Thread: Drying Timber Myself

I'm not familiar with that type of tree, but I would suggest you can get it dried OK at home. Proper stacking and weight on the top will reduce any warping and cupping that wants to occur as it dries. And a 75mm board can only cup so much

Drying the branches can be a problem, it depends a lot on species. Some are more prone to splitting and others are able to stay intact. It depends on the amount of shrinkage and how the grain interlocks. Drying speed will make a difference, but the overall problem is that the wood shrinks different amounts in different directions. ( Radially and Tangentially). This tends to pull rounds of wood apart.

Cheers

Ian

The mobile timber miller I contacted did say to cut it to 75mm as turpentine can tend to cup if it's wider than that. I had been hoping to have 100mm width.

Cheers,
Mike.

I'd go with his advise then, he's probably sawn it before.

You might get some wider boards to dry stable if he can quartersaw them. If he's running a swingblade (Lucas sawmill or similar) he can probably slice out a few nice qsawn boards from the best spots in the log as he cuts the rest down to 75x25s. Put your best boards on the bottom of the stack, then the weight of the rest will help keep them straight.

Cheers

Ian

G'day.
Turp is easy to dry. 100 to 150mm wide is no problem. 12 to 50mm thick is also no problem.
The only thing you really need to do is place plenty of weight on top of the stack. Concrete blocks, rail line, car body, anything with weight in it. Also cover the top row if it is stacked outside. If under cover (carport or awning) just use weight.
The miller was probably trying to talk you out of milling it due to Turp being very hard on cutting tools. It contains high amounts of silica which dulls cutting edges quickly. When we are milling Turp, the saws have to be changes every 20 minutes. Saws are 6ft dia chrome toothed that will cut through spotted gum for 2 to 3 hours. But Turp kills them quickly.

Turp should be backsawn due to high collapse in the initial stages of drying (above FSP) Quartersawn boards can come out looking like an hourglass in cross section.

Sorry, didn't mean to give the wrong impression, the miller was quite happy to chop it up. I had expected it to be a problem as a friend that lives in coffs and who mobile mills said that some may baulk at it because of it's tendency to blunt blades. I think the miller said he had a tungstun tip blade. His main issue was whether I've got enought to worry about.
Can someone tell me the formula for calculating the useable cubic meters out of a log. I understand that may be difficult as I expect the smaller the log the less useable. I may go ahead with it anyway - it'll cost some to cart it off anyway and I can feel all warm and fuzzy about not wasting. Initial calcs I've done say I'll get .75 - 1 m^3 - which based on the price of turpentine is pretty cheap for the milling cost - of course I have to dry it and thickens it (what is the verb for that). The old man has a thickensser ... though it sounds like I'll have to resharpen the blade afterwards.

Finding a place to stack it is another issue again.

Cheers,
Mike.

Mike,
For a log of about 600mm dia., nice and straight, minimal taper and with a thin band of sapwood you'll get about a 50% recovery rate with a Lucas mill or similar. (ie 1 cubic metre of boards for 2 cubic metres of log) Smaller diameter will mean a lower recovery rate, as will ore sapwood, taper or a bowed log. A bandsaw mill will give you better recovery (but are a waste of time on most Aussie hardwoods) as will larger diameter logs. You'll also end p with a huge pile of sawdust and other assorted waste.

Mick

Thanks Mick.

This logs only about 350dia at the base and 250 5m up (removing bark) - nice and straight the whole way. There's probably another 2m useable length but it tapers further. When I gave the miller the approximate dimensions (I hadn't measured it properly then) he came out with about .6m^3 which sounds about right - I got about the same using a calc with 35% recovery. Does the taper affect the line of the final boards - causing them to warp? Even though there's not that much timber I'm tempted to do it as an experiment - though perhaps I should cut thicker slab like pieces and use them on a table or something - that'll be easier to handle in the drying process.

cheers,
Mike.

Here we go. Pics. It does look pretty small.

Small, but still be some usefull boards in there...
Enough to be worth getting a mill in is the question?
Do you have any way of moving the logs if you bucked it into 2 x 2.5 m lengths and took it to the sawyer? That way he may cut them for you for his normal hourly rate, instead of his minimum charge which might be 2 or 4 hours charge.

The carbide tips on the swingmill blades are pretty resistant to tough cutting conditions, better than bandsaws and any chrome/steel bits on the bigger circle mills. Yes they will wear faster in wood like that, but it's a 5 min sharpen that might have to be done after an hour instead of 4 hours.

Cheers

Ian