Wood Drying question

Drying Wood

Steve Elliott

>For best results, the wood needs to dry out at a slow, even rate. This happens best when most of the moisture leaves the board through the the face surfaces of the boards, not the ends.

Cutting the boards into shorter lengths would increase the degraded areas that occur at the ends where moisture leaves the boards more quickly through the endgrain. Leaving the boards long and coating the endgrain with a moisture-proof paint will give the best results. Ripping the boards narrower won't speed up the drying.

The rule of thumb is to air dry one year for each inch of thickness. I've used cherry that was dried in an outdoor shed for several years, and it was very good to work with.

Re: Wood Drying question

Jack Guzman from Maine

>I have some cherry I'm just starting to get into that I've been drying for two years.What Steve said plus..You want your stack as flat and even as you can get it lining up all your stickings. You also should weigh the top down good to keep even downward pressure. The stuff on the bottom of my pile was good and straight. The stuff near the top twisted a bit.---Jack

Re: Wood Drying question *LINK*

Bob Smalser, Seabeck, WA

>Read this over and ask questions...as was said below, cherry, maple, madrone and some others can be hard because you have to monitor your stacks tendency to sink in over time and correct until the wood reaches EMC.




Air Drying Madrone

Re: Wood Drying question

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>Some questions about your great air drying article:

Is the water emulsion roofing tar you recommend similar to the stuff they sell for sealing asphalt driveways?

Re., advantages and disadvantages vs. AnchorSeal: If the roofing tar is similar to what I have used, there is the small expense of disposing of the brush, or at least keeping a supply of disposable brushes on hand, and cleaning up afterwards. The AnchorSeal washes out in the kitchen sink with soap and water, SWMBO is none the wiser, the brush can be reused, and less paint thinner is released into the environment and absorbed through the skin and lungs during clean up.

You note that you have to cut the tarred end off before running the wood through the planer, which is an additional step. The way I do things, that isn't an additional step, and therefore is not a disadvantage. (Please note that I'm not criticising your method, just presenting an alternative that some here may find useful.)

With cut list in hand, I pull lumber off the stack that might work, based on what I can see on the rough cut surfaces. When evaluating a piece, I first cut the end off, perhaps making several cuts, until I have gotten beyond the end checks, or have decided I'm going to have to rip it down through an extended check, for some lesser purpose. Even with the best of sealers, some checks get started anyhow. Next, I look for faults, like knots, and mark them on both sides, so I know the maximum length of clear stock I can cut between them. If the board has any significant twist, I make sure to rough cut to length, excising the marked defects, before jointing one surface. Also, if it has any signficant twist or cup, I rip it to rough width before jointing. This tends to result in thicker surfaced stock. Then, I run it through the jointer and planer, to close to finished thickness, trying to remove about the same amount of material from both faces.

Anyway, I hope this explanation of some of my strategy should demonstrate why I don't think cutting the sealed end off before planing is necessarily a disadvantage.

Re: Wood Drying question

Bob Smalser

>That's all.

Anchor Seal is fine stuff....but its 8 bucks a gallon plus shipping several hundred miles from California.

Henry's #107 Asphalt Roof Emulsion is 3 bucks a gallon on a commercial account locally, and works every bit as well. I mill almost every day and use a couple gallons a week in our dry summers....in our wet winters, sealing the ends doesn't matter much at all.

My comment about trimming the ends was about the inconvenience of when you have to do it, not whether it has to be done. Your method sounds fine to me.

cherry is easy to dry

bill tindall

>Cherry is one of the easier woods to dry, about like poplar. Moisture leaves readily and it is hard to not wind up with stress free lumber, especially this time of year when drying out doors will be very slow. However, there is a large difference in the shrinkage between sapwood and heart wood. Boards with sap on one side and heart on the other will cup unless there is great weight upon the stack. Put boards of this kind near the bottom.

The center of cherry trees will fracture upon drying. It is the the nature of cherry. So, don't be alarmed when wood near the tree center starts splintering.

I never end coat unless the lumber is very thick. It doesn't do any good unless done on a fresh cut end anyway. Lumber from most logs will dry fine without end checking unless the end of the stack has direct sun or unusual air movement. On the other hand, some logs split no matter what is done.

Re: Wood Drying question

David Miller from Iowa

>I shouldn't really be posting because I can't speak to your question directly, never having air dried cherry. However, at risk of a hijack, I just want to interject that air dried wood has a magical property when using hand tools. When I was a newbie, I spent a lot of time wondering why the wood I was working on was like iron compared with the stuff in Grandad's shop - then I realized that his was air dried and mine was kiln. Since then I have been collecting green wood. A little (maybe lot) of patience really pays off. I'm not sure what the deal is, but kiln drying "hardens" the wood and makes our neanderthal thing much more difficult.

Re: Wood Drying question

Mark Kuzee

>Thanks all,

I have taken every precaution I can to make this work. I am supporting every 2 ft and making the stickers line up vertically. I just had a friend who drys wood state that the long boards will not dry well. He claimed that 8 to 10ft boars and narrower would be better to dry. It didn't ring trur with me. Shorter boards mean more ends to check and narrower boards means more would wasted trimming the width later. I think I'll just take a chance and go with the system I have.

FYI the log laid in my yard through the summer. The same friend said don't cut a "fresh" tree in the summer because it would dry to fast. Now that made sense.

Thanks again. If anyone has any encouraging words I'd like to hear them. I really want this to work.

Mark "still clueless" Kuzee

Re: Wood Drying question

Adam Cherubini, NJ

>My heavens don't rip the wide stuff! Don't cross cut it either.

Listen, boards warp not because of drying, but because of sawing. Bad sawyers make warped wood. If the grain is running out of a piece of wood, its going to move, period. That fact that the warp happens during drying doesn't mean that the drying is the cause of the warp (if that makes any sense). Nothing you do will make a badly sawn board straight. I buy badly sawn boards unwittingly from time to time. Careful drying makes the board look flat and straight, but as soon as you plane it, boing!

I'm guessing your widest boards were cut nearest the heart. Those are the best boards you've got. The narrower stuff near the sap will cup, probably warp, and may crack. That stuff you'll rip judiciously into narrow moldings, drawer blades etc.

Here's my advice: Keep those center cut boards in the middle of the pile. Protect those boards above all else. Absolutley anchor seal the end grain. Its best done immediately after felling, but its never too late. Do it right away. If you can't get anchor seal, rub a candle on the end grain or any other water proofing. It really does help.

Cherry changes color in sun light like no other wood I know. Its always a good idea to protect your stack from direct sunlight. It could be that you pull put a board that is essentially stained because part of it saw sunlight. In time, the difference will mellow, but it may always be noticable to you. You are supposed to orient the stack so the prevailing wind hits it's side (hard a beam).

Lastly, next time you get a tree like that, consider making wood you can't buy. Found any cherry 6x6's lately? What about QS cherry? 4x4's for turnings? Splitting wood is not only cheaper, easier to dry, and a learning experience, but it provides you with a product you usually can't buy.

Some woodworkers think it will be cheaper if they "do it themselves" (I don't know anything about your situation so you see I'm not criticizing). But in the end, its hard to compete for cost with the saw mill.

Anyway, that's my advice for what its worth.

Adam

Re: Wood Drying question

Bob Smalser

>I'll reinforce others that you can dry any length wood you want to so long as you can keep the stack flat. I've 5-year-old 22' rafters still just as straight in the stack the day they were cut.

Same with narrow boards...there is no advantage there.

For cabinet wood, a preferred way to mill and stack is "in the bolle" shown below, stacking the boards exactly in the positions they came off the log....this allows matching panels, stiles and drawer fronts few woodworkers can achieve.

Cherry is not foolproof to dry like some softwoods...in a log that isn't fresh, I slice two or so inches of trim off both ends to apply a fresh coat of water emulsion tar or Anchor Seal before milling...and monitor my stacks for level weekly as I describe in the article above.

Use scrap wood or battens and tar paper to make a hooded cover open at the sides as I show above...the ends need to be kept shaded, and the best locations for drying are on a slight slope to get morning and evening air currents. Mold may or not be a problem in your location based on weather and air flow.

Your local humidity affects drying more than anything else....a dry winter requires those ends be coated....a wet winter less so, although it won't hurt, and a buck fifty worth of tar is a cheap and easy investment. You can also fall and mill at any time of the year...you just have to get that wood properly stacked and shaded quicker in summer than winter.

Re: Actually,....

Dale Lenz-Tahlequah, OK

>the very center of the log will contain the pith. The wood near the pith will crack and warp. If it's not to much trouble I'd rip, say 1.5" on either side of the pith and use it for kindling.

I've been using house paint to coat my ends for nearly 20 years and no problems, AD only. I try to purchase latex "mis-mixed" paint, usally 4 buck a gallon. True, latex will let moisture out, but it slow the water loss down to much I don't have checks, unless I thin the paint way down.

Personally, I have not noted cherry as being difficult to dry. The white woods, hickory hackberry and holly are more of a challange to dry bright.

Anyway, have fun and enjoy your cherry..Dale