What is the best method to air dry red oak? I currently plan to stack and sticker the oak in an unheated garage. February is cold in Minnesota, but summer heat and humidity ar on their way.
Should I wrap the oak in plastic to retard drying? Should the ends of the lumber be coated with parafin (or paint or something) to slow checking? Any techniques that have been used successfully in the past would be a help, as this is my first attempt.
Replies
Steve,
come on over to my place I've got a lot of oak air drying..
;-)
actually wood dries real slowly in Minnesota unless it's inside in a heated space..
It doesn't dry at all while it's frozen and slowly on cool or damp days (most of the winter and spring) When our humidity gets up that also slows down the drying process..
Do not retard drying with plastic. however if the floor where you will be drying is dirt or concrete without a vapor barrier you should use a sheet of plastic under it to prevent wicking up moisture from the ground.. In addition you will want to tarp over it if there is any possibility of rain etc. gettin on it..
Seal the ends of it with wax designed for sealing.. (you can buy it at wood working stores) I use rockler green wood end sealer. I've used paint (both oil and latex) with poor results. it's very important to sticker properly if you don't want banana boards or wavy boards. I used to put heavy blocks on top to keep the top boards from curling but now I buy those cheap straps at Northern hydraulics and just strap everything down.. (my planner blades don't like hitting the grit that blocks have)get everything as tight as a knats butt and about a month later you'll have to retighten again.. it will take several months for the wood to stop shrinking enough so this doesn't have be done monthly. (since it takes just a few moments to snug the straps down, it's no big deal..)
Sticker every foot and make certain each sticker is exactly lined up with the one underneath it.. make certain all of your stickers are the same thickness. I like to keep the wood 6 to 12 inches off the ground but sometimes you just can't. Whatever, I stretch a string across the bottom stickers to ensure they are all at the same level.. I use anything if one is a little lower.. shingles, magazines, whatever to shim it up so that it just touches the string.. If both sides just touch the string and the stickers are at a foot apart you should have pretty decent results.. It's fun and well worth the effort..
Make sure you use stickers that are dry otherwise you stand a very high chance of getting some sort of sticker related staining.
Some level of air circulation is beneficial if the material is in a closed environment.
The weight difference between 1000 bd. ft of northern red oak at 80% MC and 6% MC is approximately 1780 pounds of water. If, for a rough estimate, you consider that a pint of water is a pound, you will be dealing with about 225 gallon of water /Mbf. It therefore might be advisable to have some method of venting.
A question, if I could. Do the stickers have to be of the same wood as that being dried to avoid staining?
No stickers can be any dry wood, I've used oak and pine stickers as well as maple and plastic. I've got stickers mixed up and sorted in piles and it doesn't seem to matter as long as they are the same thickness.
you will be getting rid of a lot of water as has said so plan on dealing with that, on the other hand you do not want to dry too fast so keep direct sun off the wood.
My favorite method of drying is to put in a heated room in the winter with a dehumidifier. either use a drain hose or plan on draining the bucket at least twice a day for a while..
Thanks for the Info. The sawmill is scheduled tomorrow AM. so I better get off the computer and down to Rockler for end sealer. I have to do a bit of re-arranging in the garage too. I have apx. 70 lineal feet of logs, ranging from 18 inches to 22 inches. I suppose (hope) I'm in for a pile of lumber. Plan to have some quarter sawn and want a wide 2" to 3" thick plank I can use for a bar top. Sounds like the bar's 2 or 3 years down the line due to drying time...
Steve
Edited 2/20/2003 4:26:34 PM ET by Steve
If you don't want it all full of checks and such it'll be a lot more than three years.. The old one year per inch only works on the first inch. the second inch takes two more years and the third inch takes five years on top of the two and one.. Well maybe I'm stretching a little bit, but I've seen with my own eyes timbers that were three inches thick, air dried for three years and they suddenly checked like crazy the first heating season they got.. (just come on over to my timberframe)
The sawmill has come and gone, and left me with about a 4'x4'x~7' stack of (as yet) un-stickered and un-endcoated oak in the garqage. Looks like my pickup is outside for next winter! I had no real idea before the saw came how many of the logs I had pulled onto my driveway could be sawed. Turns out all of 'em - in about 2 hours too!! Wow, I'm in for some fun in a year or so!
Thanks to all for the advice - and just one more question: how thick should a sticker be? Can I use lath or should I get some finished 1x3 or 1x2 stock? I suppose plywood (uniform thickness < 3/4") is out because of voids. The reason I ask, is that 1x's will effectively double (to 8 feet high) the height of my stack of 'unfinished projects' ;-)
Thanks again,
Steve
the only reason is to allow air flow. I've used 1/2 and 3/4 stickers and evan 1 inch when needed.
Steve,
I can only attest to the issue of sealing the ends on the wood. I have used parafin with great success. It's available in supermarkets. I heated mine to melting then used a junker paint brush to put it on.
You might want to set up a chop saw and nick off any small checks in the ends before you put the parafin on. It gives you a great window of opportunity to examine your wood! It also gives the wax a nice smooth surface to stick to.
I suppose you could just heat the wax in a shallow pan and dip the ends. I like to cut the ends, stack and sticker the wood, then daub on the wax; examining the end grain of each piece as I go.
I've done several hundred bd. ft. of maple this way and have never had a cracked piece after applying the parafin. I think it seals just fine!
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled