Replies

1. 
   prman | Apr 13, 2003 05:07pm | #1

   Drying Cherry wood is the same as for all wood. Stack it in such a manner that you will have air circulation all around it. Place spacer between layers of your wood, and seperate the wood by a minimum of 1". If you store it outside, try to build a cover over it so there is room for air to reach the top layer.

2. 
   JEBreen | Apr 15, 2003 03:16am | #2

   It would help to coat the ends with some sort of sealer--Woodcraft sells a paint on wax, or the sawyer might have some Anchor seal (sp?).  I try to do this before milling.  It is much easier than painting 50 ends of boards.  Also, try to keep it out of the sun.  If it dries too fast, esp if it is drying unevenly, it will split and warp a lot.  I have yet to dry a thick board that didn't cup to some extent.  The closer to the heart of the tree, the worse the cup, but that is easily worked around. 

   I try to get a mix of thicknesses from special logs, as I want to match the color within one project. 

   Good luck, and be patient.  Remember one year/inch of thickness if you air dry.

1. 
   b1gcountry | Apr 15, 2003 09:24pm | #3

   with that thick a plank, I would drape plastic over the pile so as to slow down the drying process. Also, it will take several years for a 4" plank.

   Tom

1. 
   jjf | Apr 15, 2003 10:03pm | #4

   I would not drape plastic on the sides unlessyou plan on looking at it everyday to besure there is no mold - even in the center of the stack.  Barlap or what they call shade-dri would be good.

   Jim

1. 
   b1gcountry | Apr 15, 2003 10:45pm | #5

   It isn't a big problem using plastic unless you lay it directly on the wood...Oh yeah, don't lay it directly on the wood. Put an extra long sticker on top so it'll drape over the sides, and lay another row cross wise on top of those so it doesn't get too damp on top. Mine is on the side of my garage, so I drape it from the wall so water can't condense so good. Check it after a few hot days. I haven't had any real problems with this method, although I've not done too much drying.

   Tom

1. 
   jjf | Apr 15, 2003 11:06pm | #6

   you really don't want to stop the wood from drying.  One reason is the mold and as the summer is coming there is a greater danger of it now,  Two, the slower you dry the wood the more warp you produce.  Cherry is an easy wood to dry and not very prone to checking as oak is.  having it against a wall will block the airflow enough if not too much.  i don;t want to ague but I'd hate to see nice cherry destroyed.

   Jim

2. 
   b1gcountry | Apr 15, 2003 11:19pm | #7

   I think we are just of different opinions here. The point of the plastic IS to slow the drying. When you have wet wood, it will lose moisture very fast, esp in the hot summer months ahead. This is okay with free moisture, but you want to control this when the wood starts loosing its trapped moisture. With a 4" thick plank especially, this will create a huge amount of drying stresses as the outside of the board dries more than the inside. My point was that you can control the loss of trapped moisture if you control the humidity around your pile, and you can get the inside of the board to dry more evenly with the outside of it.

   Tom

3. 
   Betula | Apr 16, 2003 02:02am | #8

   I think I'll go with plastic. I've already try to dry 4 inches thick pine, and I had this problem; it was drying to fast outside compared to inside, so cracks appeared...

   Two years ago, I had some yellow birch (3 inches thick) that dryed so nicely without any problems, and I didn't put any thing over exept aluminium sheets. I thaught that the problem I had with pine was a softwood problem.

   Hope you understand my english, I use to speak french...

   Thak you!