Drying sand in the oven- anyone try it?

this is a weird thread. we dry sand in our lab at work so it can be tested. my recommendation would be first DO NOT dry sand in your kitchen oven unless you want your wife to divorce you or have you declared an idiot. buy dry silica sand as others have mentioned. if you must dry it, do it in a pan outside on a camp stove or gas grill. stir it and it will be dry in about 10 minutes or the time it takes to drink one to two full beers. personally, i recommend the lead shot route using the finer shot, and don't worry about contamination unless you ingest it or grind it and snort it. ok, some have said to rinse it off - if it makes you feel better. oh, and there are disposal issues when you are done with it.

I paid $3.75 a 50 lb bag of kiln dried #30 sand at Home Depot. YOu'll spend more in Gas or Electricity, I think, drying it in your oven. Of course, you could always spread it out in your back yard on a sunny day. If it's not too windy that is...

The shot melted! Ha! Ha! Reminds me of a calamity that occurred 30 yrs. ago. See, I had to melt lead into bricks to use as ballast on my racekart. So I got these discarded printing plates by the 100's. Late in the night I took a metal ice-cube tray and placed it across 2 red hot burners on the stove (having tried the oven to no avail) and put the plates in. Worked like a charm! Soon I had 2 trays full of melted lead. Then my roomie comes out at 2am wondering what the smoke was (printing plates have ink on them) and gets a glass of water. He looks at my project warily, then slips on the kitchen floor, the water goes flying, and some water drops land into the molten lead.

BOOM! THE LEAD SPRAYS ALL OVER THE PLACE >>>> CEILING, STOVE, EVERYWHERE, ME. My buddy falls AND BREAKS HIS ARM! No ballast resulted. SAND WOULD HAVE BEEN EASIER, I'm certain. Colm