maybe if the blade is completely cured (dried) there might be no problems with shrink wrapping. Any moisture still in the wood when heat is applied during the shrinking of the plastic and also afterwards during storage and posting might not have a positive effect on the blade.
Never mind, all the plastic bags have already been forced out of the supermarkets here and soon the Greenies will prohibit the use of plastic in any wrapping and this will end heatshrink wrapping of blades as well. 😂
Just be careful when you carry home a wet piece of fish wrapped in a paper bag.
Actually (putting on his wood-geek hat), there's always a residual amount of moisture present in dried wood, which typically varies anywhere from 8 to 15 percent or more by weight, depending on your location on the planet and its climate.
It's only relevant because the playing properties of virtually every timber species will vary widely, depending on the amount of residual moisture currently remaining in it.
I mention this because a lot of people have reported doing some really weird stuff, like putting their blades in a hot oven to try and dry it out more and thereby make it lighter.
Not only is this terrible for the blade glue (and the wood), but it's also a waste of time and energy. As the wood cools, it's gonna suck some moisture back out of the air into itself, and gain weight again. It's also going to permanently change the consistency of the natural timber oils in the wood.
To keep that residual moisture out you'd have to seal it while it was still hot (a very dumb idea). Plus even if this worked, you'd still permanently alter the consistency of the wood in the process, and turn the wood in the core of your blade into something more closely resembling chalk than timber.
Anyhoo - long story short, it's worth remembering the timber in your blade *always* has some residual moisture in it, and as a player, you really want to keep it there, and keep the amount of moisture changes relatively stable.
It's not the presence of water in your blade that's the problem, the problem is when its absorbing more or less moisture than it should, and the moisture is being exchanged unevenly throughout the blade.
That's when one/some parts of the blade will swell or contract more than the rest of it, and you get problems with warp, cupping, twist, bowing delamination, creepage or kink developing in the wood.
(PS: ...no, not that sort of kink. The other, far more boring type 🤣 ..though on reflection, kink in a blade would really be due to grain issues rather than movement.)
