davvyd said:
woodshop said:I've had pretty good success air drying, as long as you don't let it dry out too fast the first few weeks to a month by keeping a tarp over it, only letting some air exchange to take away the moisture. I use 1 x 3/4 x 14 stickers ripped from pine or poplar boards. After a month or so, I just keep rain/snow off the stack, but no tarp anymore... pretty much open to the elements but under "roof". I get about 300 bd ft in each 5 ft high stack (if 8 ft long and 14 inches width boards).
4/4 oak dries to 15% MC in 3-6 months... poplar and pine only take 6-8 weeks, often less.
:jawdrop: Nice stack! I'm jealous!
I respectfully disagree with the above advice in most situations. After the wood has had a chance to dry down to say 20% MC, THEN maybe you could get away with this. But, as Hoadly's "Understanding Wood" in his chapter about water in wood explains, winter air because it is colder, holds less moisture, and thus is dry already to begin with compared to warmer summer air. Then when you pull that dry air inside and heat it up, since it now COULD hold more water, it's RELATIVE humidity becomes even less, and it gets even dryer. Thats why the moisture content in wood in most heated houses in winter doesn't equalize till its down to around 8%. This is the very reason that you pull wood from your shed outside and let it sit in your shop for a week or so till it equalizes with the dry inside of your house before you start to machine it. If you don't you will be sorry, because it will move for sure going from 12-15% outside to 6-8% inside. Now, if you put wet fresh milled lumber in that dry environment in your heated house in winter, it is likely going to dry way too fast. Ends will check and split more than they otherwise would, and there will likely be internal pressures in the boards as the outside surface dries (and thus shrinks) way too fast. I'm not pretending to be an expert on drying wood, but if you read up on this, you will find that drying too fast is one of the main reasons of lumber degrade when drying. You are basically starting with a big hard sponge. Stick a piece of fresh milled wood in your vise and crank it down and you will see water dripping out of the wood.TedChristiansen said:
Again... I'm no expert on drying wood, far from it. I think the key here is still how fast you initially let wet "right off the mill" wood dry, regardless of where it is. Even if it was a very dry heated basement in winter, if you stacked the wood such that it didn't have tremendous airflow at first, like maybe in a corner, or against a wall with boxes or other obstructions at least partially blocking the ends of the stack, then you might be OK. Even more so if you had radiant heat as opposed to forced air heat. With forced air, you are constantly exchanging the air in a room. (read constantly exchanging the moist air in that stack as it releases moisture with with more dry air).TedChristiansen said:
I have used the upstairs attic portion of my garage, which gets VERY hot in the summer, as a kindof kiln. But only after I've let the wet wood dry down to say 25%MC outside first. Then I've put it up there, and have gotten it down to 10-12% that way.
I got my Wagner pinless years ago and it turned out to be one of those things in the shop that after I started using it, don't know how I did without if for so many years. Interesting aggie how your 2 and 4 inch oak is still pretty wet after 4 months. The thinner stuff like my 4/4 hardwoods, as you might imagine, dry pretty quick, matter of months, and with white pine and also poplar, only weeks to loose most of its moisture and get down to 15-20%.aggiewoodbutchr said:
