Drying Red Oak

Re: Drying Red Oak

Stephen Ondich

Hi Barry - If things are going well and you're not under a time crunch, I'd continue to let them air dry. While red oak is easier to dry than white oak, the size of those slab would have me concerned about possible honeycomb. If you must kiln dry I'd definitely find someone with experience drying oak of that size.

I while back we air-dried some 3" x 20" x 60" Hawaiian Koa slabs for a few years and they acclimated nicely. Took forever but came out nice.

Good luck.

Re: Drying Red Oak

Don Stephan

Hopefully you will get more gentle responses than I did a year ago mentioning that guideline. But in all honesty, the environmental conditions in which the wood is stacked and stored greatly affect how quickly moisture moves out of the wood. And yes, the best guideline is to measure regularly with a moisture meter.

The freshly cut green black cherry we air dried here in Cincinnati, 4/4 and 8/4, was covered, stickered, open on the sides, and off the ground. The wood was sawn and stacked I think in March of last year. By November, the 4/4 was reading about 10-12% moisture content and the 8/4 12-14%. I was comfortable at that point moving the wood in my concrete block woodworking studio, which is heated to 60 at night and 66 during the day, again stacked and stickered. It will become furniture in a residence, so I won't begin to mill it until the moisture content becomes stable.

Re: Drying Red Oak

Barry Irby

Don, thank you for the response. I too have dried cherry and walnut in an open shed. It was 4/4 mostly and I started using it after about a year and have been using it ever since. I bring the stuff I am about to use into a conditioned room in my house and start to do stock prep on it as it acclimates. I think the slow pace I move at is beneficial, giving it time between functions to continue adjusting. I try to use good technique in whatever I build to allow for seasonal movement and I have never had a failure that I am aware of.

Unfortunately, these slabs are too big and heavy to shuffle around casually. I have not actually weighed one, but my calculations indicate they weigh 250 pounds or more. And at 4' by 9', well I just don't want to end up under one. On top of that, I visited them the other day and the owner of the building/shed they are in has surround them with his collection of rag tag race cars to the point you almost can't walk up to them.

At my age, I want to get on with it.

Re: Drying Red Oak

Johanna Johanson

I just bought 60 bf of 6/4 red oak. Bought it from Rugby - never had bad boards from them until now. I cut the 12 ft boards into 4 ft lengths and began surfacing them this past Friday. I was NOT pleased to find evidence of improper drying. I'm trying to decide if I should use boards that have many small cracks along the length. One side of those boards is just fine - no cracks at all. I'll use my moisture meter to test each one before I make a final decision.

I still have to buy more for this project (two dressers). When I go back to Rugby I'll take a couple of the bad boards to show them. Maybe they'll give me something off the next batch?

Do any of you buy from Rugby (it's nationwide). We have very few hardwood sources in New Mexico, so I'm pretty much locked in to buying from them.

hardwood customer service

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

From the perspective of someone that sold lumber for many years.

I don't know this company so I am making a reasonable guess. They did not dry this oak. They had no way of knowing it had drying defects when they sold it to you. The fact that you found defects is not this company's fault. Dealing with this discovery is their responsibility.

Oak is a problem to dry and S$#@! happens. Every other board in this 100,000 bdft kiln charge could have come out perfect, but for a multitude of reasons your board may have been at too high a moisture content when it went it. Or someone screwed up with the drying schedule and the whole 100000 bd ft may have been damaged. That is a lot of loss and you may be assured that the company that dried the lumber took every reasonable precaution to avoid drying defects. 99,000 bd ft of this kiln charge could have gone to a furniture factory and if it had defects it is now on its way back to the drying company for replacement.

What to do? Return the lumber. Any reputable retailer will replace it. The resolution of this kind of problem is built into the selling price for places that sell a few boards at a time retail. If it is one board they will eat the cost. If the whole pack is defective they will return it.

Re: hardwood customer service

Johanna Johanson

I do realize that the lumber company had no way of knowing that there were bad boards in the batch. I was planning to take part of one back tomorrow, but it's supposed to start snowing tonight and keep it up until Wednesday, so I'll just call them to ask if I have to bring all the defective boards back (two 12 ft boards that are now in 4 ft lengths) - I just brought one 48" board back from Santa Fe to show them. Lucky for me that three of the boards were fine, so I have enough to work with for at least another week.

This project is going to be the last one that requires my dealing with lots of big heavy boards. Getting too old to handle them easily. Same goes for 3/4" plywood sheets.

Re: hardwood customer service

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

Yes, you should return all the mis-dried lumber. Let them decide what to do with it. I would give it back to you. It can be used somewhere.

I am unsure what the drying defect is. Can you post a picture?

Re: hardwood customer service

Sgian Dubh

" ... boards that have many small cracks along the length. One side of those boards is just fine - no cracks at all."

From Johanna's brief description Bill, I'd guess the boards are surface checked, but only on one face. I agree, some photographs might help identify the specific condition. Slainte.

Rugby

John in NM

I buy from them now and then, but since walnut got expensive I've been having to go to Alpine instead. Rugby wasn't carrying decent walnut last time I was there, though I wouldn't expect them to since they mostly serve the cabinet trade and all that stuff is getting stained anyhow.

Alpine also carries 8/4 European beech, which I also buy now and then, so now I tend to go there if I need both. Got to check on walnut again, I need a couple more planks soon. Back when it was $5.60/bdft maybe 10 years ago Rugby would have good stuff.... always worth calling ahead with a 2 hour drive.

Re: hardwood customer service

John in NM

I'm not sure Rugby will take them back - they aren't a retailer per se, they are geared more towards the cabinet and millworks trades but also will do taxable sales to individuals. I've always found the staff to be pretty friendly, so they might take back such lumber - like you I would simply comp it to the customer.

I've also shopped at yards where they actively discourage small sales however, and those outfits wouldn't make good on poorly dried stuff.

Beech

jessecloud

Hey John,

Tell me about Beech. I've never used it before. What do you like about it?

Thanks,

Jesse

Re: Drying Red Oak

Josko Catipovic

Couple years back Rugby bought out my long-time hardwood supplier (south of Boston) and things went way downhill since then. It's no longer a place for somebody buying ~500 bf of hardwood at a time.

Re: Beech

John in NM

Mostly I make grips to match beech stocks that were sometimes used.

Its also a good utility wood to have around, harder than poplar, about like soft maple at a guess. I recently used some nice 2x2 scraps to make part of a large easel for my wife when she was taking an art class at NMSU. I've seen factory drawer sides made of it too.

that would be unusual

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

I've also shopped at yards where they actively discourage small sales however, and those outfits wouldn't make good on poorly dried stuff

A supplier selling to buyers of large quantities is most likely to make good on lumber dried with defects. They will be selling to customers that know the trade and what are reasonable expectations. The exception would be if the purchase was made based on grade before drying, which can be a possibility.

In all the years we bought lumber only once did we have drying defects. A load of oak was severely surface checked from too fast drying. It was replaced without question.

Re: Beech

Don Stephan

Check the seasonal movement figures for beech and compare with woods you use typically. My experience its seasonal movement was much greater. Fortunately I made a pair of test frame and panel cabinet doors before starting a set of cabinets for my mother - panels expanded enough seasonally to break apart the lower outside glued joint in each door frame. That's probably when I purchased a copy of Bruce Hoadley's book "Understanding Wood" and started studying the properties of wood. A less technically written but equally valuable book would be "Cut Dried" by Richard Jones.

European Beech is not the same at US beech

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

The European product is steamed which stabilizes it. It is widely used for furniture in Europe.

Re: that would be unusual

John in NM

I was amazed some of those yards stayed in business - I remember one in Tucson that had different pricing for the smaller customers, and a different storage area for stock that people could pick through to select their wood. The stuff you could sort through was mostly junk. There's a similar place in Albuquerque, but not quite as bad, I've only been there once though, I dislike such yards - seems like a poor business model to me.

Re: that would be unusual

jessecloud

John,

If you are thinking of Albuquerque Hardwoods, you got it right the first time - its out of business now.

That's the one...

John in NM

Sorry to hear of any business failing, but its not terribly surprising. They did not provide a positive retail experience, and they weren't quite wholesalers either as I recall, not surprising that they couldn't compete in either niche.

Have you been to ABQ Exotic Hardwoods since they reopened? Seems like they did a good job as a retailer when they were on Menaul under the old management. I haven't been to the new store yet, its on the list next time I get to town.

Different Woods - Deceptive Hardness

David Weaver

Bill mentions that euro beech is steamed and different (and it is). It takes nearly perfect sawing to make american beech stable, and even at that, it can end check as lumber just sitting around (a cold dry spell can make lumber that's years old check).

Beech is deceptively hard. Both types. Similar the harder ash woods (but ash has nice working qualities sometimes) and pretty close to hard maple.

The difference is just the quality of the wood itself. It's smoother and more compliant to slicing across the grain (chiseling, etc), but if you rip it by hand, you get a sense that it's a lot harder than it seems like it is when chiseling.

Fairly certain there's not much of an organized market for beech because it's not that easy to dry, especially in larger sizes, and much of the european wood originates from eastern europe and is super cheap by volume. like figures that convert to about 50 cents a board foot at port sometimes.

Re: European Beech is not the same at US beech

Sgian Dubh

It's certainly true to say that European beech (Fagus sylvatica)and American beech (Fagus grandifolia) have somewhat different characteristics, both in terms of appearance, e.g., colour, and to a small extent differences in drying characteristics and stability in service.

But my main reason for making a comment is to say that whilst the majority of European beech sold to those of us based in Europe is steamed, as you say, in my experience it's never been very hard to obtain unsteamed beech if that's what's required. Perhaps it's the case that all the European beech available to North American buyers is the steamed version, but I don't know if that's true, or if it is, why that's the case.

One factoid passed on to me by an old hand in the furniture game about European beech that's stuck in my mind from about the time when I trained in the 1970s is that the stuff was generally the preferred choice for 'faking up' antiques. That is, it was used to make all sorts of stuff that purported to be of early 20th century, 18th, 19th century, and even older, and then polished up to pretend it was mahogany, walnut, oak, or any other wood species it was meant to be replacing, ha, ha. Slainte.

Re: That's the one...

jessecloud

I was in ABQ Exotic Woods just the other day. The new store has a smaller inventory than the old one, but they say business is building and so is inventory. Lots of small cutoffs and turning blocks that might make good grips. Definitely worth a trip.

Let me know when you plan to visit and we can have lunch near the store.

Re: That's the one...

John in NM

Will do. Might be another month, but I'll send you a text the day before or so.

Nice to see that store continuing, I always felt it filled a useful niche and had good staff.

You like stout right? I know Merle did. I'll bring you one of my favorites, friend is bringing it from LC where there's a store that still carries it.