Maple Haul/Drying


danbell78

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I have recently had the good luck of getting my hands on some maple lumber.  Seems my brother-in-law has upped his game on his side job of cutting down trees and got into milling up some of these trees.  So I got this maple at what it cost him to have it milled.  It is currently drying in the basement, dry basement with a fan blowing on them.  With these being about 5/4 or a bit more in thickness what should I expect for drying time?  I plan to make a bunk bed out of these for my daughters, and they are quickly outgrowing their current beds

He has also picked up a chainsaw mill and started making some slabs.  He will be selling these off, so as those come available if anyone in the Central Illinois area is interested I will see if I can help you and him out.  

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Grab some kiln dried lumber and put it with this stuff for about a week.  Check the moisture content of that kiln dried lumber and compare it to this maple.  When the numbers are the same, it's ready to go.

It looks like you've done a nice job of storing it!

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Even inside your house, and with circulated air, the kids are going to get a bit bigger before you can make new beds with that. Also, you should seal the cut ends so that rapid evaporation from the end grain doesn't split the boards too badly.

IIRC, rule of thumb for air drying lumber is 1 year per inch of thickness. If you keep the air circulating and the humidity low, you might shave a couple months off that. But drying too fast can cause problems, too.

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I'm no expert in air drying, but I would be concerned about putting extremely green wood into conditioned space right away -- particularly in the winter when the humidity inside is likely at its lowest point -- as it might cause the wood to dry too quickly. I have some green walnut that I am drying outside for a year before I move it into my basement to dry for another year or until it's fully dried. That said, it looks like you did a good job stacking the wood; however, you might consider throwing some weight on top of the stack. 

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I second the moisture meter.

As for time the 1 year per inch is way too conservative. I cut some firewood into small slabs on November 19th, it's already down to 11%mc. Like Dknapp said drying too fast is a concern but you could have usable lumber in as fast as 3 months. Mr. Cremona dries lumber in his basement and gets to EMC generally in 3-4 months for 4/4 to 5/4 boards.

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I have been wanting to do something similar to this for a while now. Looks like you have a nice stack. The only thing I would do differently is put more stickers up under the wood. It looks like you have only 3 under some pieces? My own hardwood dealer has stickers every 2 feet. I don't know if that is necessary or not, but since that is how I have seen it done I would copy it.

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1 hour ago, Chestnut said:

I second the moisture meter.

As for time the 1 year per inch is way too conservative. I cut some firewood into small slabs on November 19th, it's already down to 11%mc. Like Dknapp said drying too fast is a concern but you could have usable lumber in as fast as 3 months. Mr. Cremona dries lumber in his basement and gets to EMC generally in 3-4 months for 4/4 to 5/4 boards.

I think Mr. Cremona's secret is that by storing the lumber in the living area, his wife reminds him more frequently to get it out of there.   :-)

 

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7 minutes ago, Minnesota Steve said:

I think Mr. Cremona's secret is that by storing the lumber in the living area, his wife reminds him more frequently to get it out of there.   :-)

 

Maybe I've bought some lumber from him and saw the video of when he milled it and from mill to dry it was in that 3-5 month range. He also covers dry time multiple times in his videos but the only way to know for sure is a moisture meter. They are worth the investment.

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I can't tell if you've sealed the ends or not. If you haven't you  need to put some kind of sealer on each end to prevent checking and twisting/cupping. One thing you should do is move your stickers much closer to the ends of the boards and add a couple of sticker per row. I air dry lumber all the time and run a dehumidifier in addition to a fan 24/7 even in the winter months. I usually don't bring super green lumber into my shop to dry if it can be avoided. It really should be left stickered outdoors for a month or so with some sort of roof over it.  +1 on getting a moisture meter.

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The ends are sealed, just used some paint as I brought them in the house to stack them.  Next time I will add some more stickers and get them close to the ends, I didn't know exactly what length variations I was getting when I started the stack so I was a bit conservative on the sticker placement.  

As to the question of cost, it was ~$80 to have this milled.  I don't know the exact board feet of it but probably close to 200 bd ft.  

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16 hours ago, danbell78 said:

I have recently had the good luck of getting my hands on some maple lumber.  Seems my brother-in-law has upped his game on his side job of cutting down trees and got into milling up some of these trees.  So I got this maple at what it cost him to have it milled.  It is currently drying in the basement, dry basement with a fan blowing on them.  With these being about 5/4 or a bit more in thickness what should I expect for drying time?  I plan to make a bunk bed out of these for my daughters, and they are quickly outgrowing their current beds

He has also picked up a chainsaw mill and started making some slabs.  He will be selling these off, so as those come available if anyone in the Central Illinois area is interested I will see if I can help you and him out.  

 

 

I may be interested in buying lumber in the future. If he has a 60" bar I may also be interested in hiring him. I got another guy right now but he is kind of hard to reach. I probably have 1000+ bf of walnut waiting to be milled. 

I think I did stickers every 18" on the pin oak I have drying. They looked fine last I checked them out. It's been 2 years at 8/4 and I'm sure they are dry. I only recently bought a moisture meter, so I am unable to really know when they were ready. I dried them outside Cremona style and plan to bring them into the basement for a few months before doing anything else with them. 

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OP, the ratcheting straps look cool and seemed liked a good idea to me as well. I used threaded rod and angle iron and was no way I could keep up with the shrinkage. Mine is drying outdoors, under a cover. I’ve seen pics of pros that do it for a living and theirs is just stacked and stickered, I’m now of the opinion that regardless of how much pressure and weight you put on the stack, the boards/planks are going to move if they want too! 

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