Thread: Freshly cut timber left in the rain...Problem?

Originally Posted by oz93666

Hi all ... Recently moved to Thailand (from UK)... a large hard wood tree was cut up into lengths , unfortunately no where to store it so it's out in the rain.
I understand this will cause it to warp ,

Rain by itself will not do much its uneven drying that causes the warping.
If the top is saturated with water it will MAY dry out slower than the underneath.
OTOH the top is usually exposed to direct sunlight and more wind, so even if it has copped lost of rain it MAY still undergo greater water loss shrinkage causing cupping/warping.

but surely latter, when evenly dried out , it should return to the condition it was in when cut(assuming it was evenly dried when cut)
Am I right?.... Thanks.

Nope - to maintain a true dimensional structure the wood has to lose water evenly from all surfaces and that rarely if ever happens.

The most rapid water loss is from cross grained cut surfaces (this is why the splitting usually starts there) so most important thing is to seal the ends with wax or paint.
Then to allow some air to get to the wood cover the wood loosely (not to stop the rain but) prevent direct sunlight.
Wood will dry fine in the shade even it it cops a lot of rain.

Thanks for that Bob...made things clearer . It's common practice here to store wood under water till you wan't to use it, then I think , just fish it out and make a roof , or whatever strait away , without drying too much!
Just had a roof made and it rained a lot during construction , but it seems to have turned out OK. Perhaps hard wood is a bit more stable than soft, under such conditions?

Originally Posted by oz93666

Thanks for that Bob...made things clearer . It's common practice here to store wood under water till you wan't to use it, then I think , just fish it out and make a roof , or whatever strait away , without drying too much!
Just had a roof made and it rained a lot during construction , but it seems to have turned out OK. Perhaps hard wood is a bit more stable than soft, under such conditions?

Storing logs in or under water is a time honoured way of reducing (or at least delaying) log degrade and drying stresses. "Sinker" logs are highly sought after because the timber tends to dry dimensionly stable, and because the water leeches out any extractives in the wood over time. Remove the starch from the wood and you remove the desire of terrestrial borers to eat it.
Wooden boats are similar in principal - there its the timber above the waterline that gives problems, not the stuff below it (excluding marine borers).

I'd say that its probably a very practical way of storing timber and I'll bet they've done it that way for thousands of years. Sometimes the old way is the best, particularly if you don't want to play around with or have no access to modern timber treatment chemicals.

We store timber in the rain here often enough... as Bob says, rain doesn't hurt timber. Sunlight is the killer.

worst enemy to drying is the sun, a bit of rain is no problem. Keep it shaded, stickered and strapped

My father use to get the warp out of such timber by applying a fairly heavy load of wet sand on the warped side and cover it with plastic to flatten the timber out. The moisture is to rehydrate the timber and weight should flatten it. Good luck.