Any experience in drying 8/4 green quarter sawn white oak in Nyle?

[Kelvin]

Howdy all,
I've got a job offer coming up and they are after stair treads with 2" finished thickness.  65 of them!  I know white oak is the hardest lumber around me to dry properly (very slow, 1% max MC per day) and quarter sawn is worse, and 8/4 worse yet.  Anyone done this off the saw with success?  How long did it take and what kind of schedule?  I'm worried about defects of course, hate to monkey up this lumber.   No where local to buy it, and the only place i've found kinda close want $5.50 a bd ft, so if i could dry this myself i'd like to make that kind of money w/o outsourcing this part of the deal.  I have a Nyle 200 i think, with 2,000 bd ft capacity.  I think my freon is a little low as its slower than others i've talked with as well.  This makes things even better!
Thanks for any help or hints,
Kelvin

[oakiemac]

Kelvin,

right now I'm drying a load of 12/4 white oak and some 8/4 mixed in. I talked with Nyle about this and here is a few things I learned.

Keep temp less then 100 degrees until you are sure that the wettest lumber is under 25%mc.

Take a moisture meter and read the surface mc of your lumber and then look it up on the charts to find out what RH% and you will want to keep the kiln RH less then that so you don't close any checks that might develop. If the wood checks slightly and you close that check by increasing the RH then the actual checking and wood destruction will be worse then if you had left the check open.

Basically it will be a long cycle. Keep the temperature down. I have had my WO in since 11/1 and I'm about 25% mc on sample boards but I think that the wood might be wetter in the middle of the stack cause I have some wider boards there so I'm going to keep going slow for a while yet.
I also think this is the time of year to dry thick oak. In the summer, at least in my kiln, it will over heat too fast which will easily check thick oak.

[SwampDonkey]

Don't know much about the drying recipe, but you'll loose 1/2" - 5/8" in width on 12" wide quartered white oak. Closer to 1/2" if truly quartered, but there is bound to be some of the boards, or sections thereof, further from the centre of the log that are not all quarter (radial grain). Just the reason I give a range because radial (4.12 %) shrinkage is a bit over half that of tangential (7.15 %) (flat grain), kilned to 6%. Having a kiln, you are probably well aware of this anyway.  ;)

[Den Socling]

You are less likely to see surface checks because most rays will be running toward the edge in quartersawn. For the same reason, drying is a little slower - about 15%.

[Tom]

Hey Den!!

[Den Socling]

Hi Tom,

I'm still around. Seems that business is a little better in Malaysia and Australia. Everybody in North America is running on empty!

Here is my hope for you and all the members of THE FORESTRY FORUM to have a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

Den

[SwampDonkey]

Den, you made a good point about the wood rays. I would hope it's understood that checking follows the rays, since they are the weak point.

Merry Christmas, where ever your at Den.  ;)

[ARKANSAWYER]

  Seal the ends of the boards.  I have found that thicker stock is more prone to splitting.  I dried about 1mbdft in mine and it took 7 weeks.  I ran at 100 degrees for 5 of them then went to 110 for a week and finished at 120.  Results were good but the weather was damp outside just about the whole time.  Slow is best.