Thread: preserving & drying green wood ? gum trees

Originally Posted by steamingbill

Hello,

Any definitive websites, previous discussions or books that would help me to understand what I need to do in order to salvage and keep useable timber when the gum trees fall down in the paddocks and I try to get some useable pieces from them ?

Usually when I try to keep pieces they dry out and crack up and distort - at times the distortion has been significant.

Somebody once told me that I need to coat the end grain with something to slow down and control the drying process.

Will do some googling, but if you can save me some time by pointing to good information t'would be greatly appreciated.

Bill

Here's a few tips..end seal the timber,try to mill everything on the quarter,keep sawn product out of direct sunlight, drying winds or rain,mill in the cooler months, carefully choose the correct species to mill (some species will twist and collapse regardless),when sectioning log(s),try to dock at branch points(this will reduce twisting whilst the slabs/boards are seasoning,and reduces the 'spring' when milling ..follow these simple steps and your recovery(of useable timber) will improve dramatically..MM

Bill

Mapleman has some good tips there. While he is correct about quartersawn timber in that it is more stable, most timber is backsawn. The most important aspects during air drying are to seal the ends of your timber, keeps the stickers very even and cover the top of the stack.

This is a link to another thread that may be useful, but there would be many others too:

https://www.woodworkforums.com/f132/h...timber-152476/

For reference I use a publication called the "Australian Timber Seasoning Manual" (ISBN 0 646 0289995) which was produced by The Forest & Wood Products Research and Development Corporation.

This is fairly technical and goes into drying on a commercial scale. I'm afraid I can't recall the cost. As it is a paperback (A4 size) I would guess at $30 to $50.

Wikipaedia has some information to kick you away on the technical side.

Wood drying - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Regards
Paul

Thanks for the tips.

Will follow up on them.

Bill