Tips & Tricks: How Lumber is Dried

I have several times bought 2-300 bdft of green sawn lumber. It is a lot cheaper that way if you have the time and the space to store it while it dries. I have a drying rack in my pole barn that can hold 600 ft or so of lumber drying. The rule of thumbe is one year per inch of thickness. My natural work pace is three or four years from idea to putting in service. I have not had any problem with wood moving too much but I have had problems with some oak that I have stored for 25 years now started to rot under the stickers. Moral of that is to rotate the lumber and move the stickers every so often. I don't paint the ends, which would probably stop some checking, but I buy the cheaper grade and never try to use boards wider than 6". That is because my jointer is 6". I recently put in 200 bd ft of 3/4 maple No 1 and 2 that I got at the saw mill. This is specifically for drawer sides and small boxes. I got a pretty good deal on that. To do this, you need a jointer and a thickness planer, or a great bench, good planes, strong arms, and more experience that I have.

Nothing takes the moisture out of the air like a wood stove…......
I lack patience. Eight years, four years, no thanks…........

Tips learned through experience:

1. When stacking, remember that the closer the board originally was to the outer edge of the tree, the more prone to cupping (all those with that nice cathedral grain). Put them on the bottom of the stack, weigh them heavily, or strap them.

2. Sun screen netting works well to wrap the stack on the sides. It will minimize any morning/afternoon sun, stops most wind-driven rain, stops the pile from collecting leaves and debris, and still lets air through. If possible, put it at least a foot away from the lumber. It will slow the air flow some, which is a good thing during the first half of drying walnut, oak, etc. Sam's club here has rolls of it during the summer, so Costco or Menards may also carry it.

3. When transporting your stack of newly cut lumber from the mill, cover it!. (This is the one time a tarp or plastic sheeting is your friend). The boards in an open pick-up bed or trailer exposed to sun or just air flow at highway speeds will be damaged significantly by the fast drying of the high air speed. (learned this the hard way, losing about 20 bf of a 100 bf load of 8/4 walnut to severe checking along the entire boards when transporting it 60 miles home on the interstate. The damage didn't show up until several months later).

4. If stacking/storing on a bare concrete slab, raise the boards at least 6" (more if possible) above the concrete. This is particularly true in a closed building like a garage. The concrete has a lot of moisture in it that will affect the bottom boards. If standing them on end when keeping in the shop awaiting use, put a solid board or other moisture barrier under the ends touching the floor.

HTHs

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