What's your favorite way to make Stickers?

[jpgreen]

Was wondering what the sticker milling proceedure of choice was for band millers, and favorite sticker dimension? 

I've got a nice whackette of logs that I need to board saw all into 4/4, and need to dry asap.  The dry heat and breeze up here should take care of that pronto...  8)

[Don K]

I flatten my sticker log on 3 sides then flat saw 1X, flip 90 then saw again. A few will fall off the edge and I have to stop and get them off, but it sure is a fast way to saw stickers. End up with 1X1 sticks.

Don

[Faron]

I mill 3/4 " boards and cut them to length. Then I either put them on edge in the WM or rip them into 3/4" squares on my woodmaster ripsaw.  Since the closest I can get the blades is 1", I rip them into 1 5/8"pieces, then rip them again on the other side. I think I get a litle truer sticks with the second method, but there is really nothing wrong with the first.

[jpgreen]

Thanks guys. 

I love the FF.  Instant gratification..  :D

Now- I'm going to go fry up some green tomatos in flour and extra virgin olive oil.  California style don'tchaknow..  ;D

[Fla._Deadheader]

That Olive Oil won't stain the boards  : ??? ??? ???

[Robert Long]

jpgreen ;)

Green tomatoes sounds great.....try adding a little pesto or fresh pinched basil with them 8)
but don't use them for stickers, they'll smush! :D

As to stickers...I custom cut and many times the customer asks for stickers for his lumber, so here is how I work it out for them...It is not a good idea to use green lumber for stickers so when I head out to cut for someone I take along a wak of stickers and leave them with the customer.
When I cut fletches with bark edge and set them aside for edging later, I place them on the mill and begin cutting them in 4/4 strips and with the help of the customer we cut to replace the stickers I brought along and a little more for the pile back home.  The customer likes this arrangement and I get to charge for the extra time taken to replace my stickers and I use up the fletches into stickers.

Enjoy our green tomatoes.......Whats for dessert....green apples? ;)

Robert

[TexasTimbers]

For a chick flick Fried Green Tomatoes was pretty good. Not as good as the actual eating of them though.

Fried apples ain't bad neither, but apple slices sauteed in butter and cinnamon, then sprinkled with sugar  are even better. Ice cold root beer in a frosted mug compliments.

Stickers. Who cares. ;)

[Dan_Shade]

I typically cut 3/4 flitches when squaring up a cant.  Then, I take those and set them up for edging, and do 1" drops, giving me 3/4 x 1 stickers.

I've also found cutting them to 4' before doing the 1" drops makes life easier, I like to make 6-8 stickers per pass. 

Using the flitches does two things for me: 

[1] It gives me nice clear stickers many times which makes for a straight drying sticker.

[2] It keeps me from crying about sawing up nice boards into stickers.  Those flitches look like junk lumber :D

[jpgreen]

Yea I think I'm going the flitch route.  As long as the bugs die off..  :

Tonight we're having corndogs. We is me and snoop since my wife is down south taking care of her mother. These are frozen foster farms chicken dogs.  I don't even have the toaster oven so I've got them grilling in an iron pan.

Mustard will be the only solution here..  ;D :

[IL Bull]

I make my stickers when edging.  I make my stickers 1" x 1" x 4'.  I also make 2" x2" x 4' and use every seven layers so I can get my forks in.  Seven layers of 5/4 is all my skid steer will pick up green.  I try to only handle the boards twice by hand.  Once off the saw and once into the customers pickup. 8) :D ;D  Doesnt' always work that way but that is what I shoot for. ;D

[OneWithWood]

How are you all drying your stickers?

[jpgreen]

Oh Boy Kev...

I just tried fried sliced apples in butter w/ cinnamin and sugar and woo hoo.. that's some good stuff!!  8) 8) 8) 8)

Went perfect with John Wayne in "Stage Coach"..  ;D

[Robert Long]

About drying stickers.......For the customer, I just put the green stickers at the bottom of the pile and by the time I get to them,  ;) well, you get the idea.   

For myself, first I select white wood, here we have a lot of ash, so ash it is, then I air dry them until
I am satisfied with the % of moisture lost.......I then look for the straight ones that are uniform, all the others go to the customer pile. :

When cutting for others and at different times you will have many different size and species stickers even if you try keeping them 4/4 in thickness.

Has anyone tried those engineered stickers? the ones with the little groove cut in them.  I have a few from a large commercial op and would post them if I can get the computer and forum to work together >:(

As to little green apples......try sauteing them with butter and maple syrup.....That's a Canadian thing! ;)

Robert

[Justin L]

I've been using KD rippings from making mouldings. I rip them 1 1/4 wide then plane to 3/4 thick. A large mill nearby uses 8' sticks and they break a lot of them, and mentioned for me to call when I need some. They are the grooved kind too- hopefully they are cheap or free....

[Cedarman]

We saw a lot of 5/8" material and when we edge the boards we throw the 8' 3" edgings into a jig.  When jig is full we cut to about 43".  Since it is cedar on cedar we can use immediatly.  We toss them into a cart and they air dry in a week.  We send lots of lumber out on trailers with the stickers still in them.  Stickers are to easy to make this way to bother to desticker the lumber unless we need to regrade it. I wonder how cedar would do on white wood?

[woodmills1]

stickers                      I like em outa hemlock                cut 1 by 1.5 or 1 by 2 so I always know the flat side.  use them once green then plane them to 3/4 after dry.

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

Swingblade method.

I have to admit to a little sticker envy with you band millers.
(Er, maybe that could be better said some other way? :)

With a swinger, the only efficient way I have found without
restacking boards and resawing a shallow stack with the blade deep vertical
and risking throwing them everywhere is this:

Establish a flat on top of the log, drop the saw whatever thickness the
sticks will be, then  do alternate normal vertical cuts and controlled climb cuts
as you traverse across the log.  Finally,  come back to do a deep horizontal
cut to release all that group of sticks.  The climb cuts must be controlled
or the saw may beat you home that day. :D

Climb cuts always rack the saw a little, but the width of a sticker is not the
critical dimension, so it doesn't matter if they vary in width a bit.  This method
can yield up to eight sticks per pattern, but five or six at the time is a bit easier.

Phil L.

[DanG]

Phil, when you're cutting dimension lumber, there are always those places where there is an inch or two more wood there than you are looking for.  Say you're cutting 1x6s and you have a 7" face, just take a 1x1 strip off and set it to the side.  When you get a little pile of them, just plop them into a jig and cut to length with a chainsaw.  I get all my stickers this way and always seem to have plenty.

Cedarman, I've used White Cedar sticks quite a bit with no stain problems.  The properties seem similar to ERC, so I bet that would work good too.

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

Hey, DanG!
That's where most of my stickers come from too.  Hardly ever
specifically cut just stickers, but when I need to, that's the best
way I have found on a swinger.

I hardly can stand to waste those extra inch or inch-and-a-half
strips, even when a good portion of that may have bark.  Just
lop off the barky end.  Still get a sticker or two when the logs
are long.  Like cutting long. 

Phil L.

[amberwood]

typically it is edging off 2"...we use a 2*1 green for air drying then plane the same size sticker down to 3/4*1-1/2" if it is to go in the kiln.

DTR

[Dave Shepard]

I make my stickers in typical bandmill fashion, by stacking boards or flitches on the mill and ripping them off. We make our stickers out of ash, but it moves around so much that I don't get the stickers as uniform as I would like. I cut 4/4 boards and rip to 5/4, the idea being that it would be obvious which way to place them. NOPE, not for my assistants. I do all the stickering and stacking now, I won't tolerate bad stacking, you might as well stand in the middle of the street and give your money to homeless people than make a shamles of your stacking. At least that way somebody makes out on the deal.

I would like to have some kind of a gang rip saw set up so I could just send the boards through in one shot. I haven't gotten around to planing the stickers yet, but that should be done as well. I am building inventory from scratch, so I have to make all of the stickers as I go. We are trying to get about 20mbf of pine air drying.


Dave

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

Yep,
You never seem to have enough sticks!

Phil L.

[Bill E]

Around here,  stickers are free for harvesters to pick up in county rights of way.  Bandit sign companies put four foot stakes in the ground, leave them all week and then put directional signs to subdivisions on them during the weekend.

The stakes and signs are illegal, so the county says they are fair game.

Bill

[Kansas]

We never have planed our stickers. Looking at the commercial stickers, with the grooves cut in them, make me wonder if there wouldnt be less staining with unplaned. Not that I could imagine much air getting in around unplaned ones, vs planed ones. We use very light colored woods for stickers, usually basswood or cottonwood. We use the green ones on darker colored woods that dont stain, and save the dry ones for the lighter colored ones. We do have a few of the composite plastic ones we use for maple, especially hard maple.

[TexasTimbers]

Oh Boy Kev...

I just tried fried sliced apples in butter w/ cinnamin and sugar and woo hoo.. that's some good stuff!!  8) 8) 8) 8)

Went perfect with John Wayne in "Stage Coach"..  ;D

JP can you believe no one else has tried the apples? They keep talking about stickers for crying out loud. :D

Okay I'll be compliant. I cut my stickers by making a cant and then sawing through all the way down. Flip the whole mess and saw through again.

After which time I take a break for some fried green maters or apples in butter and cinnamon and sugar. For a different twist JP you can use brown sugar also it makes it even better. ;)