Thread: cuting blue gum for verander

Eli

Looks like a nice job.

I see you have painted the ends to retard the drying. If you can place the stickers at the very ends of the boards drying is slowed at that point even further. The books recommend using wider stickers at the ends or, more normally, two stickers right next to each other.

I know this can be difficult when you have differing lengths of timber. It is a relatively easy matter in a larger timber yard where they have several cubes all the same size.

Regards
Paul

Thanks mate
We used dry sticks at the green mills i have worked in,we used ones cut from the logs dus this mater..

Eli

The recommendations have always been to use dry hardwood stickers, but this generally has refered to commercial installations and their situation may be quite different to the mobile miller.

Firstly: Why hardwood compared to softwood? This is probably to do with the size of the stack. A commercial stack could be up to 6m high. There is clearly a huge crushing force at the bottom which softwood will not resist. The stickers may crush (increasing drying time) and even worse crush unevenly (degrading board quality).

This may not be a problem in a stack that is only 1m high and I know other millers from the forum have used softwood.

Secondly: Why seasoned? I believe this is due to the potential to stain timber where the tanins may leach out. There may also be a similar issue as with using softwood that the stickers at the bottom of a high stack are more prone to crushing if green.

I don't think any of this is going to worry you with the pictures you have posted, bearing in mind the timber is primarily structural and will probably be stained or painted eventually. It could be a different scenario if you were producing furniture material.

I would certainly try to keep the ends of the stacks as even as possible and, as I mentioned before, aim to place the stickers flush with the ends of the boards.

Having said all that, I have only ever used seasoned hardwood for stickers.

Regards
Paul

Thanks paul
And yes the timber will be painted.
I will have to cut some rackers out of something seasoned.
Or how i think of it i mite pull sum string and get some proper H strips,