Ash and Maple slabs

[xlogger]

Going to pick up two nice ash logs today, they are 9 ft long and near 30" on butt end. So they will just get threw my mill. I'm planning on cutting into 2" slabs, painting the ends and air drying on stickers. If I had the solar kiln up and running which I don't how. How long would you air dry before you put them in or could you do it right away? Also same question for maple and walnut slabs?  I've also cut trees and got up stumps where I'm planning on building my kiln. Not sure how long it will be before I get it running.

[WDH]

Except for pine, I usually wait about a year.  That is what it takes to get around 25% moisture content down here. 

[GeneWengert-WoodDoc]

You could put them into a VT solar kiln right now.  In fact, that is safest for ash to prevent insect damage from the common anobiid beetle.  Such drying in the kiln would take around 10 to 12weeks average with good weather, but in the middle of summer maybe  as short as eight weeks.  If you air dried for two months in warm weather, then you would shorten kiln time to  as little as four weeks if you have good weather, but there is a risk of insect damage.

Soft maple and walnut would be similar.  Hard maple would be a bit longer.

[addysdaddy]

I have a neighbor who has some ASH he wants slabbed.  ;D Being new to all this I was going by most of what I've read here which says air dry slabs for 1.5 - 2 years and finish in a kiln.  :'( Is it possible to air dry for 2 months and then solar kiln for the next 6-8 weeks and get a useable product. I have access to a lot of large (what we call rock maple) so i'm assuming hard maple and some white birch... would it be possible to say a turnaround from falling to dry in 5 months which is usually our guaranteed warm summer months? What percentage could I expect to get down to with that time frame.  ???

[GeneWengert-WoodDoc]

I spent a week in Nova Scotia and it is indeed an awesome place.  I did see a few rain drops however on several days, so it is hard to know how good your air drying will be.  Are you talking about 1" thick pieces?  The air drying time of 1 year per inch is a huge overstatement.  Commercial air drying operations will average 90 days, with summer being shorter and winter being longer.  Pine can be even faster.  Obviously, it depends on the weather and the lumber's thickness.

What you call rock maple is indeed what we in the States call sugar maple or hard maple.

In five months of spring to fall nice weather, with 4/4, you should be able to reach 7% MC in less than 7 weeks.

[addysdaddy]

 8)That's awesome. Going a bit thicker I should be able to get 2 inch or 8/4 slabs dried over a 5-6 month season or is this wishful thinking :P... Also would falling them in the winter when sap is out of the tree or dormant aid in drying if I sealed them and then cut in the spring.

[GeneWengert-WoodDoc]

8/4 compared to 4/4 is usually 2.5 times longer.

[WDH]

Falling the tree in winter will not effect the drying time as the moisture content of the living tree is pretty consistent year round. 

[addysdaddy]

Sounds good.. 2.5 x 7 weeks ish still puts me in a 5 month time frame. 8) Interesting point on the moisture content...  :PI was under the impression that moisture was highest during SAP running in the spring and lowest during the winter months. Maybe that just applies to the outer layer just under the bark ???

[GeneWengert-WoodDoc]

WDH is correct about the MC.  When you think about it, where could the tree store water?  The roots and wood are basically full of water (with some air bubbles too) and so there is no room for storage.  Most of the data on moisture in the tree comes from the pulpwood companies...incoming MC variation greatly affects their processing.

[addysdaddy]

this is why us newby's ask the questions... thanx

[4x4American]

Gene- a guy I worked for in the woods would always call a certain type of oak rock oak.  Any ideas?

[WDH]

Chestnut oak is commonly called rock oak. Quercus montana or Quercus prinus, depending on which botanist that you subscribe to. It is in the white oak group.  It is odd in that the bark is ridged more like a red oak and not scaly like most of the other white oaks.  Also, does not as consistently contain tyloses which plugs the pores (water conducting cells), so it is not suitable for wine and whiskey barrels like the other white oaks. 

I am a prinus guy. 

[4x4American]

Thank you!

[xlogger]

Would slabing up a post oak crack more than another type of white oak? I slab one awhile back and it cracked bad. Never dried good, in a closed area.

[WDH]

I have not slabbed any post oak, but from what I have read, post oak is not as good of quality as many of the other white oaks. I do know that any thick white oak has to dry slow, very slow, and the slabs need to be protected in a sticker stack with nurse boards on the bottom and top.  What I mean by nurse boards is that the white oak slabs cannot be exposed directly to the open air.  So, in a sticker stack, stack a bottom layer of some other boards, then sticker the white oak slabs, then stack at least one full layer of other boards on top.  This keeps the humidity between the layers up and facilitates slower drying.

A mistake that I made was standing the slabs up against the wall under the covered side of a shed.  The slabs get too much air and exposure to the environment and will invariably dry too fast and crack and split.

If the slab contains the pith, nothing that you can do will keep it from cracking at the pith.  ALL white oak boards that I have ever been associated with have cracked at the pith.  Oak and cherry are the worst for this. 

It is hard to dry a single slab.  Slabs need to be dried in a herd  .

[xlogger]

This slabs where on stickers and put inside an old Whse with no sun or wind. So they should of been drying slow. I should start on my solar kiln next week I hope. Can you put white oak off the saw and straight into a solar kiln? Also how about red oak?