber chord to help prevent warpage. Obviously a bundle will take longer than one to dry, but consider these two things. 1, I dried all the water out, not just allowing it to reach ambient humidity as would be with natural drying, and 2, this was an 1 1/2 hour experiment, but it was dry all the way before I took it out the oven after its first hour. That being said, I bet a bundle of 10 or so could dry inside an hour.
