Drying fresh sawn logs

[martin.pearson]

Where is the best place to look for info on drying wood or do ny of the forum users have some good info, having seen some pictures of peoples sheds I am guessing this is something that at least some of the members do.

Just picked up some bits of yew from my sister inlaw it is mainly branch wood from about 4 inch diameter up to about 6 inch & lengths up to about 4 foot, there are a couple of trunk bits but nothing over about 12 inches in diameter & these are up to about 3 foot in length.

My son has also asked if I would help him pick up a couple of small ash & oak bits that he has found on his hikes through the woods & they will need to be dried as well. The yew tree was cut down at the weekend, not the whole tree hich is why I don't have any thicker trunk bits.

 

[Pierre]

If its logs and not planks, the best way is to paint the ends and then lay the logs horizontally with air gaps around each log. Painting the ends stops the sap from evaporating out too fast to cause spitting. If the log is big enough in diameter ie 20cms or greater then I would recommend that you cut it in half down the heart section so as to reduce the splitting that will inevitably happen (wood pulls to the heart). I said cut it down the middle, if you think that you can split it evenly, then that will do, whatever paint the ends to avoid drying too fast. Keep in mind that wood dries at about 1" per thickness year but in thick log form the last interior section drying can take longer. You should aim for between 12% and 18% humidity you can get a cheap meter here Buy Moisture Meters from Rutlands Limited - Rutlands

You can paint the ends with either ordinary paint or liquid beeswax (heat it up and it will dry onto the wood or liquid paraffin, others will no doubt suggest other products.

Hope that helps pm me if you want more info or diagrams on wood drying.

PG

 

[flexi]

There are others on here with better knowlage than me, but the last time we had a tree surgeon in I oversize cut the bits up and chucked them under my shed for 12 months.....it's dry and airy.....it's worked OK for me.

 

[Dalboy]

Once cut seal the ends as soon as possible. Large diameter logs as already said are best cut through the length I try to cut either side of the heartwood. Store the wood in a cool but dry place out of direct sun and undercover. Store the wood in stick to allow for a good airflow around it.

Keep the wood as long as you can for as long as possible and if you have to cut a piece off reseal the cut end.
Sometimes cut the wood and rough turn, when doing so allow a good thickness for re-turning also keep the thickness the same all the way around.

The other thing you can do is turn it wet to final shape and sand then let it do its own thing this can bring some interesting work.

If you get a moisture meter when checking thick pieces the inside may still be quite wet as they only read the surface moisture.

You will lose some but that is the nature of wood some will split more readily than others, Yew is not too bad where as cherry will start to split within minutes if allowed to

 

[Phil Dart]

They've all ready said it.^^^

Yew happens to be a pretty well behaved wood whilst seasoning. If you follow the advice already given, in my experience splits in yew are are not too much of a problem.

 

[martin.pearson]

Thanks people, it's kind of what I figured from what I already knew (which isn't much). I already have & use a moisture metre. One of the first things I bought when I started working with wood lol most of the wood I buy is kiln dried tree slices & sometimes it doesn't get used straight away, my workshop is not heated so I knew it would start to reabsorb moisture just being in the workshop.
Nice to hear that Yew is one of the better behaved woods to dry, at some point I would like to build a solar kiln in the garden so I will need to learn a lot more about drying wood. That isnt going to happen over night though & I need to do something with this yew now.

 

[Penpal]

Friends of mine many years ago provided branch timber to a woodworking place next to where my folks lived and they harvested then stood the timber vertical with the best success in recovery,it worked for me.

At the risk of boring the socks off please find my method of beaut success drying pen blanks with the least losses ever in my roof space. The stacks have a domestic fan running 24/7 through. Note the shape these are all dry to almost.

Peter.

 

[Pierre]

Thanks people, it's kind of what I figured from what I already knew (which isn't much). I already have & use a moisture metre. One of the first things I bought when I started working with wood lol most of the wood I buy is kiln dried tree slices & sometimes it doesn't get used straight away, my workshop is not heated so I knew it would start to reabsorb moisture just being in the workshop.
Nice to hear that Yew is one of the better behaved woods to dry, at some point I would like to build a solar kiln in the garden so I will need to learn a lot more about drying wood. That isnt going to happen over night though & I need to do something with this yew now.

Erm in the UK the weather is quite benign so building a solar kiln might be overkill. Instead just build a shelter of some form, either a lean too or a shed. If you are a casual turner then accumulate wood and over the years it will dry, if you have a covered area then so much the better. By example if you took a load of logs and piled them up lets say 1 cu metre the logs in the middle after 5 years would be perfectly useable. I have a huge tobacco drying shed and on one side I have 20 years of accumulated wood and on the other side the wood I burn for winter, but I am lucky enough to live in the S of France where the weather is warm for most of the year. In your case the humidity is not so harsh as to create a problem, If you dont have oodles of space then just ensure air space around the logs, cover against the rain, seal the ends and after a couple of years play with the thinner logs and after 5 years play with the big ones.

If you look up Glenn Lucas in s. Ireland you will see that he has a 20 ft container converted to a drying kiln; but he is knocking out 3500 bowls per year all turned green and returned after drying; that is serious turning.

If your wood is in planks then store it with spacers between each plank horizontally.

well that's my 3pennorth there will probably be more, wood dries no matter what; I would suggest that you invest more on a decent lung protection system.

Don't make your happy hobby become a financial burden unless you are going to be a serious production line. (or you have serious dosh to dump). And no pen wood needs a solar kiln, just use the nice bit in the middle there will always be more.

Sorry grandad's finished. :wink:

PG

 

[wm460]

I just leave it out in the sun for a few month, bone dry then.

 

[martin.pearson]

Mark, thanks for that, all I needed to hear living in cold damp Scotland lol

Pierre, I understand what you are saying 100%. I know the weather where I live isn't really ideal for a solar kiln but figured it would dry wood quicker than just storing it in a shed or under cover, how much quicker I have no real idea but since I can build one reasonably cheaply it seemed worth a try. No I don't have bundles of cash lying around lol, I live on my own though & don't go out so do have a little money that I can afford to invest (or waste) on experimenting with various things. I already have most of what I would need for a kiln collected from various skips & building sites lol
I am looking to turn what I do into a small part time business so it's not just a bit of casual hand turning. Actually I don't do that much hand turning, most of the wood I use goes on the CNC machine & once the 4th axis is fitted & working I will be able to do rotary work on that as well. When I am hand turning the CNC machine is normally running as well & when I am not hand turning the CNC machine is normally running lol.
Where I live is fairly rural & my son often comes across hardwood trees that have fallen or have been cut down for some reason & then just left, he asked me if I thought it might be feasable to harvest these & although I am still looking into how legal this would be I have looked at the cost of a chainsaw & sled set up which would allow us to do this. It's not cheap but I do think it would be a good investment, next problem then becomes how do you dry the wood lol.

 

[Dalboy]

Martin I found the investment in a chainsaw alone is well worth the money. What I paid for it and the number of blanks I have harvested using it has paid for itself.

Just cutting up one piece of yew has saved me money over buying blanks. I now have two sheds full of blanks

 

[martin.pearson]

Martin I found the investment in a chainsaw alone is well worth the money. What I paid for it and the number of blanks I have harvested using it has paid for itself.

Just cutting up one piece of yew has saved me money over buying blanks. I now have two sheds full of blanks

Well that's good to hear, the reasoning beind the chainsaw & a sled is that I want to be able to harvest boards as well as blanks & many of the trunks we have spotted are quite large in diameter & would be to heavy to move if just cut into logs of 3 or 4 feet in length. Cutting them into boards onsite would make moving the bits a lot easier.

 

[Pierre]

If you are interested in getting, sawing, storing, and using all of the wood that you can get, I think that you will find that once you are known, you will start to gain wood in huge quantities especially from Tree surgeons who generally end up with too much wood unless they also have large storage yards and sawmills. At least that is my experience, I now have about 20 tons of wood for turning, most of which I won't be able to use in my life but I cant say no to more, in case that lovely burl or piece of unusual wood pops up!!

So rather than create a solar kiln just to reduce drying times about 50% why not invest in this setup. Sawmills | LOGOSOL

And then since you are both turning and CNC'ing, you are probably producing a fair amount of wood chips and saw dust so look here and convert it into saleable briquettes which loads of people in your area would need to cope with the winters.
Benefits | Using a briquette machine as wood waste solution | MAE Development UK then you can reinvest in all that you need.

As for storing the planks that you cut this is the better way and where possible you should again wax or paint the ends to prevent spitting. The big sawmills actually staple the ends of their planks with plastic ties to reduce the splitting but that can be expensive and is only good in high volumes with a specialist machine.



Whatever you do just have fun doing it.

Pierre

 

[wm460]

Here is a fridge kiln.

DIY Kiln From Old Refrigerator A.K.A The Kilnerator - Woodshop Mike

 

[Pierre]

If you are going to invest in just a chainsaw I found that these people here were the most helpful for me after some thieves broke in a few years ago and stole mine. Chainsaw specialists 01704 896246 they give good advice and their chainsaws were 50% of the price I would have to pay here in France!!

Their website seems to have a problem so you may have to call them in the week.

 

[martin.pearson]

Thanks for the links.

Pierre, the Logosol link has the sort of thing I had been looking at a while ago, the Untra portable was the sort of thing I had looked at although I was lookiung more at the budget end of these sleds lol. I have already spoken with a couple of tree surgeons & had very poor response from them but maybe that was because I don't currently have the equipment required to do this. The idea of producing briquettes is not something I have thought about, I don't think I produce the volume of sawdust required for such an investment. I was burning some of the sawdust I produced at my old ndustrial unit. Working as a signmaker, vinyl comes on a cardboard tube which is 3" diameter. I use to cut the tubes to a reasonable length for the log burner I had & then fill them with sawdust. I use to compress it as much as I could but didn't have any special gear for this. They use to burn well but didn't last as long as they would have done if I had been able to compress the sawdust more.

Mark, not seen anything like that before so will have a look latter just out of interest thanks.

 

[Dalboy]

Thanks for the links.

Pierre, the Logosol link has the sort of thing I had been looking at a while ago, the Untra portable was the sort of thing I had looked at although I was lookiung more at the budget end of these sleds lol. I have already spoken with a couple of tree surgeons & had very poor response from them but maybe that was because I don't currently have the equipment required to do this. The idea of producing briquettes is not something I have thought about, I don't think I produce the volume of sawdust required for such an investment. I was burning some of the sawdust I produced at my old ndustrial unit. Working as a signmaker, vinyl comes on a cardboard tube which is 3" diameter. I use to cut the tubes to a reasonable length for the log burner I had & then fill them with sawdust. I use to compress it as much as I could but didn't have any special gear for this. They use to burn well but didn't last as long as they would have done if I had been able to compress the sawdust more.

Mark, not seen anything like that before so will have a look latter just out of interest thanks.

I think if you do a search there is someone who made their own woodchip compressor I remember seeing it but just can't remember where

 

[Pierre]

Are you thinking about the company that showed their product on the other site that you show your pieces in (WWI)? In which case it is MAE development because I got it from there a few years ago. My only problem is that I dont have a spare £3000 to buy one of their small machines neither do I produce enough wood chippings to use their machine at the economical rates they quote; although I do produce enough hay if I could be bothered to gather it. I think that they are one of the few that make a machine that does not need a binding agent additive and which can convert more than sawdust and shavings.