# Dry time for hemlock



## woodyman666 (Sep 13, 2009)

So I sent a bunch of hemlock trees to the local mill to finish of the ceilings and the walls of the man room. I have had dry time answers all over the place. I have been drying it five weeks with box fans running thru it all , stickered of course and running a dehumidifier 24-7 also. It seems that the lumber is now much lighter. How do I know when its ready to nail up. Seems like its close? Anything i should be doing diferently? Im not going to plane it just hit it with a quick sander so it matches the ruffness of what the existing owner did with the half that he decided to do..... Newbie to lumber thanks


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## discounthunter (Sep 13, 2009)

it depends.... when were the trees cut , what saeson they were cut in , and how thick are your planks. a moisture sensor will give you a % of moisture content in the wood, im not familiar with hemlock so im not suure what a good working amount would be , nor the stability (warping ,twisting, cracking) of hemlock. sorry i probably got you no futher than you were.


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## Brmorgan (Sep 14, 2009)

The general guideline out here where I live is 4 months to air-dry softwood lumber in the summer, and 6+ in the winter, depending. Since you've been forcing air thru the stacks and have been running a DH setup, that should significantly lower your times.

Wood is generally considered "dry" at 19% moisture content or less, and is usually done most of the warping or moving it will do by that point. If you don't have a moisture meter, you _can_ measure the moisture content by cutting a small sample piece, weighing it (need a sensitive scale for this), drying it in the oven for a a couple hours, and re-weighing it. Formula for this is (wet weight) - (dry weight) = (moisture weight), therefore (moisture weight) / (dry weight) = (moisture percentage). For instance if a piece weighed 1 KG (metric is easier for this) wet, and 800g when dry, it would be: 1000 - 800 = 200g moisture, 200 / 800 = 0.25 = 25% moisture content. Hope that makes sense. The common misconception with this is for the mosture weight to be divided by the wet weight of the wood, which in this example would result in a 20% moisture content (200/1000) which would be incorrect.

Having said all that, you can find cheap moisture meters at most big-box tool and wood stores for a couple dozen bucks (at least in Canada here). I probably wouldn't rely on their accuracy for cabinetry and fine furniture work, but for structural they would be just fine.


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## woodyman666 (Sep 14, 2009)

thanks for the help Ill probably get a moisture meter it sounds cool and i figure i can play arround with moisture counts on my firewood while im at it. Plus plan on downing some other trees to have milled up for custom projects. I think its real nice to look at a tree out back and think of a project for it....


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## Backwoods (Sep 15, 2009)

For hemlock studs the moisture content needs to bellow 13% and above 4%. Some of the big mills can force dry tracks (36 units) in as little as 56 hours, at this rate you should expect high losses due to kiln defects, The temperature that you maintained your wood at during the drying process will be a big factor. A cheap moisture meter will save you from having a lot of movement after the wood is in place.


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