green timber - drying indoors?

[FrankLad]

A few days ago I lopped down a couple of small hickory trees that had been bent over from the storm.  De-limbed and peeled them, coated the ends with LandArk endgrain sealer, and have them in an unused room in our house, drying out.  I understand coating the ends will really slow the drying process, but I'm hoping to possibly make a broad axe handle out of one of these and I want it to have as little checking as possible.  The pieces already have a nice curve, required for broad axe use.  Can't afford a Gransfors at the moment, so I plan on having to get an older axe head with no angled eye.

Anyway, that brings me to this...

As I'm planning to use some green pine for a garden shed soon, I started wondering why I couldn't cut stock pieces (like for a bed... posts, rails, etc, etc) peel them, and have them drying indoors?  Is this a good or bad idea?  Seems like the conditioning would really speed the process, even with the ends sealed (another question - should I even worry about sealing the ends for log furniture pieces?)  In addition we have 1400SQFT of enclosed and conditioned crawlspace/basement that could be used.

If this is a good idea, what are ideal drying times?  I often hear one of the two:  "a year" or "a year per inch of thickness".  Two very different suggestions.

Where I'm located, it is difficult to find dead-standing pine that is dry, yet hasn't been host to termites, and all other sorts of bugs, so using "clean", bug-free wood really appeals to me.

I understand there are some drawbacks to not using dead-standing, such as losing some character, and it not being as resourceful (since the tree would have already died by some natural cause), but I would rather not have to deal with possibly pulpy wood which would require some type of borate treatment.

So I'm looking for ideas and suggestions from the experts.   What do you guys think?

[ljmathias]

Frank- good to see you're still active in the woods...

First, on the hickory- had to put the grie-grie eye on you, but hickory checks worse than anything I've cut yet, especially if you leave it big.  I'd recommend cutting it down close to the size you want and stickering that to dry, but still counting on end-losses of 10-20%.  Good luck with that stuff.

Now, as for peeling pine- it's fast and easy if you catch the trees while they're fresh.  The wetter the inner bark the easier it comes off- you can almost run a spud or swingblade down the length of the logs.   Course, once you get them peeled, they're wet and sticky as any piece of wood you'll find so where gloves and old clothes.  I've stacked and dried peeled pines for a couple of years now under cover and they're as sound as you could want.  If you have an enclosed place to dry them, they keep their color and don't check any to speak of- nice, sound logs all the way to the cut ends.  Also, no need to seal pine- it seals itself with pine sap.  I've got poles ranging from 3-4" in diameter to almost 30" and they all seem sound and solid.  Plan on starting to cut these for a workshop or house for my one or more sons- probably do stick build on the workshop just to get it up for their plumbing company and then timber frame the houses.  Should take a while, but hey, time is what I have now and this is something I'd like to get good at.

So, not to be long winded: hickory is real tough to dry without checking, pine real easy.  Good luck and keep us posted.

Lj

[Tom]

I'm not an expert in this but do think you did the right thing by sealing the ends of Hickory.  Yep, Pine does a good job of sealing its self.  Hardwoods need a little help.  I always picture what is happening like this.  The log is full of water that you want to dry slowly enough that it leaves through the side of the log to minimize cracking.   The containers (vessels) in the log run longitudinally so water will "run" out of the ends and the ends will dry very quickly while the rest of the log remains wet.  That's why you get end-splits.  Sealing forces the water to leave through the side of the log, even the water at the ends.

As far as drying inside, that's a pretty good idea.  I think that the first thing to do is to dry the surface moisture quickly.  Sometimes that is done better outside in covered sheds.  When the wet surfaces dry, the molds don't have any moisture to grow and the log won't mildew.  Once the outside moisture is gone, the log can moved to a slower drying area.  I guess inside would be OK if there is still air movement to get the moisture away from the log as it accumulates.   If you put the log in a place where it will dry real fast for a long time, the outside will shrink and the wet inside won't .  That jacket then splits all to hades.

The same pretty much works for lumber too. 

Your adze/axe handle will be better made from Sapwood.  Either cut a true vertical grained blank, or a small tree that hasn't developed heart.  My preference is sawing the blank.

[FrankLad]

Mr. Lon,
You're right about peeling pine - it is a messy business.  Had to peel a live-edge piece for our frame and remember how long it took to clean the tools afterwards.  The clothes I was wearing became "work clothes" after that, for sure.  Good tip about not having to seal the ends of pine!  I'm glad to hear that.  Thanks!

Hey, if you guys wouldn't mind having a visitor, I'd like to ride up and see y'all's place one day.


Mr. Tom,
I think I may just have to construct a basic "drying shed", even if it's something akin to one of those car covers they sell nowadays.  Would be temporary until I can build a nicer one.  Keeping the logs outside, covered, but allowing the breeze to help drying sounds like a safe bet.
Our crawl space is conditioned, with two vents blowing out down there... shouldn't have a problem with moisture buildup but I guess it's better to be sure and leave them outside at first.  Thanks for the advice!

[Brad_bb]

I suggest you leave the outdoors out of your house.  You shouldn't need to use your house.  Your garage maybe. 
1. Debark
2.Seal ends
3.keep drying wood out of the sun
4. Outside takes a couple or a few weeks to dry, mold/mildew may try to feed on the sap before it dries.  If this happens spray down with a 10 percent bleach solution.  ]
5. Wood eating beetles may attack the wood or eggs may already be present, consider spraying wood with boric acid or Seven(found in local big box store).  (Seven will go inert after a few weeks). Respray if necessary.
If you don't mind the holes from the larvae, then don't spray Seven.  The beetle lavae feed on wet wood, once the wood dries sufficently, they won't bother it.
6.  Don't let the wood sit on the ground.  Get it off so air can flow around it.  Sticker between sawn pieces to allow even airflow.

Everything mentioned in the posts above is good info. As recommended, you may want to saw your hickory handle close to size before drying.  Then after it's dry, do the final sizing.  Seal the ends.  Some hardwoods tend to check real bad as big pieces.  The bigger the piece the bigger the internal stresses and thus the bigger the checks.  Small piece smaller or no check.
   Good description by Tom about water in a log and forcing a slower more even drying.

An air conditioned house might actually be worse.  Drier air on the outside forcing a faster dry on the outside of the log.  Outside or in the garage the humidity will be higher and perhaps cause slower drying, which is good. 

[ljmathias]

Excellent advice and without a kiln of some kind, slow outside drying is probably best- hot and cooler cycles may help relax the wood some by slowing evaporation on the outer edge, letting moisture from inside move toward the outside and relax the stresses there.  Sounds good in principle, but didn't work for me with hickory with the bark on.  Did work great with pine though.

Frank- sure, love to have you come up and see the TF workshop and benches I'm working on.  Making some progress but get distracted often by need to finish parts of the barn I'm now working in- so nice to have lots of open space to set up equipment and work on various pieces of a project without bumping into myself when I turn around.  Only problem is, of course, that I get distracted and have several projects going at once with pieces here and there in various stages of completion.  For example, have the legs for a bench made from yellow popular that look great, and am in the process of finishing up the top from a different piece of the same tree, but it's sitting on the new small bench I made for just such things, making that bench unavailable for cutting openings in the OSB siding I'm putting up on the inside to close in the walls....  Back and forth, but things do get done at times.

Cell phone is 601-307-8508, Frank, and I'll be here this weekend (mostly on Sunday afternoon) and next weekend which, for those of you who might have forgotten, is father's day- I sure miss mine but I also have five grandsons to play with and that helps lots.

Lj

[FrankLad]

Thank you for the additional info, Mr. Brad!  Lots of great tips there!  When you say "Outside takes a couple or a few weeks to dry", is that just surface-dry, or would the entire thing be close to dry at that point, by going the outdoor route?  I'm wondering how long it would take to dry some peeled 8" pine pieces, around 3' to 5' in length (bed posts).

Mr. Lon:  I may give you a ring the weekend after this coming weekend (ie. 21st or 22nd).  Would really like to see your setup.  Thanks!

[Brad_bb]

"Outside takes a couple or a few weeks to dry"...I was referring to the outside surface.  Once dry on the outside, the mold/mildew is no longer a problem because they don't have that sugary sap to feed on.
I'm not exactly sure how long it would take your posts to dry, depends on conditions, but I probably would be comfortable to start working them after 6 months.  I'm thinking that although they may not be totally dry in the middle, probably stable enough to work.  An example is that of an oak brace that I cut in my timberframing class.  We ran short of brace stock, but the teacher had an oak log that he threw on his band saw mill.  He cut some 3X5 stock 4' long and it was clearly wet inside.  Not sure how long the log had been cut, but logs with the bark on can stay wet for quite awhile.  Anyway we cut the tenons on each end cut a curve in the brace.  24 to 48 hours later we went to assemble the frame and that brace had twisted from drying anywhere from 1/8 to 1/4 inch it seemed.  Because of that experience I am now trying to work with seasoned braces.  I've had some stock drying for a year now almost and I'd have no problem planing them to size now and cutting them.  One thing I don't know is that, after only few weeks of drying, have they moved 90% of how much they will totally?  Do they really have to be totally dry or only a percentage to keep them from moving any further?

[ljmathias]

I'd love to hear more about level of drying from the more experienced forum members.  There seems to be two schools of thought- one that cutting green is best because the wood is easier to work while the other favors dried or partially dried lumber so that it doesn't have as much tendency to check and move further after it's cut.  Anyone else care to weigh in on this with personal experience?  Reading the books is great, and there is a tremendous amount of distilled experience there, but trees and wood vary greatly with location and locale- and I would guess the specific behavior of red oak, cypress and yellow pine here in the deep South might be significantly different than similar wood in the North, or on the two coasts or other sections of the country.

Also, I can vouch for the retention of moisture in red oak with the bark on- been cutting some larger diameter logs from Katrina (almost three years now!) and have found the wood in the center half to be just like fresh cut in most ways- still wet to the point that if you let two pieces stay in contact for a few days, mold starts to grow.

Lj

[Brad_bb]

I don't consider myself among the "most experienced" yet, but I believe one of the real differences between working green vs dry is that green is fine if you are assembling right away.  It can then dry in place and nothing can really move if it's constrained in the frame.  Some seal end grain before assembly to slow drying on the ends.  Those that choose to work dry timber are often those that want to cut their frame but will not erect it right away and want the wood stable so it won't change before the eventual rasing.  The trade off is that it's a little harder to work the dry wood.  How much harder I'm not sure, but they do it.  Keep in mind that all reclaimed wood is dry and it is not unusual to use in a new frame.

[Raphael]

  I don't know about axe helves but what we do for hickory bow staves is wax the logs and store them in as dry a place as we can for one to three months.
  We're waiting for the first cracks to appear in the waxed ends of the sawn logs.  We then rive the log down to the size of working billets using this natural cleavage as a guide (with care it should follow your curve for you, lord knows they curve enough when you want them to go straight).
  Once rived the billets get stored in a cool semi dry environment so they dry slowly and don't crack any further.  For a bow this means about 18 months, but I'd guess you can short cut this for an axe helve.