Where do you all get stickers?

[jackganssle]

I hope to order an LT-15 soon. It seems a lot of people make their own stickers. But if one is just starting out, making stickers means they will be green. It seems the first year's worth must be purchased or acquired in some other way. Where do you all get them?

Thanks,
Jack

[Ianab]

Depends what you are cutting.

I usually saw Cypress and you can sticker that on green cypress stickers and have no problems. It dries fast and resists staining. Other times if it's just construction wood a bit of stain is only a cosmetic problem.

If you are cutting high grade boards for woodworking then you want to avoid sticker stain. You can make stickers out of plywood or cheap kiln dried construction wood.

Another option is to just cut your first couple of scrappy logs into stickers and stack them up to dry. Because they are only 1 x 1s they will dry quickly, makes sure air can get through the stack, and be ready to use in a few weeks.

Ian

[Larry]

Mind are delivered overnight by the sticker fairy.  If you don't have a sticker fairy in your locale do what Ianab suggested.

[Kcwoodbutcher]

Gee Larry, I thought you worked your tail off making all those stickers I got from you. Now I don't feel so bad.

[Larry]

 :D :D :D :D

I've made maybe three times as many as what I gave you since moving to Arkansas.

[John Bartley]

I buy 1x2's at the lumber yard and cut them down to length. They're straight and dry and the spruce wood they're made from hasn't yet stained anything I've put it between. It's a bit expensive, but I look after my stuff, so they get used for years and years and years............and that makes them cheap.

cheers

John

[Dodgy Loner]

I get most of mine while sawing pine construction lumber. Inevitably, you will have to shave an inch off of your cant every now and then to get the cant to the proper dimension. I save these boards and dry them and then put them back on the sawmill to mill into 1x1 stickers. They only take a month or two to dry. You will end up with straighter stickers if you dry the boards before cutting them into 1x1s rather just just cutting your stickers green. If you do use green stickers, though, they are not a problem for construction lumber or for woods that are not prone to sticker stain (like Ian said).

That being said, when WDH pumped the first dose of sawdust into my veins by sawing some cherry and maple logs up for me and my dad, we just bought some cheap spruce 1x6s from the lumberyard and ripped them to 1" wide on the table saw. We still use those stickers.

[jimparamedic]

I have a 4x4x6 building that looks like an outhouse. It has 4 open shelves so I can put green dryers on one shelf and get to the dry ones.If you cut dryers as the wood is there to make them you will not spend all day cutting them when there needed. I use junk boards and slabs to make mine. Every time I saw I make a few that way I don't run out. Also I don't give dryers away I charge 35 cents each. Keeps them from just walkin off.

[woodmills1]

get a hemlock log and rip it into 1.5 x 1 and make a match stack......20 or so one way then 20 more perpendicular.....they will dry quite quick...and in hemlock will last years and not stain...use some green ones for you first lumber.

then do the same in oak  even they are pretty good green

I tried poplar(aspen) but it seems to warp

after one use plane the 1 inch side to 3/4 you get a a lot more in a stack

I like to use a little wider than 1 x 1 so I dont get confused on the good face after I plane them

[sigidi]

I just cut the stickers from the log as I'm milling. Off the sides, top, bottom whatever would be 'waste'

[Jim H]

I've had a few customers that needed dry stickers, I tell them to check with local cabinet shops. A lot of their waste is 3/4" thick,dry and many are glad to get rid of it .I usually tell them to keep widths less than 2".  As stated before, for construction lumber green stickers are fine.

[Magicman]

I make a trip by the local moulding shop and load up strips from the scrap pile.  On my last job, the customer only wanted 1X12 and 1X16 lumber.  I sawed as many stickers as possible while sawing.  There was a stack of 1X4, 1X6, 1X8, & 1X10 lumber.  After they were scaled, we stood them up on the mill and made stickers out of them.  It was the customer's decision.

[WDH]

I got my stickers from a large pine sawmill owned by the company that I work for.  Their stickers were Indonesian hardwood.  The kiln packs (and stickers) are 8' wide, and after the dried kiln stacks are unloaded layer by layer to the planer, the stickers go up a return belt to be re-used.  Any stickers that are broke or too short from damage get kicked out to a dumpster that they haul to the landfill.  At that mill, they usually ended up with about 2 dumpsters of rejects a week.  They let me dumpster dive and collect all the broken ones that I wanted.  I ended up with 2 pick-up loads.  From them, it was easy to get 4' stickers. 

It may be worth a shot at asking if you can have reject stickers from a large commercial sawmill.  They may not let you do it, but it can't hurt to ask.

[backwoods sawyer]

If you need stickers and have a good log, just mill the whole log up, and stack them on a pallet with four stickers between each layer and take it to the local kiln, they will dry them for you.
Try to avoid knots in your stickers.

[ely]

i cut mine as i go along, and as far as sticker stain, i have not seen any still show up after a trip thru the planer. but thats just me.

[Chuck White]

Since I am a mobile sawyer, I saw out stickers (when requested by the customer) from board edgings.

[inwoodcutter]

I have cut green stickers for customers in the past but don't reccomend it and won't use green stickers myself. You may be able to find a large sawmill that has a pile of broken stickers that they would be willing to get rid of. Most commercial mills use an 8' sticker that is sometimes treated with some preservatives. a real top of the line sticker. you can cut it down to your useful length.

Dan

[Qweaver]

Most of my stickers are sawn from poplar and I usually find that two to three weeks of drying is all they need.  I have not had a problem with sticker stain.  I also sticker way wider than what I hear other people recommend... usually minimum 3' to maximum 4' and my boards stay straight.  When I first started sawing I was told to sticker at 18" to 24".  I was using tons of stickers at that width and, at least for me, not required. 

[jimparamedic]

the big thing is to keep the dryers lined up and a good base under the pile

[Larry]

Oak and walnut are quite forgiving about what kind of stick and if it is dry or not.  If it does sticker stain, most times it will plane out.  White woods like maple, ash, basswood, cottonwood, and hackberry are not forgiving.  It's easy to sticker stain them and most times it goes completely through the board.  There are a couple of companies that make special sticks that allow air flow to reduce stain with the white woods. Breeze Dried comes to mind but there are others.  I make sticks that have been run through the planer for consistent thickness and have grooves to reduce the surface area for the white woods.  Anal...probably.  Just don't want to take the chance when drying angel step ash, curly maple, on ruining the board...to much money at stake,

Over the years I've learned more ways than most to ruin good lumber...anybody want to guess how I screwed up these ash boards?  It wasn't easy.  A good board in the middle for comparison.

[fuzzybear]

tops from junk pallets work great as stickers. just stay away from the painted ones.

[jwoods]

The sticker fairy has never visited, but my 3 and 6-year old make good sticker gremlins...they can leave them in the most uncanny of places, -I find them with the sticker detector,,,,the lawnmower ;D

On the serious side I mill them as I go, never had problems with stain on hardwoods.  Lucky I guess.

Joe

[Dave Shepard]

I also make my stickers rectangular, as opposed to square. the last bunch I made, about 1,500 of them, I made from some heavy 4/4 clear ash that had been air drying in the shop for about a year. I table sawed them to 1 inch x 4/4. Being not square, you know at a glance which side has been dimensioned on the table saw.

[beenthere]

1" is 4/4 .....right?

[rbarshaw]

That's what I thought it was.