Nothing wrong with the 2-wk cure as long as you have reliably low-humidity ambient air to dry it in. Rains a lot here, so I needed to make my own low-humidity air.

So it happens, a dryer is faster than hang drying and the air motion alone suppresses mould. Because I'm limiting temp to 29C/84F, this dryer is not much different than hang drying on a warm, dry, windy summer day. It's worlds different from a commercial food dryer at ~100-140F.

The hot knife thang is a good trick. Definitely an outdoor job, tho. The plastic smoke is wicked. If you're clever, you can wire a dimmer into a power outlet strip and use that to vary the temperature of the soldering iron element to reduce smoking.