Vacutherm iDry input

[4x4American]

Yes, simple, relatively fast, cost effective and does a nice job.

My only issue with it is it shares space in my wood shop. When it runs, it vents some heat and it gets too warm to work in the shop in the summer. To remedy, we're going to build its own space next year. It's a love hate thing that way, because in the winter, my shop heating bill goes down to nothing.

I was thinking about that earlier.  Most professional chainsaws have a little flapper in the airbox.  In the winter position, it sucks air in around the cylinder head to warm the air up.  In the summer position, it sucks the air in directly from the outside.  I was thinking, if I was to put an iDry in my shop, or in a lean-to off the side of my shop, I would make a seasonal, removable wall/panel.  Put it on the outside in the winter to close it in and let the warm air into the shop, and in the summer, bring it around to close off the opening into my shop to keep the hot air out.  It doesn't even have to be huge, just enough to get the point across.  If the kiln has to be in a heated shop, well, it's darn sure gonna contribute to heating it in the winter time!  No free rides!  lol


Hey what if you framed a room around it in your shop and then just made some type of a vent to the outside?  So that you don't have to move it.  In the summer time open the vent, in the winter time close the vent and leave the man door open or do the removaable wall panel idea

[Stephen1]

I still like my IDRY. Simple to use, I can monitor and control it from home or anywhere. I am able to keep it full with little to no advertising. People find me from my website. 

[boonesyard]

Yes, simple, relatively fast, cost effective and does a nice job.

My only issue with it is it shares space in my wood shop. When it runs, it vents some heat and it gets too warm to work in the shop in the summer. To remedy, we're going to build its own space next year. It's a love hate thing that way, because in the winter, my shop heating bill goes down to nothing.

I was thinking about that earlier.  Most professional chainsaws have a little flapper in the airbox.  In the winter position, it sucks air in around the cylinder head to warm the air up.  In the summer position, it sucks the air in directly from the outside.  I was thinking, if I was to put an iDry in my shop, or in a lean-to off the side of my shop, I would make a seasonal, removable wall/panel.  Put it on the outside in the winter to close it in and let the warm air into the shop, and in the summer, bring it around to close off the opening into my shop to keep the hot air out.  It doesn't even have to be huge, just enough to get the point across.  If the kiln has to be in a heated shop, well, it's darn sure gonna contribute to heating it in the winter time!  No free rides!  lol


Hey what if you framed a room around it in your shop and then just made some type of a vent to the outside?  So that you don't have to move it.  In the summer time open the vent, in the winter time close the vent and leave the man door open or do the removaable wall panel idea

I thought about walling it off right away, but I could honestly use the extra room in my shop for more, let's see, woodworking equipment  smiley_bouncing. 

[4x4American]

Any of you have experience quarter sawing hard maple, and sticking it right in the dry kiln to preserve it's color?

[boonesyard]

I have not, but I've run a fair amount of 5/4 flame boxelder right off the saw, and it did a good job.

[Stephen1]

Any of you have experience quarter sawing hard maple, and sticking it right in the dry kiln to preserve it's color?

I have not 1/4 sawn maple but have dried enough to know it comes out clean and white.

[boonesyard]

I don't have mine connected to the internet. Being able to monitor it remotely would be slick. I have not run any updates on it either, I should do that.

[Stephen1]

I don't have mine connected to the internet. Being able to monitor it remotely would be slick. I have not run any updates on it either, I should do that.

Connecting it the internet is key for me. My shop is 30 mins away. I loaded the kiln yesterday had troubles getting it booted up. I had to shut it down and go through the boot up. I then had it start, i stopped it as I then put a few gallons of water in the kiln with the hose. I forgot to press start. 
Well as I was saying i left without pressing start, remembered when I got to the lake , turned on my phone logged into the Kiln and pressed Start! Saved me an hour drive or 2 days of  not running the kiln on the weekend with when our electric is on reduced rates. 
I put water in the kiln with a fresh load this time of year especially as it is hot and dry in my yard. I find it helps condition the wood with moisture for 2 days before I run the regular cycle. I believe it helps with case hardening.  

[4x4American]

@Stephen1 that's awesome!


still trying to decide Nyle vs iDry...the plus is now $89k in bald eagles.  Then the expense of hooking it up and all that.

[TreadsActual]

Any of you have experience quarter sawing hard maple, and sticking it right in the dry kiln to preserve it's color?

I have not 1/4 sawn maple but have dried enough to know it comes out clean and white.

I have not had good experiences drying maple and getting it to come out white. 4/4 hard maple, into the kiln within one week from being sawn, graded FAS, adhered closely to the schedule provided by Gene Wengert in Drying Hardwood Lumber and in recommendations from his NHLA webinar on drying Maple. Two different loads, both came out looking like cherry. Beautiful, but not white.

[scsmith42]

Any of you have experience quarter sawing hard maple, and sticking it right in the dry kiln to preserve it's color?

I have not 1/4 sawn maple but have dried enough to know it comes out clean and white.

I have not had good experiences drying maple and getting it to come out white. 4/4 hard maple, into the kiln within one week from being sawn, graded FAS, adhered closely to the schedule provided by Gene Wengert in Drying Hardwood Lumber and in recommendations from his NHLA webinar on drying Maple. Two different loads, both came out looking like cherry. Beautiful, but not white.

Have you tried milling and drying in the cooler months with winter harvested logs?

[Stephen1]

Any of you have experience quarter sawing hard maple, and sticking it right in the dry kiln to preserve it's color?

I have not 1/4 sawn maple but have dried enough to know it comes out clean and white.

I have not had good experiences drying maple and getting it to come out white. 4/4 hard maple, into the kiln within one week from being sawn, graded FAS, adhered closely to the schedule provided by Gene Wengert in Drying Hardwood Lumber and in recommendations from his NHLA webinar on drying Maple. Two different loads, both came out looking like cherry. Beautiful, but not white.

I ussualy follow the IDRY schedule. For maple.  I put it in the kiln press start and let it run. 4/4 in 5-10 days. I even have good luck with customer maple coming out nice. White, or creamy white,   urban salvage, dropped by an arborist any time of the year, sawn by me (hopefully) anytime after it is dropped, a month or a year, who knows. It always comes out nice. 

[4x4American]

Any of you have experience quarter sawing hard maple, and sticking it right in the dry kiln to preserve it's color?

I have not 1/4 sawn maple but have dried enough to know it comes out clean and white.

I have not had good experiences drying maple and getting it to come out white. 4/4 hard maple, into the kiln within one week from being sawn, graded FAS, adhered closely to the schedule provided by Gene Wengert in Drying Hardwood Lumber and in recommendations from his NHLA webinar on drying Maple. Two different loads, both came out looking like cherry. Beautiful, but not white.

Thank you for that honest response!  Did you ask Jim Parker for what schedule he would recommend?  The piano people I'm dealing with only are doing this as a winter project, it has to be winter cut wood, which I figure oughta help.  Hard maple turns brown pretty quick in the summer.

[TreadsActual]

The maple I dried was sawn in February and March. I did reach out to Jim Parker and the only recommendation he had was to change the drain cycle from 24 hour to 12 hour. 

I started at 105 degrees, and adjusted the temperature up based on the moisture readings with my Delmhorst pin meter. I raised it to 160 only when all my readings were under 15% (15 days after starting the load). It took 11 more days at 160 under vacuum to get it all around 7% moisture. 4/4 maple took 26 days by that schedule.

Luckily we do a lot of stained maple stair treads, so we are able to use the "cherry maple" for those. 

[4x4American]

Thinking about this, drying hardwood lumber was published before iDry was a thing...and is probably not geared towards vacuum kilns.  Could that have affected the lumber?  I was talking to a guy today who told me that the vacuum kilns he's seen can make HM so white that it doesn't blend with conventionally dried HM so you can't sell to bigger businesses because it won't match/sticks out like a sore thumb!

[Stephen1]

Treadsactual, I think that wood was in the kiln way to long for 4/4. HM needs to be dried fast! 
I am drying loads of it now, 2 weeks off the mill and into the kiln , full power, 160F and then after 6 days turn it up to 163F and I will pull it out tomorrow morning or Sunday morning, depending on the water coming out of the kiln. That is big in IMHO , moisture coming out, when it drops it is either dry or you need to crank the temp. I do that with walnut and Oak, start low, 105F, then turn it up when the water changes. 
Jim was right in the 12 hr drain cycle for sure, get the moisture out of the kiln. 
I collect the water in a 45 gallon white plastic barrel. When the amounts drops, ( I'm looking for a 4"- 6" drop in volume of water or more with maple, cherry, popple , pine) its time to do something else. Take the wood out, turn up the temperature if its a slow drying type of wood.
I do not like to open the Kiln to check moisture content as then your wood cools down, moisture comes out of the kiln. you are also testing Hot wood, 150F so the meters are not that acurate, and you take away the conditioning aspect of the partial vacuum kiln. It also add 2 days to the drying time. You have to get the heat back up. You have to have confidence in the process for the Accelerted Air Drying System the IDRY is. 160F and 8" of Vacuum. It works. Leave the doors shut for your cycle time. 

I have determned my cylce as 2 weeks with everything 6/4 and thicker, under is  7 days. Water output determines shorter or longer.  I only open my kiln on those timelines, giver or take a day or 2. My Heater is running at 207 volts because of what my utility delivers instead of 240 which your element and the kiln are designed for. It affects the drying times. 
Cheers

[Stephen1]

The maple I dried was sawn in February and March. I did reach out to Jim Parker and the only recommendation he had was to change the drain cycle from 24 hour to 12 hour.

I started at 105 degrees, and adjusted the temperature up based on the moisture readings with my Delmhorst pin meter. I raised it to 160 only when all my readings were under 15% (15 days after starting the load). It took 11 more days at 160 under vacuum to get it all around 7% moisture. 4/4 maple took 26 days by that schedule.

Luckily we do a lot of stained maple stair treads, so we are able to use the "cherry maple" for those.

I have 10 loads of Hard maple to do from a customer. A great experiment. 
The 1st 2 loads and previous 6 loads from 4 months ago were done at regular press start and wait. 160F 24 hr drain cycles.
They were all dry in 7-8 days. 
I am doing the next 4 loads at full power but set the drain cycle to 12 hrs,  24 hrs at full power to get the temp up and then 12 hr cycles. So far in 2 days the water draining out is the very close to the same amount as in a 24 hr cycle. 
I am hoping this will reduce the kiln time by a day or 2. 
I'll keep you posted.

[nativewolf]

How'd you end up with your experiment on the 12 vs 24 hour cycle?

[Stephen1]

How'd you end up with your experiment on the 12 vs 24 hour cycle?

Well in my 'scientific' way I am still running my experiment. I have 4 bundles of maple left to dry. I believe it saves a day in the kiln. But then the bundles are air drying so that probably takes a day off right away. And now the wood is coming in cold, not quite frozen yet, that will start in a couple of weeks. Then I will have to make room in the shop to bring the wood into thaw for a day.
What I have noticed is the 12 hr cycle takes the kiln longer to get to 160F , the magic number. At 160 the temp in the kiln will hit nere 155 and that is when the last of the water in the core is forced/boiled out. The boiling point of water at 8" of vacum is 153.5F.  With maple the faster to 160 is key. Especally once it's air dried down to 15%. I will see more wood show up to be sawn and dried probably around Febuary sometime so we will keep the 'science' going. 
I keep recording what I am doing and will read up on it when things slow down around here. 
Right now I believe my science is based on how I feel that morning when I load the kiln.  ;D

[Log Dawg]

Looking for opinions on the following.

I am fixing to Idry some,

Pecan 5/4 , 8-12 ft long, and 4 to 8 inches wide.
Majority has been air drying over a year.    I am thinking full setting to 160 at 24hr drain?

8/4 honey locust that is 18 inches wide and 12 feet long that is currently at 25% moisture content on surface, 32% or above, in the middle
I am thinking 1/2 power 24 hr drain setting for a week then move to full setting 160 with 24 hr drain?

Fresh 6/4 boxelder that is running the same moisture content as the honey locust
I am thinking 1/2 power 24 hr drain setting for a week then move to full setting 160 with 24 hr drain?

Look forward to hearing your opinions.

[Stephen1]

I am able to record/watch my water draining each drain cycle. 
I started using 120F as a start temp. I understand that over 125F. And over 25% moisture. more movement occurs. 
When the amount of water drops off, I start to increase the temperature and increase the drain cycle time to keep the wood conditioned. It is ussually only 2-4 days to get to 160 and the wood is dry. 
The box elder would be like maple, dry it fast. 
THe others I do not know. 

[NC Daniel]

I'm a little late to the maple darkening subject...

My understanding is that one of the major factors to maple darkening is exposure to oxygen which is why the vacuum kilns are able to produce "whiter" lumber. It sounds to me like the individual who was having trouble with the maple darkening was opening the kiln door often to check the moisture content, in turn exposing the wood to more oxygen. Like Stephen1 says hit start and try to keep the door closed. Just my $0.02.