drying the milled wood

Come on aggie, we all know that those guys are wannabe hacks who know diddly about drying wood.:hmm3grin2orange:


I guess if sap's approach to carpentry is anything like his approach to drying lumber then no wonder he has been idle for going on 2 months. Rain never stopped the crew I worked on, unless we were framing the roof. Besides a little rain ain't gonna hurt the MC of the lumber from Home depot, right?:deadhorse:

Well, it looks like the know-it-all got spanked again by you guys.

:biggrinbounce2:

I may be making a mistake, but I have to admit there is some validity to some of 'sap's arguments. There are many individuals that waste a lot of time and money following the book to the Nth degree. This is usually a result of inexperience and ignorance but, hey, we all got to start some where.

The project the material is intended for dictates the reasonable degree of care one should give it. Once again, experience is the best way to learn this.

Per his personal profile, Sap is a self proclaimed "carpenter extrordinaire" which explains a lot to me. Carpenters and Woodworkers are NOT the same animal. I was raised by a carpenter, worked as a frame carpenter, trim carpenter, cabinet builder and presently, a construction manager by trade and Woodworker by profession. When I started getting in to fine woodworking I realized I had A LOT to learn to even come close to the title of Woodworker. I am by no means an expert, master woodworker but one of my goals in life is to get there.

That said, in MY experience, I have learned the unavoidable, basic truth of wood movement due to MC loss. For example, I built a farm style dining table of post oak that my Father sawed and air dried for three years. The top was 40" x 120" x 2" and was glued up from 4 individual boards. When the finished table was moved to it's present location, our cabin, it shrunk by 3/8" in width but I allowed for movement so all is well. Mind you this is NOT conditioned space yet the difference in ambient MC still had an effect. Also, the logs the cabin were built from were air dried for anywhere from six to eighteen months prior to being moved and re-stacked at the ranch. They were then allowed to acclimate for several more months before going up on the wall. Once the wall reached full height and the roof was installed, the wall shrank at least 2" over the next year due to the logs losing moisture. Again, we allowed for it so all is well.

Sap, please share with us your experiences supporting your arguments.

aggiewoodbutchr said:

I may be making a mistake, but I have to admit there is some validity to some of 'sap's arguments. There are many individuals that waste a lot of time and money following the book to the Nth degree. This is usually a result of inexperience and ignorance but, hey, we all got to start some where.

The project the material is intended for dictates the reasonable degree of care one should give it. Once again, experience is the best way to learn this.

Per his personal profile, Sap is a self proclaimed "carpenter extrordinaire" which explains a lot to me. Carpenters and Woodworkers are NOT the same animal. I was raised by a carpenter, worked as a frame carpenter, trim carpenter, cabinet builder and presently, a construction manager by trade and Woodworker by profession. When I started getting in to fine woodworking I realized I had A LOT to learn to even come close to the title of Woodworker. I am by no means an expert, master woodworker but one of my goals in life is to get there.

That said, in MY experience, I have learned the unavoidable, basic truth of wood movement due to MC loss. For example, I built a farm style dining table of post oak that my Father sawed and air dried for three years. The top was 40" x 120" x 2" and was glued up from 4 individual boards. When the finished table was moved to it's present location, our cabin, it shrunk by 3/8" in width but I allowed for movement so all is well. Mind you this is NOT conditioned space yet the difference in ambient MC still had an effect. Also, the logs the cabin were built from were air dried for anywhere from six to eighteen months prior to being moved and re-stacked at the ranch. They were then allowed to acclimate for several more months before going up on the wall. Once the wall reached full height and the roof was installed, the wall shrank at least 2" over the next year due to the logs losing moisture. Again, we allowed for it so all is well.

Sap, please share with us your experiences supporting your arguments.

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That is the closest thing I've seen to a reasonably accurate summary of the moisture content/drying subject in quite a while.

Building custom furniture is one thing when it comes to drying. Most other uses of lumber are another thing entirely different.
All wood moves, no matter what you do or how dry it is or isn't. That is the nature of the beast. You always make allowances for movement, and go on from there.

The only way to truly 'stabilize' wood is to soak it in a polymer resin under vacuum, so that the air pockets in the wood are displaced by the polymer. Then you have stabilized wood ....and even that moves sometimes

For example, painting the ends of boards and stickering it is a waste of time if you are just going to stack it in the sun to dry. You'd be better off stacking it in a solid stack in the shade, letting it dry slowly, and planing off any mold or discoloration after it has dried (for cabinetmaking). At least you're left with some straight, unsplit lumber in the end.

Oh, and the same thing can be said for getting lumber down to too low of a moisture content. All it takes then is a little moisture in the air or environment, and the wood swells as it absorbs the moisture. The key is finding the right balance.

You'd be better off stacking it in a solid stack in the shade, letting it dry slowly, and planing off any mold or discoloration after it has dried (for cabinetmaking).

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"If" you actually knew anything about this, you'd know that the mould and staining goes so deep that you can't get it out. It will leave a ghost image right through the finish, even if you plane off a half inch!! That is, if the bugs don't ruin the whole pile first!

Sadly, someone here may actually listen to you and try it, ruining there prized lumber!!

Rob

Sawyer Rob said:

"If" you actually knew anything about this, you'd know that the mould and staining goes so deep that you can't get it out. It will leave a ghost image right through the finish, even if you plane off a half inch!! That is, if the bugs don't ruin the whole pile first!

Sadly, someone here may actually listen to you and try it, ruining there prized lumber!!

Rob

Click to expand...

You've got to use your brain. Nobody said to leave it that way long-term.

You've got to use your brain. Nobody said to leave it that way long-term.

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hey mr. genius,

In hot weather with fresh sawn lumber it can happen in a matter of days!!!

Like i said, your spreading chit, and you know "nothing" about properly drying cabinet lumber!

From what i can see, on this entire site "everyone" has you figured out, so why do you keep on makeing yourself look even "stupider" by continuing to post??

You sound like you live in the town of "Bedrock"!!! Say "hi" to Barney for me...

Rob

It wouldn't surprise me a bit, 'sawyer rob'...if you sit at a desk all day. Or maybe a salesman.

coveredinsap said:

That is the closest thing I've seen to a reasonably accurate summary of the moisture content/drying subject in quite a while.

Click to expand...

Just to clarify, your solid stack idea is garbage in any application. I wish I had pictures of the cases of deep mildew stain I've delt with.

But, IF you can show us where the solid stack has worked for you (something other than grape stakes), PLEASE share it with us. I would hate to be wasting my time when I didn't have to.

Newfie said:

Come on aggie, we all know that those guys are wannabe hacks who know diddly about drying wood.:hmm3grin2orange:


I guess if sap's approach to carpentry is anything like his approach to drying lumber then no wonder he has been idle for going on 2 months. Rain never stopped the crew I worked on, unless we were framing the roof. Besides a little rain ain't gonna hurt the MC of the lumber from Home depot, right?:deadhorse:

Click to expand...

Sap IS a carpenter in Florida. Twisted and checked lumber or poor fitting joints aren't so important when your work blows down every couple years.

Finnbear, thanks for your input on drying.
A question for you. I have some maples that I'm going to cut down next winter and I'd like to mill them. For drying, can I stack them in my spare bedroom? I heat with a woodstove and I can keep the door partially closed to regulate temp. Would it be better to stack the wood outside?

Thanks
Greg

Air drying in a spare bedroom - now that is something I have no experience with but I don't think I'd try it. First thing that comes to mind is that indoor humidity in winter is very low and might cause the wood dry too fast on the outside and surface check similar to what happens when placed in direct sunlight. You also don't have wind/airflow inside to carry the moisture away. Air drying is a slow process that requires careful initial preparation and then lots of patience. I also don't think you'll want all that sawdust mess inside your house. I'd look for a good place outside where you can stack/sticker and keep the weather off the pile.
Finnbear

Finnbear is correct. Inside your house is not the place you want to air dry green lumber, at least initially. Not only is your house too dry, the lumber is too wet. You would probably be surprised how much water is released during the drying process. Green (sugar) maple contains approximately 70% water by weight. Let's say you mill 1000 BF of lumber. That stack at should weigh approximately 4957 lbs. at 70% and only 3547 lbs. at 10%. This equates to 1410 lbs. or 170 gallons of lost water. Unless you have a bada$$ HVAC system or a DH unit you will have moisture damage in the room in which it is stored.

Anyone (with a brain) is free to check my figures and correct me if I'm wrong but this info is readily available. I have one book I consult regularly, Understanding Wood, A Craftsman's Guide to Wood Technology by R. Bruce Hoadley. I highly recommend it.

aggiewoodbutchr said:

You would probably be surprised how much water is released during the drying process. Anyone (with a brain) is free to check my figures and correct me if I'm wrong but this info is readily available. I have one book I consult regularly, Understanding Wood, A Craftsman's Guide to Wood Technology by R. Bruce Hoadley. I highly recommend it.

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Aggie is very correct about freshly sawn lumber loosing LOTS of moisture. Couple weeks ago I milled 300 ft of red oak, stacked it right into back of my van as I sliced it off the log with my Ripsaw. When I got home it was dark and raining, didn't unload right away. In fact, that wood stayed in my closed van for almost 36 hours before I got to it. Mistake. The inside of my van was like a sauna bath, wet beads of moisture covered everything inside. In just a day and a half that 300 ft of wet red oak had released gallons of water. Years ago I did try and dry some freshly milled lumber by stickering and stacking inside my garage which did not get opened every day, thus didn't get much change of air. It did dry eventually, but took twice as long and had lot of stain on it because of the mold that came and went. Lesson learned. I have stickered and air dried several thousand bd ft since then, and do it all under roof, but open to let air through. Since I don't have lots of room in my woodshop to stack and dry lumber, another trick that works for me as far as getting that outside wood (15-20%MC) down to 8-10% is to use the top of my garage. It's somewhat like an attic spring through fall, gets hot, not a whole lot of air exchange. I found quite by accident that much of the year, I can take a 15% MC cherry or oak board from the back shed, stick it up in that hot attic for a week or so, and watch as my moisture meter shows it slowly drop down to 8-10%. Kind of a poor mans quick and dirty kiln of sorts. Of course that doesn't work in the dead of winter here, and in middle of summer here on East coast its humid indoors and out. June through September my moisture meter shows that there isn't a lot of difference between the lumber out in my shed and the stuff down in my shop. Only in the fall does the wood MC start to move down into the single digits indoors while the stuff outside stays in the 15% and above range. The bottom line in all of this is to plan ahead for wood movement in your designs and projects, because no matter what you do or where you are, any experienced woodworker will tell you that the wood will eventually move with the weather. Nature of the beast. I too recommend Hoadly's book Understanding Wood, as well as his other companion book Identifying Wood. Both are very good reading, and I find myself pulling them back out over and over.

Thanks, Dave.

As usual, another excellent post.

I have Identifying Wood as well. Great books. Another invaluable book to me is The Wood Book by Hough. This could almost be topic for a new thread.

New thread on favorite Wood books

aggie,
Started a new thread here.
http://www.arboristsite.com/showthread.php?p=422708#post422708
Finnbear

aggiewoodbutchr said:

Finnbear is correct. Inside your house is not the place you want to air dry green lumber, at least initially. Not only is your house too dry, the lumber is too wet. You would probably be surprised how much water is released during the drying process. Green (sugar) maple contains approximately 70% water by weight. Let's say you mill 1000 BF of lumber. That stack at should weigh approximately 4957 lbs. at 70% and only 3547 lbs. at 10%. This equates to 1410 lbs. or 170 gallons of lost water. Unless you have a bada$$ HVAC system or a DH unit you will have moisture damage in the room in which it is stored.

Anyone (with a brain) is free to check my figures and correct me if I'm wrong but this info is readily available. I have one book I consult regularly, Understanding Wood, A Craftsman's Guide to Wood Technology by R. Bruce Hoadley. I highly recommend it.

Click to expand...

We must have lucked out(my wife and I). We are completely redoing a 100yr old house and I dried all my red oak stacked in my dining room for 6 months and I believe it turned out great. Only a few end cracks and very little mold.....just a little black discoloration on a couple boards and since it was on the ends I didn't have to worry about it. I do wonder if the reason it did so well is because we have radiant heat from old cast iron radiators so the house never really dries out to bad?? We also had no problems with moisture but the house is very large and very open so the air wasn't contained to just one room if I'm making sense? The next time though I have a new garage to dry my wood in..yeah.:rockn:

woosplitter maybe the reason you "lucked out" and were successful indoors in your situation was that you must have had enough air movement in and out of that room. Was the front door you entered and left the house nearby? One that got opened couple times a day at least? Also, 100 year old houses tend to be a bit leaky, they were not designed as air tight as newer construction. I live in a 100+ year old house, I should know. Plus you said it was a dining room, so can I assume at least one or two walls were mostly open to another room, say a living room or foyer? Thus you really had a huge area in which that moisture could dissipate. Also, was that oak wet right off the saw or did it have a week sitting somewhere to lose some of its initial load of water? Curious also how you dealt with the smell. All of my wet red oak has that typical rancid acidic oak smell for the first few months it is drying. All I have to do is walk NEAR the stacks I have stickered in my back yard to smell it. I can only imagine what it would be like if it was stickered inside my house.

I picked the wood up the same day it was cut. You hit everything else spot on. The room is basically centered in the house and the house has large open rooms. I had no other choice at the time since I had to tear down my old garage as it had a wooden floor and had shifted on the foundation (talk about oak beams). The smell was something we had to get used to but not bad......lol.

I wonder how long the logs themselves sat before he cut them for us? That may be why we lucked out. I never thought of that. It is a small father/son mill maybe it sat for quite awhile.

Anyway, it worked for us. Maybe, we just lucked out. .....lol beginners luck.

compressing drying lumber

There was some talk about putting cinder blocks on the top of piles. i once saw a few photos of a guy who used all-thread and compressed his drying lumber with a home-made jig. i started using harbor freight ratchet straps to smoosh all the wood together and hopefully keep it straight. can anyone with more experience with this attest to these methods actually reducing bend and twist? thanks