End cracking in kiln?

[teakwood]

Hi guys, i got a very good contract for a substantial amount of teak wood. almost half a house of beams, posts and whatever other piece out of wood, and the guy wants everything in teak. so all the effort and money spent on my sawmill shed and installation will be rewarded.

they want to start building in February and i need to fresh saw like a 1000 pieces of lumber. need to look for a kiln, which isn't that easy around here.

so my question is, do i need to end seal the lumber before sending to the kiln or is that just for air drying so it won't crack?

[YellowHammer]

If the time from the mill to the kiln is more than a few hours, I would end seal.  Even if the sawn lumber has to be truck transported, the wind can cause cracking.

I use a sprayer to apply the sealer, it goes pretty fast.

[teakwood]

thanks YH, so i will definitively seal then.

I need to saw at least 1month before the order is half complete and then 100miles trucking to the kiln.

as i need to mill lots of 6x6 and 6x4 it will be wiser to do so.
we don't have sealer, i use melted paraffin, candle wax. it's not fast, but i can have my worker do it, so it doesn't slows me down.

I'm thinking of charging 2500$/m3 for the lumber, how do that compare to your prices? 1m3 =424bdft

[K-Guy]

@teakwood 
I posted this in a different thread but it applies to you also:

With hardwood beams I can guarantee you will have some cracking, speeding up the drying in a kiln makes this worse due to stress. Air drying will get your best result. As for time, 4/4 maple takes about 3 weeks and you multiply this by 2.5 for each additional inch of thickness, so for a 12/4 slab it would be about 19 weeks.

3 x 2.5 x 2.5 + 18.75

[teakwood]

thanks for the info.

first: teak is semihard and it cracks but it's not that bad, and with the end sealing it's way less.
second: teak dries extremely fast, in the dryseason i can dry 1" wood in 2 month, airdrying

[GeneWengert-WoodDoc]

Paraffin wax is probably the best sealer.  The only concern is it's flammability and that sometimes it leaves a little oily residue within the last inch of the wood, which causes no problems until the finish goes on.  The oily residue makes it hard for most finishes to attach to the wood, so watch for this.

[teakwood]

I went to the kiln and the guy told me that he can dry the wood in 6-8 weeks without any problems. need to calculate a 10% lose of the wood, but that's normal in drying.

the lumber is 6" too long so the ends get trimmed of after drying and planning, so i doubt that any wax will be left on the finished lumber