My Lumber is Stacked and Drying!

The trees I harvested from my property have been sawn into lumber, which is now back at my place. I hired a guy with a skid steer and a trailer to load it at the sawmill, drive it to my house, and offload it. Ten trips later, it’s all back where it grew.  

OK, so maybe my estimates were off, and there is more lumber than I had anticipated!  Where I thought we’d get two logs from the walnut, maple, and cherry trees, we often got three.  Where I thought there would be three logs from the pine trees, we actually got four or five.  The sawyer did a great job making lumber from the small diameter logs from high in those trees.

Fresh-sawn, or green lumber, is loaded with water, and it’s heavy!  The total weight of the lumber is approximately 36,740 pounds or 18.4 tons.  The next step is to dry it.  During this process, the wood will lose about one-third of its weight or six tons of water.

Why Dry the Wood?

Drying wood is necessary for a few reasons. As water leaves, the wood shrinks quite a bit. It is essential that this happens before making anything from it. For example, a table made from wood which has too much moisture won’t hold up well.  During the winter months, when the air inside our homes is very dry, the wood will shrink to a point where glue joints can open up, and splits will appear in the wood.  The joints where the legs are attached will become loose, and the table will wobble. You may have seen floors made from wood that hadn’t been fully dried.  In January and February large gaps open up between the boards. Once the wood is dried to around 8% moisture content, it is more stable and moves much less.  Wood also becomes harder and stronger as it dries.

Stickering Up the Lumber

This is where a few good friends, including my wife Sarah, really came through for me! I want to give a special thanks to Wade, who spent several long days lifting lumber.  We stacked the boards in four-foot wide piles.  A layer of boards was laid down with some space between each one.  This will allow air to circulate around and carry away moisture.  Next, several small boards, called stickers, were added perpendicular to the boards.  These create a space between layers so air can move freely around the wood.  Then, another layer of boards was laid down, and stickers were added.  This was repeated until the stack was about seven feet tall.  As boards dry, they typically warp lengthwise, widthwise, or both.  When they are well stacked, the weight of the boards above keeps them flat.  Once they are dry, they are much less likely to warp. 

Preventing Checks

Wood fiber is like a bundle of straws. Moisture leaves the ends of these ‘straws’ faster than the sides, so the end of the board shrinks, and cracks called ‘checks’ appear. To minimize checking on many of the larger and more valuable boards, I applied a layer of caulk on the ends. This will slow down the rate at which moisture leaves the ends of the boards and will reduce checking.

A Slow Process

I had the boards sawn to 1”, 1 ¼”, 1 ½” and 2” thickness.  This will allow me to choose the best board for any project and have the least amount of waste.  The thickest boards will take about two years to air dry.  This will bring the moisture level of the wood to about 12%.  At that point, there are techniques I will use to bring the moisture level to 8%.  Finally, this great wood, which grew right outside my shop, will be ready to become art and furniture!

Ultimately, I will use the wood to make art and furniture. In previous blogs, you can learn why we did this and about the harvest itself.

Beautiful art for life well lived,

Moe