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  1. #1
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    Default Seasoning local timbers

    Hello all,

    This is not something I have approached before but would very much like to try out. There a a few local timbers I would like to harvest, mill and season. I don't personally don't have a mill but there are a few people in my area that do. For the most part I need it quarter sawn as it will be used in making musical instruments. What I have on hand is Grevillia robusta (Silky Oak), Casurina cunninhamiana (River Shea Oak). I also plan to cut some Willow but it need not be quarter sawn for the intended purpose. I was looking for advice on the most advisable way to carry this out. I don't need large pieces so it could be milled into small billets and cured in that state. I understand the general rules of thumb but was looking for more species specific information if possible, I understand that Willow is notoriously difficult.

    I plan to carry this out in winter as my my understanding of plant physiology tells me that it would be the optimum time due to the sap being at it's lowest. (We have very cold winters here). That to me seems the most logical approach however my inexperience may be leading in the wrong direction. I would be very grateful if I could get some advice on this from people far more experienced than myself.

    Regards

    Brian

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  3. #2
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    I am no expert but have done my share of seasoning it is not that complicate just lay timber out under cover up and away from termites, with stickers ( timber battens) between the slabs or what ever you cut seal the ends and let it dry for a couple of years I rearrange the stack from bottom to top every six months, also checking the moisture content. I'm sure there are much more scientific approaches but that is how I do it.

  4. #3
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    Default Seasonin Local Timbers

    Quote Originally Posted by China View Post
    I am no expert but have done my share of seasoning it is not that complicate just lay timber out under cover up and away from termites, with stickers ( timber battens) between the slabs or what ever you cut seal the ends and let it dry for a couple of years I rearrange the stack from bottom to top every six months, also checking the moisture content. I'm sure there are much more scientific approaches but that is how I do it.
    Thanks China,

    Do you use a fan or anything like that for air flow? I imagine that a good exterior house paint for sealing the ends would do the job. One problem we have here is the mist in winter which is very thick and hangs around till near midday some years. If I have the timber raised on a roofed platform do you think that the moisture would be a big problem entering from the top and bottom of the planks? I am still building my workshop and am considering making some stacking shelves inside the building but am not sure yet as I wont have a lot of space and also assume that the moisture leaving the green timber has to go somewhere and that it may end up in dried timber such as unfinished instruments.

    P.S.

    Do you use a moisture meter or just weigh the timber?

    Regards

    Brian

  5. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by V Restrorations View Post
    Thanks China,

    Do you use a fan or anything like that for air flow?
    Watch out If a fan is applied to one side of a timber stack that's a sure recipe for problems. The surface wood closest to the fan will dry fast and split. Fans have to be applied indirectly ie to buildings or by using false walls to create specific circulation directions.

    Use of fans depends how fast you want to dry the wood.
    I presume you mean in an enclosed space like a shed?
    Two types of air circulation are usually employed, ventilation and circulation.
    Wood Kilns use large amounts (kW) of recirculation to keep the timber temp and humidity as even as possible and only a small amount of ventilation (~100w) to remove excess humidity.
    If only (or too much) ventilation is employed the wood may dry too fast and split, if only (or minimal) recirculation is employed then the wood can become "cooked" (brittle) or even go mouldy.
    The cost of power to run the fans can become expensive so your wood MUST be worth the cost of the power.

    If you only mean inside a shed then how well sealed the shed is and the shed to wood volume becomes important.
    A small volume of green wood inside a large sealed hot shed with no ventilation may damage the wood so some ventilation to reduce the shed's peak daytime temp is a good idea.

    However as your pieces will be small provided they are well stacked and stickered, storing them well space inside a shed with a small amount of ventilation (eg open eaves or gable vents) should be all that is required Whirly birds can be used as as ventilators as they don't move a lot of air.

    Natural Circulation through timber stacks can be improved by starting the stack well above the ground (1/2m), thicker stickers, making the stacks as narrow as possible, not stacking the stacks too close together, or up against walls etc.

    I imagine that a good exterior house paint for sealing the ends would do the job.
    Its not as good as proper sealer but its better than nothing.

    One problem we have here is the mist in winter which is very thick and hangs around till near midday some years. If I have the timber raised on a roofed platform do you think that the moisture would be a big problem entering from the top and bottom of the planks?
    Most people don't realise that wood will "dry" under liquid water or in reply cold climates - strictly speaking the wood's structure changes over time even under water so that when it is removed from water it will dry faster than usual and usually with less cracking. This is sometimes done deliberately with "cookies" - discs of logs used for example as stepping stones.

    Mist is probably an advantage. when there's no mist the outside of the exterior or the wood can over-dry so the daily mist may assist in rebalancing the moisture of the internal and external. This happens every day night to some extent - humidity is usually greater at night which helps rebalance some of the external wood moisture lost during the dy.

    I am still building my workshop and am considering making some stacking shelves inside the building but am not sure yet as I wont have a lot of space and also assume that the moisture leaving the green timber has to go somewhere and that it may end up in dried timber such as unfinished instruments
    It depends on the total amount of wood involved and how well sealed your shed is but wouldn't worry about the moisture loss as the amount of wood you are talking about sounds small and the process happens so slowly that the extra moisture emitted into the air will be about the same natural variation in atmospheric humidity.

    If you store the wood outside it should be shielded from direct sunlight and against wind. One way around this is to cover the wood stacks with a roof and a couple of layers of de4nser shade cloth and/or surrounding the stack on a couple of sides by some sort of a wind barrier

    Do you use a moisture meter or just weigh the timber?
    Moisture meter is handy but not essential.

    Now given you say you still have to build your shed, have you thought about wood dust control? If not you need to head over to the Wood Dust forum and see what's involved. It's worth considering dust control from the very beginning of any shed build.

    Wood dust control and wood drying may not that compatible. Proper wood dust control requires the ventilation of huge amounts of shed air/dust which may dry out green wood too quickly especially in summer. The problem is greatest when the wood is greenest so one way around this would be to leave recently cut wood outside for a few months (as per above) so that it loses the bulk moisture and then move it inside the shed.

  6. #5
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    Brian

    This thread may give you some principles around timber drying. This is actually the eighth page in the thread, which started with a standing tree, so if you have the time you can see what led to this point!

    Bandsawing a Spotted Gum - Page 8 (woodworkforums.com)

    This is another thread where the timber is dried inside a building (shipping container).

    More thoughts on drying timber (woodworkforums.com)

    Regards
    Paul
    Bushmiller;

    "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts, absolutely!"

  7. #6
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    Back in 2007 I experimented using a sea container with two whirly birds and side vents as a sort of a kiln and learned a few (some hard) lessons.

    1: Even if it is vented, avoid putting a small amount of small pieces of green wood into a sea container in the middle of summer
    Within a month most of the wood had turned into cracked, brittle, pretzels.
    It's OK to do this at cooler times, otherwise it's safer to build up a covered stash of green milled timber and then put the whole stash into the container - the wood then acts as its own humidity/thermal buffer.

    2: Avoid stacking green wood up against sides of the container directly exposed to the sun. The re-radiated heat from the walls onto the wood makes a mess of any wood nearest that side. Eventually I found even leaving a 50 mm gap was worth doing..

    3: Drying times depends on when (seasonally) you put the wood into the container. The slabs I put into the container at the end of autumn, during the following winter and even early spring all reached about the same level of usable dryness by the end of the following summer (that was with the vents partially covered to reduce cracking). Drying outside in a well vented location took about twice as long. I had plans of mixed drying by the container quickly filled up (Its still full) so that never happened. I do I have another container which we are about to engage.

    4: Good spacing in between sawn pieces at the same level (eg Bushmillers pics) does make a difference. Drying eg 2x4s is more even and quicker than slabs. Slabs keep the wood compact but if you know what size you want you lumber then sawing to that size plus allowances for dressing etc is well worth it.

    I did measure some temperature profiles of the container - here's on for Jan 2008.
    Red is the air temp in the middle of the inside of the container,
    Blue is the temp of the containers steel skin.
    Green is the minimum daily air temperature and Orange is the Max daily air temperature.
    Kiln2008.jpg
    Closing the vents and and stopping the whirly birds cause the inside temperatures to much more closely follow the containers skin temperature.
    In other word the vents and whirlies reduced the air temp inside the container by between 2 and 10ºC - average was about 5ºC

  8. #7
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    Bob

    Thanks for those stats.

    There are a few broad principles for drying timber and there are often multiple ways of addressing these issues.

    The fundamental issue is that the timber does not dry evenly. We mitigate this uneven drying by painting the ends of timber and by the amount of gap between the boards. Also we can orientate a stack to optimise wind flow. Small dimension timber is easier than large section slabs: Much easier. The outside edge of a slab is more exposed to drying than the centre of the board. Drying has to be done slowly. In this instance the thickness of the stickers needs to be reduced to slow the process. Difficult timbers need thinner stickers also. Equally, as you say, we do not want the outside edges to be more exposed to heat. Consequently, we avoid placing timber directly against a hot surface (shipping container wall for example) or if outside exposed to the direct rays of the sun.

    The stack I referenced in the first link is still there! 8 years later!

    The container timber has all been used, but I would be the first to admit it was not an ideal situation even without direct contact with the walls. At that time the container was blue and attracted a lot of heat during the summer months. More recently I painted it cream and this has made a huge difference to the temperature. However the timber has been long gone.

    Brian

    I think it is worth mentioning a couple of additional aspects.

    1. Small quantities of timber can present problems drying as it is difficult to get sufficient weight on them and this is exacerbated if the dimensions are varied (different thicknesses, widths and lengths).
    2. Not all timbers dry either at the same rate or as easily.

    These are pix today of the Spotted Gum stack, which will require quite a bit of preparation before the timber is useable (dressing and planning). One day it will be a work bench. The radiata pine stack next to it is not there for drying as radiata is rarely seen green, and this was salvaged from the scrap pile at work. It will be cut up into more useable sizes as required, a process that has already been started as you can see from the gaps. It was the only way I could store it and the covering is less than ideal. The solar plastic from the SG stack was removed a long time ago although the hoops are still there, at least those that have not been repurposed.

    P1080160 (Medium).JPGP1080161 (Medium).JPGP1080162 (Medium).JPG

    Regards
    Paul
    Bushmiller;

    "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts, absolutely!"

  9. #8
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    Here's one way to put significant downward pressure on small amounts of timber during drying.

    BUT
    you still have to remember to tighten those wing nuts as often as possible (at least every week) - even days in the first month of so of drying
    That wood was samp oak (notorious for turning into pretzels) and I stacked it like that and went on a 4 week holiday - too late!
    Some weight on the top would have mitigated the lack of wing nut tightening.
    IMG_7528s.jpg

  10. #9
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    Default seasong local timbers

    G,day,

    Thank you all so much, that is a whole lot of incredible and useful information. This has saved me so much time and potential wastage. You guys are great, thank you for being so open and forthcoming with your knowledge and experience. If there is anything I can pass on from my side of things please let me know as I will be happy to do so.

    Regards

    Brian

  11. #10
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    You are welcome.
    BTW that has to be one of the best thank you posts on the forums!

  12. #11
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    To give you an idea how quickly MCs can change when it's hot.

    The original Norfolk Island Pine Log had been down about a year and stored in the open.
    The log was slabbed into ~100mm thick slabs on Feb 4 and left under cover until Feb 7 when it was milled into the following.

    Small Bandsaw Milling-nipmilling5-jpg

    The MC of these timbers direct off the big slabs was between 22 and 25% (as measured by my elcheapo MS meter.

    I bought the timber home and stacked it in my shed where I've been running a small ventilation fan (<100W) so that the temp on the inside of teh shed is similar to that on the outside of the shed

    The average maximum temp as reported by the BOM in our area in the last 9 days has been 34ºC (lowest max was 27 highest was 39ºC)
    Ave Min has been 19ºC.

    MC as measured this morning was 7-8% on the outside and between 10 and 12% on the inside.

    This is a fairly open pored timber - I doubt the MC would drop as quickly for say our Aussie hardwoods
    There has been some bowing of the timbers so I've added about 60kg of weight.
    No cracking so far.

  13. #12
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    It can be more of a challenge to dry 1-piece of wood. I would paint the ends with Anchorseal if you can find some. Barring that, melt some cheap candle wax or soft beeswax. Straight paraffin tends to be pretty hard. Anchorseal has the consistency of wax mixed with some vaseline to keep it plaible, and some kerosene to make it brushable.

    Left over exterior old house paint also sort of works... It's better than nothing. Slobber it on thick and hope for the best.

    Since you mention musical instrument wood....

    My suggestion is to seek out someone who already has the sawmill and will let you cherry pick the stack and sell you a few boards. You probably want the center slab to maximize quartersawn figure.

    Guitars only take a few board feet of lumber, and one single good log may contain enough wood to keep you busy for several lifetimes... In theory.

    In practice, trees contain a ton of defects like knots, cracks, and wood that's not well suited to instruments. There is a giant mountain of wood with plain face or rift sawn grain that would make fine furniture but not guitars.

  14. #13
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    Default seasoning local timbers

    Quote Originally Posted by truckjohn View Post
    It can be more of a challenge to dry 1-piece of wood. I would paint the ends with Anchorseal if you can find some. Barring that, melt some cheap candle wax or soft beeswax. Straight paraffin tends to be pretty hard. Anchorseal has the consistency of wax mixed with some vaseline to keep it plaible, and some kerosene to make it brushable.

    Left over exterior old house paint also sort of works... It's better than nothing. Slobber it on thick and hope for the best.

    Since you mention musical instrument wood....

    My suggestion is to seek out someone who already has the sawmill and will let you cherry pick the stack and sell you a few boards. You probably want the center slab to maximize quartersawn figure.

    Guitars only take a few board feet of lumber, and one single good log may contain enough wood to keep you busy for several lifetimes... In theory.

    In practice, trees contain a ton of defects like knots, cracks, and wood that's not well suited to instruments. There is a giant mountain of wood with plain face or rift sawn grain that would make fine furniture but not guitars.
    Thanks Truckjohn,

    I gather you advise that straight beeswax is the go? I will talk to the local millers but I don't see much quarter sawing going round here as they mainly mill for fence posts. My mate has 80 acres of river vegetation where I was hoping to be able to harvest some She oaks and I have the go ahead to drop on a couple mature silky oaks nearby so I thought it might be worth a try.

    Regards

    Brian

  15. #14
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    Default seasoning local timbers

    Thanks Bob,

    Mate that is a whole lot of useful information. I am going to buy a moisture meter before I start. I see exactly what you mean about how dicey it can be to maintain the M.C of the timber. It sounds as if you have it withing a pretty good range though.


    Regards

    Brian

    Quote Originally Posted by BobL View Post
    To give you an idea how quickly MCs can change when it's hot.

    The original Norfolk Island Pine Log had been down about a year and stored in the open.
    The log was slabbed into ~100mm thick slabs on Feb 4 and left under cover until Feb 7 when it was milled into the following.

    Small Bandsaw Milling-nipmilling5-jpg

    The MC of these timbers direct off the big slabs was between 22 and 25% (as measured by my elcheapo MS meter.

    I bought the timber home and stacked it in my shed where I've been running a small ventilation fan (<100W) so that the temp on the inside of teh shed is similar to that on the outside of the shed

    The average maximum temp as reported by the BOM in our area in the last 9 days has been 34ºC (lowest max was 27 highest was 39ºC)
    Ave Min has been 19ºC.

    MC as measured this morning was 7-8% on the outside and between 10 and 12% on the inside.

    This is a fairly open pored timber - I doubt the MC would drop as quickly for say our Aussie hardwoods
    There has been some bowing of the timbers so I've added about 60kg of weight.
    No cracking so far.

  16. #15
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    Find somebody slabbing a tree and get the center slab. Forget "Quartersawing" a whole tree.

    To give you an idea - one single 9" wide, 1" thick, 8' long board that's well cut with vertical grain can be resawn to give you 8 complete back sets. A 5" wide board, 6' long gives 4 sets of sides.

    Australian that's easy and friendly that I've tried: Sheoak - Love love love it. , Blackwood - great, like Koa/mahogany, Lacewood - beautiful but can be a little cranky to bend, and Lyptus variety of Eucalyptus - plain looking, but awesome otherwise.

    Not so easy... Wandoo, Jarrah, most of the dry land Acacias, and most of the dry land Eucalypts. Bending can be the devil. Hard, hard, hard.

    Native olive rings like steel, but I haven't tried bending it yet.

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