I have been the lucky recepient of several large walnut logs that were cut 2 weeks ago. I took them to the local sawmill and had them sawed up. The wood ranges from about 4″ wide to about 24″ wide. Most is 5/4, but there are several pieces that are 9/4+. I have about 675 board feet. Almost all of it is heartwood and very clear.
I am planning to dry it indoors in my woodshop (heated and cooled), but I have never stickered anything before. The sawyer said to use 1″ thick stickers made from walnut to avoid black sticker stains on the wood. He said to space them about 1 foot apart (most all of the wood is 6-9 feet long). He advised me to organize the stack as uniform as possible and then band the stickered stack with a metal banding tool in 3 places. Is this sound advice? Can anyone offer tips on the best way to sticker this wood? It is some really nice stuff, and I don’t want to screw it up in the drying process. I can also be reached at: [email protected]. Thank you.
Replies
You can use a banding tool if you want, but if you do, make sure you place a thicker piece over the area where the band will press down. This is so the middle won't try to bulge up and the banding won't press the boards together from the sides. If you don't band it, you can weight it down, too. Keep the bottom layer more than just the thickness of one sticker above the floor. Get some 2x4's and make a set that will allow the bottom layer to be totally flat by planing off whatever is needed, due to the floor's unevenness. If you want to put walnut over the tops of the 2x4's, go ahead. I would try to keep it as far from the floor as possible. Keep the thickest boards close to the bottom so they have the most resistance to warping. The thinner ones don't exert as much force against the weight or banding.
The sawyer knows what he's talking about and has probably stickered a huge amount of lumber for other people.
Ratcheting nylon straps used to tie down loads work well for this and have the advantage that they can be tightened to compensate for shrinkage. The board ends need to be sealed immediately, if they haven't been coated already, or you are going to lose a lot of wood to end checking which can be severe if the wood is being dried indoors.
John W.
wood doc
JW and Jim, er, highfigh, have given you great advice. What I would add to it is that you should try to use dried stickers, if at all possible. Also, I stack all my lumber that I dry in my woodshed on a 6 X 6 base, every two feet. Make sure they are level to each other, as the floor probably isn't. Shim them if necessary, as your wood pile shall very quickly be shaped like the floor if you don't. Walnut air dries just great, and pretty quick, too. Check those ratchet straps frequently, if you use them. I use a lot of weight on top of my stacks, and don't need to worry about ratcheting. After a couple months, I also like to rotate the pile (top to bottom, etc...). Oh, and last but not least, make sure the stickers are in line vertically, so the weight distribution carries all the way down to the floor, without warping some of the middle boards.
Enjoy.
Jeff
Let me go to the basics. Wood, particularly walnut should be air dried outdoors, at least initially. It should be stacked where air is constantly blowing through the stack to allow for even drying. Weight and cover the top to keep off rain and snow but leave the sides open. Also, it is particularly important to coat the ends with a waterproof coating. Anchorseal is the product that works best. Its a paraffin based coating. If the ends are not sealed they will rapidly dry out much faster than the rest of the board. This causes checking and splitting and you can lose a foot or more of each end. This sealing should be done immediately after sawing.
You should not initially dry the wood indoors in a heated area. It will dry too fast and create stesses in the wood. In addition, there is not enough air movement to promote even drying and the moisture will not escape the area as it needs to. A lot of water vapor is given off during the initial drying. Once the wood has dried to 12-14% moisture content, it can be brought into the shop to finish drying.
All good advice.
My 2c worth - don't dry it too fast.
Outside is best for a season or so, then inside. If inside and warm, consider wrapping in plastic to keep moisture content up. Yes, up! You want to love it dry, not rush it dry!
Yes to coating the ends. yes to keeping it tied/strapped/ratcheted down.
Good luck, it's well worth it. I wish I were as lucky!
Malcolm
Jamie (ForestGirl) responded to a post recently on sticker marks and had suggestion for a google on the issue - I looked at it and it some good info on stickering and the cause of sticker shadow and how to minimize or eliminate it. It seems to show up mostly in the white/blond woods from what I remember. Try looking for posts/replies from her in the past week or two unless she sees this and chimes in with that search criteria.
When I dried some walnut I put oak 4x4's on the bottom every 2'. The stacks were 4' wide and the 4x4's were about 5' long. I stickered every 2' through the stack and then put more 4x4's on top. I ran a turn-buckle between eye-hooks from each top 4x4 to the corresponding bottom 4x4. As the stacks dried, I would go out and tighten the turn buckles, maybe once each month for the first 4 or 5 months. The stacks were about 5' tall and were covered with water proof canvas that was staked out and tied at the bottom to allow air circulation. I put some scrap lumber down the middle of the top so water would drain off the top of the canvas. For stickers I used 3/4" scrap walnut (green) that I ripped to about 1" wide.
This was all 4/4 stuff and was ready to use in one year. Actually about 15 months. I stacked it in January and started using it in the spring of the following year. Most of it was sold for, I think, $2/bf in the rough.
After planing to 3/4 there was no sticker burn.
The guy that sawed it up for me with a large circular saw claimed that it all had been sawed to 4/4. But he in fact kept out the 12/4 center cuts. It was later found out that others had noticed him doing the same thing and that he was selling it to a gun stock manufacturer in Missouri. Needless to say, he never got any more of my business.
PlaneWood by Mike_in_Katy (maker of fine sawdust!)
PlaneWood
PlaneWood
That would have really ticked me off. Wow! Well, when I used to take my logs to the mill, I put large V's on the end grain of all the logs in paint. I let the guy know that it was there to make sure I got all my wood. I've heard lots of stories of sawyers helping themselves.
Jeff
I have some Walnut 5/4 slabs that have been air dryed by the sawyer to MC 20%, it's currently stickered and restrained in my shop. They have been inside for about a month and the MC has not gone anywhere. Should this wood be brought outside or can it remain inside?
Thanks for you help
By my reference chart, the relative humidity would have to be around 90% to have the wood stabilize at 20% moisture content. If you live in a very damp area then 20% is the best you can achieve with outdoor or indoor air drying. If the wood is in your basement, it is quite possible that the air there could be at 90% humidity.
If you live in a drier climate then something is preventing the air around your pile from removing the moisture from the wood, it must be stickered and have some air circulation around it, or perhaps your meter is giving false readings.
If your shop is very humid, and can't be dried out, then you will have to take special precautions when you build furniture since the wood will later shrink appreciably when the finished work is moved into what will most likely be drier conditions.
If you move the wood pile into a drier area to dry it out, the wood will reabsorb moisture when you bring it back into your shop to begin using it, causing the stock to change dimension and possibly warp while you are working with it, making it very difficult to do quality work.
John W.
Edited 12/2/2005 11:32 am ET by JohnWW
John,<!----><!----><!---->
Thanks for the response, my basement shop is very dry (guesstimate at 30-40% this time of year) and the wood is stickered every 2 feet with 1 inch thick stickers, also got plenty of other Walnut stored at 8% mc. <!----><!---->
Since this drying your own lumber thing is new to me (I usually just buy it already dry'ed). I guess I don''t have enough air flow over the wood to accelerate the drying process.<!----><!---->
Thanks for your help.<!----><!---->
Edited 12/2/2005 12:18 pm ET by BOBABEUI
Edited 12/2/2005 12:23 pm ET by BOBABEUI
Great responses from a lot of experienced people. But maybe I can offer a little extra - and also mention that WoodWeb has a whole forum on drying wood for and by professionals.
I feel lust for the stacks behind a chain link fence at a local company. They have about 100 25'-40' (I didn't really measure, but they seemed to climb into the clouds) stacks of stickered cherry and other hardwoods - uncovered, New England weather. They have about 50 similar stacks under carport type structures (very tall carports). Their kiln is about the size of a basketball gymnasium. [The company is Rex, a strictly wholesaler that does quite a bit of custom molding - I've never seen anything smaller than a trailer truck leaving.]
My inference - which gels with what I've read - is that the best way to dry is to start outside (get the MC down to 20% or something) and then use a kiln to get it down to 8-10%. I've read theories about using kilns much sooner (quicker turn-around means greater profit) but there are too many companies like Rex that continue to dry the wood for a long time outside. And your enclosed 70-degree environment is closer to being a kiln that it is to being outside.
But, now that I've said all of that, boy are there some divergent opinions among full-time experts with lots of years experience in this specific area.
Congratulations, by the way. I love walnut.
Air dry a year for every inch, the longer the better. Coat the ends as soon as possible.
Make sure the stack is level and 6-8 in off the ground, good air circulation is very important and keep out of direct sun light.
When your done let it dry indoors for another 6 mths, stickered.
have fun..
Hi
I agree with Howard Acheson 100% I air dried a lot of black walnut lumber in my day. I do it like Howard does , never had any problems. Back in my younger day I used to buy my lumber from a local who sawed it and stickerd it like Howard does. He left it in the stickerd piles until he sold it. I bought some white oak from him once that he said was in the same pile for 7 years. It looked like old lumber but one pass with the planer and you had real nice lumber.
Have a nice day Lee
Wooddoc,
I guess I've dried more black walnut than just about anybody. (Probably well over 20,000 bd feet so far) I start out air drying and then finish inside where I use the resultant moisture to keep my house more comfortable in the dry winter..
This will shock most people but you can just about completely ignore Black walnut.. I like to seal the ends, but as for stickering, well, I am rather careless about that!
I usually use some old pine stickers* I have laying around, er sometimes.. yeh I'm not afraid of letting black walnut sit around in a stack all summer long.. if it seems to warp a bit then I use that piece or pieces towards the bottom of the pile when I finally do get around to stickering it up.. Yes I do use a sticker about ever foot and make sure they line up. that is the stickers on the bottom are directly in line with all the stickers above it.. here neatness does count!
I use straps, those cheap nylon straps right over the stickers. If you use metal banding you will mark or stain the wood because the tannins in Black walnut attack steel. By using the straps I can tell when the wood is just about ready without even going inside to get my moisture meter. You start out with the starps as tight as you can get them and about two or three weeks later you'll need to retighten them. then about once a once you retighten the straps and when a couple of months have gone by without the straps getting lose you are ready to bring them inside to finish drying to the 7% everybody seems to want..
*Unlike other woods it's pretty hard for black walnut to sticker stain. I've used pine oak, plastic, and rarely black walnut. As long as the stickers on each board are the same thickness it doesn't matter.. so in any bunker of wood I'll use several differant stickers. Maybe it's not real tidy looking but I wind up with nice flat boards.. so who cares!
> I've read theories about using kilns much sooner (quicker turn-around means greater profit) but there are too many companies like Rex that continue to dry the wood for a long time outside <
This is as likely to be a business decision as a drying technology one. Air drying is cheap (just the holding costs of the inventory), while kiln drying is quite expensive (utility costs, people costs, depreciation on plant and equipment).
All things being equal, commercial dryers tend to air dry to outside stability, then finish inside in the kiln.
Malcolmhttp://www.macpherson.co.nz
WOW! What a knowledgable group of woodworkers~! Thanks so much for the great advice. Since there seems to be 2 schools of thought on this, I've decided to hedge my bets.....I'm stickering the walnut in 2 groups. They both have stickers about every 2 feet, lined up beneath each other, 1 inch thick.....but I'm drying one inside, and one outside.....both banded. I'll just check the mc on each in about a year and see how I'm doing. Thanks for the great tips.....anyone want to buy any of this stuff, now or later? What the heck is it worth anyway? I'm more of a cherry and maple kind of guy...this is my first walnut experience. Thanks again. Michael "wood doc" Philipps
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