Pecan - Size recommendations

[E-Tex]

I will be milling a few thousand feet of pecan for a customer.  he wants a finished size of a full 1" X 6" and 1" X 8".

All will be kiln dried, jointed and planed to size.  for indoor use.

What is the suggested Rough Sawn size for this?  I'm not sure how much pecan will move.

Thanks for some help.

[E-Tex]

sorry if I should have put this under sawmills & milling!  

[beenthere]

What is the suggested Rough Sawn size for this?  I'm not sure how much pecan will move.

You can plan for shrinkage to come up with green dimensions to saw. But not-so-much can you plan for warp from drying.


Radial 4.9%, tangential 8.9%, and tangential/radial ratio 1.8 for shrinkage Pecan hickory green to oven dry:

Wood Shrinkage Table ? WoodBin

[WDH]

I'm not sure how much pecan will move.

More than a worm in hot ashes  .  Pecan is bad to kink at the knots   .

For a finished full 1” thick, kiln dried to 8% and planed, saw at 1 3/8” thick green.   You should yield pieces from 3 feet to 8 feet long kiln dried and finished planed to 1” thick if your target sawn length is 8 feet.  It also depends on how flat the boards need to be.  Flat as in perfectly flat boards for a tabletop.

If 8 feet long is the target length, and you saw at 1 3/8” thick green for a final kiln dried and planed thickness of a full 1”, figure about 60% of what you saw will finish out at the full 8 feet length, and the other 40% will finish out from 2 feet to 7 feet long. This assumes dead flat on the jointer on one face then planed to a 1” clean face on the other.  

As to width, 1” over for 6” finished width and 1.5” over for 8” finished width should get you to 80% of the boards finishing out at full width and the other 20% will likely be to narrower widths. I am talking about 4-square and perfectly flat to exact width.

If all the boards had to be a full 8 feet long, I would saw 140% of the bf you need for length.  Log quality also makes a huge difference.  Most of what I saw are orchard trees where it is difficult to get a clear 8 foot log.  Above that is limbs with huge amounts of tension wood.  In your area where pecan grows natural, your log quality will likely be better with longer clear boles and your yields should be better than mine.  

Pecan is a hickory, and hickory will vex you and cause you to cuss and swear  .  Don’t deal with it around children and anyone offended by such screaming and haranguing.  Of course you already knew that part, Lance  .

[E-Tex]

I'm not sure how much pecan will move.

More than a worm in hot ashes  .  Pecan is bad to kink at the knots   .

For a finished full 1” thick, kiln dried to 8% and planed, saw at 1 3/8” thick green.   You should yield pieces from 3 feet to 8 feet long kiln dried and finished planed to 1” thick if your target sawn length is 8 feet.  It also depends on how flat the boards need to be.  Flat as in perfectly flat boards for a tabletop.

If 8 feet long is the target length, and you saw at 1 3/8” thick green for a final kiln dried and planed thickness of a full 1”, figure about 60% of what you saw will finish out at the full 8 feet length, and the other 40% will finish out from 2 feet to 7 feet long. This assumes dead flat on the jointer on one face then planed to a 1” clean face on the other.  

As to width, 1” over for 6” finished width and 1.5” over for 8” finished width should get you to 80% of the boards finishing out at full width and the other 20% will likely be to narrower widths. I am talking about 4-square and perfectly flat to exact width.

If all the boards had to be a full 8 feet long, I would saw 140% of the bf you need for length.  Log quality also makes a huge difference.  Most of what I saw are orchard trees where it is difficult to get a clear 8 foot log.  Above that is limbs with huge amounts of tension wood.  In your area where pecan grows natural, your log quality will likely be better with longer clear boles and your yields should be better than mine.  

Pecan is a hickory, and hickory will vex you and cause you to cuss and swear  .  Don’t deal with it around children and anyone offended by such screaming and haranguing.  Of course you already knew that part, Lance  .

I'll make sure no kids are near by
So, in summary, mill them 1 3/8 thick and the widths at 7" and 9.5".  If he needs 3000 ft I will mill him about 4000ft.   That sound about right?
ps.....These are native grown trees and the log pics he sent me look pretty darn good!

[WDH]

Sounds like a plan if you want full length. 

[customsawyer]

I try not to saw pecan but when I do I saw 1 3/8" for ¾" board due to how much ours twist. If I needed a full 1" finished I would saw at 1½". I have to deal with the same kind of logs as Danny. Your logs might be better.

[E-Tex]

thanks danny & jake!

[WDH]

1 1/2” thick will get you closer to 100% cleaned up to a finished thickness of 1” at full length.  Since I sell a lot of short pieces too, I don’t mind cutting boards into two pieces, but I never cut pecan to a specific cut list like you may be doing.  

[scsmith42]

When we make flooring we try to net as many long strips as possible.  I'm not a fan of short flooring strips, even though they represent an efficient use of the lumber.

Because of this, typically we are milling at least 2" wider than the finished plank width, to allow for straightening the blanks after drying.  So for a 6" wide finished plank, I mill at 8" green - wider if the logs are low grade and more prone to crooking or if the strips are really long.

Our flooring strips are typically 12' - 24' long.  

We also will mill the boards 2x - 3X wider than single strips, as we've found that a 13" plank will often dry straighter than if the same board was edged into a pair of 6 inch boards before drying.  This allows us to have a higher percentage of long strips after post-kiln edging.

[YellowHammer]

Are you looking for dead flat, no bow boards, in pecan?  Good luck.  I was sawing some today, even trying to saw for stress, some flatsawn were jacking up 1/2” over 8 feet on the stickers.  Several went right off the mill onto the burn pile.    

I saw a lot of hickory, and cut it all at 1 1/4” thick, for a final KD and planed 15/16” and that works fine for me.  However, although pecan is a hickory, it does seem to behave more extreme, especially the smaller diameter logs, and boards will peel off them like carrot peels.

I have started vertical grain sawing it, and that makes a huge difference in reducing bow, although it will make them crook worse, until the boards meet the edger.  VGS is like rift and quartersawing, so takes a bigger log but produces much flatter wood, but excels for grumpy wood as such as this.   

[customsawyer]

I have a pecan that I have to saw on the Slabmizer. Will probably saw at 4.25 to 4.5 thickness hoping for a 3" finish. There will be lots of weight add on top to hold them down.

[WDH]

[customsawyer]

Maybe we should cut it at the project so Danny can help stack it on stickers.