I have a question for those of you who have more experience than I have in milling logs on your bandsaw. I have a birch log which is about 14″ in diameter on one end, and tapers to nearly 10″ on the other end, and I am desirous of milling it with my Laguna 16HD. I have always heard that once you resaw a log, you need to let the slabs dry for about a year per inch of milled thickness. The questionable part is that this log had been felled about a year and a half to two years ago, and I have had it suspended off the ground, but un-milled since then. I need to make a 8″x33″ (8/4 thick) wooden vice jaw for a workbench I am building (as well as a few other thick pieces), and so I will need some 8/4 and some 12/4 stock. I am wondering if I will still have to wait so long to dry it or if I will be able to use it sooner since the log has been down for so long.
The problem is: if I will have to wait so long to let it dry, I won’t use this log for my project and will cut it into regular 5/4″ thicknesses for future projects and let it sit for a long time. But if I use it for my project, I will cut it into much more oddball lengths and thicknesses than I would need if I were just to mill it for future use. I don’t want to waste the nice length of the log by cutting it into thicker lengths only to find out I have to wait for 2 years before I can complete my project.
Anybody have any ideas about how wet the inside of a log would be if it has been “dead” for two years, but has remained unmilled?
Thanks for the advice,
Replies
I'm also a novice facing potentially long drying times on some walnut I just cut, and have both dead and live logs to saw. My approach has been to oven dry a piece of each to determine it's current moisture content, , and have since weighed those pieces daily as they sit in my house to determine the equilibrium MC. In my situation that has turned out to be 6.5% in the winter when my furnace is running. I have also ordered a moisture meter so that I can track it easily in the future without cutting off sections. I'm in the process of setting up a small kiln to dry some of the stock, and there are a lot of instructions out there about doing so.
It'll be hard to say how dry your logs are already without actually measuring it, so I'd recommend the oven-dry technique as a first step.
-Day
If you're lucky, you'll have a nice spalted log to work with. You may also find yourself bandsawing through punky wood, big fat worms and their tunnels. Either way, a 14" log of any length weighs quite a bit so you'll want a helper. I generally wedge a length of 2X4 under the table to take some weight of the trunnions and avoid an unexpected tilt. You won't know for sure what you have until you slice into it.
Good luck!
Pete
Waiting this long to mill a log so susceptible to bugs and disease is never a good idea. There is a high probability that your log has been invaded with critters.
I typically mill logs within days, or a few weeks at most after they have been felled. That's not to say that it can't be done. Many sawyers can post stories about how they milled fallen, dead trees after quite a while with a good lumber yield. I'm here to tell you that with about 10 years experience milling my own logs, that it's the exception, and not the norm. In the future, sealing the ends of the log immediately is critical.
As far as moisture content goes, whole logs do not dry quickly in log form. The drying process really accelerates once they are milled. You almost certainly will not be able to use the lumber right away. Hopefully, your tree has not been turned into tunnels and dust.
Woodweb is an excellent place to get good information about all the processes involving milling logs, as well as drying them.
Jeff
The 1 year of drying per inch of lumber is a myth. In most parts of the country, a board under a she roof will air dry to 15% in 6 months or less. Some easy-to-dry species like poplar will air dry in 90 days if properly stickered and under a roof with good air flow. However, thicker stuff takes longer. Birch should dry relatively fast, and if the log has been drying for over a year suspended off the ground, some drying has already occurred. To be sure, you need to get a good moisture meter to know what is going on.
Birch tends to rot rather quickly, as in overnight. The problem is that the bark is execelent in sealing in the moisture and the tree will rot from the inside out. Usally in the woods you will find that the bark is the only thing holding a dead tree up after it has died. As a kid we used to find dead birch trees and give them a strong shake and they would break off in sections.
A couple of years ago I had to laugh at guy that had built a fence around his property using birch logs 6-10" dia that had been cut green. He had left the bark on and they didn't make it past a year.
So you may want to check the condition of the log.
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled