# milling green or dry wood?



## primal1 (Aug 22, 2003)

A friend just cut down a bunch of trees, mostly for firewood but some of it will be nice to use. To prevent or minimize cracking and warping is it best to let them dry for a year? Does this apply to different wood, for example Black cherry, a lot of what he had milled, ended up warping despite being stored in a dry airy barn.


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## farminghandyman (Mar 4, 2005)

saw them wet, and properly stack them and let them dry,


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## Travis in Louisiana (May 14, 2002)

There are sites that tell you how to stack and dry the wood, but cut the wood green, stack and sticker so air can move around the wood. After stacking the wood, put weight on top to help keep the warping down. You can also paint the ends of the boards to slow down the end grain drying to prevent splits. When I say weight, I mean big time. This will help hold the board flat.


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## CesumPec (May 20, 2011)

Locals here mill southern pine and oak while still green and then use metal binding straps to hold 16 - 24 stickered boards in a bundle. The boards are cut fairly large, like a true 2 x 12. Lengths run about 16+ for oak and 24+ for pine. The ends are rarely clean square cut so any splits occur in what will be waste trim anyway.

I'm told they do the strapping to prevent warping and allow the bundle to season for months. I haven't seen what it looks like after a year so I'm not recommending this practice, just relaying what I've seen from at least 6 sawyers.


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## primal1 (Aug 22, 2003)

OK cool! His stacked wood was stickered properly but he had no weight or strapping. Thanks this helps a lot


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## woodsy (Oct 13, 2008)

It might take a couple years to dry your stacked hardwood in the north country , some summers are better for drying than others.
The quality of the wood to be milled will depend on the trees it was cut from and knot 
sizes . Leaning trees ,crooked or twisting trees and trees with large limbs don't make for nice lumber to work with. Once you unstack lumber like this even if it is weighted will do all sorts of crazy things if it hasn't already.
Best you can do is cut the bad parts out and use the straight stuff.

Black Cherry can be beautiful wood but its one of those trees that usually twists when it grows. I managed to find some straight cherry logs once and blended some of it into hardwood flooring. Nice to work with and pretty wood.

Good luck with it !


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## primal1 (Aug 22, 2003)

This makes a lot of sense woodsy, none of the butternut, pine or hemlock warped, just the black cherry... I'm kind of glad in a way because the guy wanted to cut it up to burn but i told him that was too much of a waste and i'll find a use for it
There are some good black cherry planks and he asked me to make him a bench using a 2" x 12" x 8' plank of butternut and trim it with 1" Black cherry. I've sanded the pieces already and it is going to look stunning!


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## Ozarks Tom (May 27, 2011)

Make sure your stickers are already dry, otherwise you'll get "sticker stain" all the way through the boards.


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## How Do I (Feb 11, 2008)

Travis in Louisiana said:


> When I say weight, I mean big time. This will help hold the board flat.


When you say "big time", do you mean 20 concrete blocks or 40? Can you go overboard drum on that? Seriously though.


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## solidwoods (Dec 23, 2005)

Mill it fresh/wet/green.
Know what you would like to make from the lumber and pick each log for that type of lumber. That doesn't allways apply but if it does keep it in mind. Example is a log with no clear face,, just full of limbs and defects could be milled for bench/mantle blanks or as material for furniture items that require thick and short components like table leg, candle sticks.
The prime logs (4 clear sided) go to lumber that will make long clear cuts ie, trim, cabinet cases, blanket chest, table top (even though I sell more gnarly grade table tops than prime lumber tops).

If you have large dia logs say 20-22" dia or larger you can quarter saw the log. With some wood types the resulting lumber is spectacular.
Oaks, beech, birch, sycamore, even cherry.

Best thing to do if you have med or high value lumber is take it straight to a kiln.
Shed drying must be done right. Typically the sheds are too hot in the summer time. Cherry is one of the very picky woods that want to be dried at a specific rate or you will pay a big price with degrade.

Stack the best grades on the bottom of the stack.
The taller the stack the better because of weight.
Juvenile trees don't make good lumber but its lumber is great for outdoor furniture.

Cut the logs at a defect, not in common lumber lengths because you will be the end user you want as many clear log cuttings as you can get,, not the lengths that the lumber market sells at.
Lumber for indoor use must be kiln dried. Outdoor air humidity levels don't reduce the moisture content enough for indoor use. 
I mill/kd/flooring/furniture.
Kiln dry is $.20 bf up to 6/4 thick that's stupid cheap compared to the value of lumber lost to miss-drying , extra time required to air dry, and the fact air dry still has to be put into a kiln if its used indoors.
jim
Some of my work
http://solidwoods.zoomshare.com/


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## primal1 (Aug 22, 2003)

Wow Jim, thats some original and beautiful work with some excellent use of some really interesting woods! Very inspiring!
Great info too


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## woodsy (Oct 13, 2008)

If air drying for interior use its a good idea to bring it inside where it will be used a month or so prior to placing if you can find room, dries it some more. 

Nice looking work solidwoods !


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## Travis in Louisiana (May 14, 2002)

How Do I said:


> When you say "big time", do you mean 20 concrete blocks or 40? Can you go overboard drum on that? Seriously though.


 I just got back to work tonight and saw your question. The more weight the better. Wood that is usually cut 5/4 thick with any width to it, along with say 10 foot in length can warp and cause a good bit of movement without a good bit of weight on the top to press the boards down. If I could put a house slab of concrete on top, so much the better. 20 to 40 cinder blocks may not be enough, but 20 to 40 solid concrete blocks would probably do.


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## Johnny Dolittle (Nov 25, 2007)

Sometimes for practical reasons you might need to let logs lay around for some time before sawing. Cutting down trees in Fall and not sawing until early Spring is not such an issue. 

Letting logs lay around in warm weather has its issues. Boring insects is one and I would especially be concerned about Powder Post Beetle .... the one which makes shot size holes. This one can drill past the sap wood fairly quickly and also can lay eggs in the wood which will remain dormant many years before hatching. 

Some logs will darken if left laying around. Red Oak is one but probably takes a long time. Maple will sour and darken *Black* ..... it must be sawed quickly and if it dries out it is very difficult to saw at all .... it gets tough when halfway between wet and dry ( so even if sawing low grade for blocking it needs to be sawed wet.)

As far as advice for drying. I agree with Solidwoods that air drying is a skill requiring specific knowledge for each specie and the thickness is also a factor as thickness increases.

Maple and Ash are easily sticker stained.

When air drying never have the end of the stack pointing south due to intense drying by the sun.

my 2 cents


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## How Do I (Feb 11, 2008)

I was out in the woods last week and came across a red oak tree top from when this place was logged right at 15 years ago. I thought it was rotted and was just going to cut the branches off to add to the fire I was burning to keep warm while piddling around the old barn site.

The first smaller branch fell right off, but one of the larger branches (about as big around as my head) only took the tip of the axe before it came to a dead stop. I guess it would take a real saw to cut through something that cured, plus being red oak, probably most people don't see much value in it, but I just hate seeing good wood go bad. The branch itself is connected to a, oh about 2 foot wide by 8 foot piece. I'd love to get that out of the gully and get it out of the weather.

We have a lot of tulip poplar. I've heard that dries really quick and that you have to keep it from drying out too quick. By adding more humidity when it first starts drying, right? Anyone ever dried any of that? I know it is super-light when dry because the old barn was built with it and had very large beams and I was able to lift them without much effort.


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## Dale Alan (Sep 26, 2012)

That is some nice work Jim !


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