Thread: Buying & Drying timber

The mill you will be buying from who do they supply? I am asking because if they are mainly selling to landscape suppliers the timber may not be of good enough quality for your furniture.
We have a hardwood mill in town who send away sleepers as well as scantling. I have bought small amount of scantling from them and as it dried it wanted to turn it self into an aeroplane propeller. The trees that are coming into this mill are around 600mm diameter off private land. Its immature hence its poor performance. Just beware. The other problem you are facing is not knowing what it will do as it dries out. 18 mm thickness may have to come from a 30 mm sawn board

OK - the first thing is, putting a few 25 mm milled green boards on a shelf are likely to end up as pretzels unless the following is done.

Green timber needs to be stacked in layers on a flat surface (not on arms as you will see) about 150mm above the ground, ~10 mm apart from each other, with 20 mm thick "stickers' between layers, with the stickers about 450 mm apart and directly above each other including right up at the ends. Then they either need to be strapped down into a pack and/or have some significant weight like half a dozen concrete slabs every M or so put on top of them. If you have enough of them i.e. a pile about 2m high then their own weight will be enough. They need to be in a covered/shaded, airy place. If its too hot they will split and if it's not airy enough they will go mouldy. Shed may be too hot and not airy enough so you may have to provide some extra ventilation. Even then you will still lose some especially those at the sides of the pack.

Maybe have a read of this A simple approach to drying lumber | Woodshop News


For larger timber you can use fewer stickers- note stickers not all above each other - they should be.


You will get fewer losses if you buy thicker and then resaw. For 18 mm thick you should look at 50 mm thick when green that will shrink to about ~45 mm and then resaw. I hope you ave a good bandsaw.

By the time you do all this and factor in the cost of space you will see why dried decent timber costs so much.

You might be better off looking at savaged timber.

BobL and Chambezio have covered the main issues around buying green timber and drying it at home.

the other consideration is machining what you've bought after it's dried.
her, if you follow Bob's advice and buy 50 mm slabs, you need to think beyond hobby scale equipment. Probably an 18" band saw and 300 to 400 mm combo jointer/thicknesser. These tools are serious dollars meaning that to achieve any worthwhile saving compared to suppliers like Trend Timbers, you will probably be looking at purchasing 2 to 3 cubes of freshly saw wood. I would suggest that your expected wastage from a first attempt at home drying might be as high as 30%

Thank you all for the wise words - and I guess in the back of my mind, there had to be something to the difference between the cost of the green wood and the dried, ready to use stuff - it now makes complete sense.

I guess as someone relatively new to the whole thing, you just don't know if you're being "had" on prices, and now understanding many of the details behind the process, it seems unlikely.

Many thanks for the education and warnings/issues in trying this!