What's wrong with my boards

[mjeselskis]

I just sawed up about 2000 bd ft of white pine that I hauled out this winter. I sawed it in early June and had no blue stain or pine borers. The wood was nice and white and clear. I stacked it all in my garage and now 3 weeks later it's growing stuff like you see in the picture. This is supposed to be tongue and groove for the inside of my garage walls so I don't want it all stained. I already spayed it with some bleach water and it seemed to slow it down but it's still going bad. Any ideas on what's going on?

[caveman]

It looks like you are not getting enough airflow.  If drying it in your garage, you may have more success by running a fan through the stack for the first week or so.

[btulloh]

Mold. You need air circulation. You'd be better off outside but probably still need fans. Down here pine will mold overnight in summer.

[mjeselskis]

I have a box fan blowing on the stack now and open the big doors on the nice days. Will the mold stain the wood or will it clear up when I plane it? Anything I can do to stop it besides more airflow?

I Appreciate the help. It's no fun to put all this time into it and have it turn out bad.

[bandmiller2]

If I want nice unstained pine I cut it in the winter. Try plaining a board or two and see how deep the stain goes, or just put a stain on it once its installed. If pine is milled in warm weather you must get the surface dry quickly or blue stain will take hold. Frank C.

[sealark37]

Surface mold and blue stain are two different problems.  I think that the mold you have will plane out if you can speed up the drying process.  Regards, Clark

[YellowHammer]

Mold won't grow on dry wood.  Nor will it grow fast on cool wood.  So the best thing to do is put one or two big fans on the stack, and get it out in the open, under shade, if possible where the moisture will vent.  About 650 fpm airflow is good for pine, which is a significant wind, and not only does the high air velocity dry the surfaces of the wood, it will also cool the wood off, as an evaporative cooler. The air coming out of the stacks will be noticeably cool and moist.  A single box fan for 2,000 bdft would be marginal at best, as I don't see how it could cover it, two would be better, and for 2,000 bdft, I would have 2 stacks of 1,000 bdft, and have a set of belt driven fans in the middle of them. Somewhat similar to this:



From the picture, your stickers as growing mold as well, not a good sign, an indication of trapped surface moisture for too long, green stickers, or several their things.

The green fuzzy surface mold will generally plane out, but will also quickly develop into deeper stain.

Spraying with bleach and water will help temporarily, but it also serves to rewet the wood, which if not allowed to dry quickly, only makes things worse, because it has little or no residual positive effect.  Timbor or other moldicide will help with the green and white mold, but not with blue stain. 

There are a couple things you can do, none of which are easy. 

I would break down the stacks, flip the boards over, and move the stickers sideways a little, a few inches, otherwise you will probably get significant sticker stain if you don't already have it. I can see some mold discoloration directly under the top sticker in your photo. 

Fans, fans, and more fans. 

Get the stack out in the open, in the shade if possible.

Test some, as bandmiller2 suggested, plane a board and see if any damage has already been done.  That will give you a good indication of if they will clean up. 

[4x4American]

An old timer told me that black mold will be go away in the sun, so with boards like that, without being an expert, I would take them out into the sun and zap em.  Keep tabs on them, dont let them be out there all day, maybe an hr or so then flip.  Stickers out there too.  Then restack with fans like Robert yellohammer said.  He's expert mode lol

[WDH]

A garage is not a good place to dry green wood.  You need another place with open sides or build a roof over the stack outside.  Then bomb it with fans. 

[Dan_Shade]

I've never had much luck with drying pine in warm weather

[fishfighter]

Yep, bleach and fans are a must along with restacking.

That mold will plane out easy.

[69bronco]

I'd Def replace those stickers with dry ones and move them a bit. A little blue stain isn't so bad but sticker stain is butt ugly.

[DanG]

...or, you could just put that beautifully stained wood on your wall and say, "Look what I created!"   8) 8) :D

[mjeselskis]

I won't forget this lesson, but man, this is tough. I have close to 40 hours into these boards with hauling out the logs, sawing, and stacking. Between the mold and sticker stain, they look pretty awful. I'm going to lay them out in the sun and flip them and then restack them outside. Not sure if I'm going to end up using them on the walls or not, but they at least need to be dried.

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

You need to pressure wash them now.

Rule of thumb...ALWAYS have dry stickers. Just take a day and saw stickers and let them dry. Dry stickers is an important investment.

[btulloh]

Deck brightener will help the mold stains if all else comes up short.  It's more time and expense, but . . . 

I learned about mold the hard way and the deck brightener helped me out.

[YellowHammer]

Eeek...yep, that's probably gonna leave a mark. 

[petefrom bearswamp]

You did a great job of stickering.
Too bad about your problem
I concur that lack of air flow is the problem.
What little WP i sawed a few yrs ago was dried outside with my home made tin covers and I had very little mildew, mold or blue stain.
When the wind was blowing the lee side of the stacks was like standing in an air conditioned room

[mjeselskis]

They are all outside laying in the sun and pressure washed. I used mold armor with the pressure washer on the worst ones. The kids stacked up the stickers like Lincoln logs to dry and I'll restack everything in a few days. It's supposed to be low humidity and sunny the next few days so I'm hoping the surface will dry well.

[flatrock58]

I had the same problem over the last two weeks with some 1x12 board and batten I cut.  I have them stacked in the new shed but there is no power so no fans.  I unstacked them and sprayed bleach, but like yellowhammer said that does not stop the moisture problem. 

I was wondering if I stood the boards up after cutting the if they would dry better than stacking and stickering them?  They would definitely get more air flow.  it has been raining every day in Georgia and humidity is sky high. 

[kelLOGg]

I am sawing pine now for a customer and due to the humidity I am stacking and stickering on my trailer and moving the trailer to its shed to avoid getting wet from rain. I have put a fan on the trailer and for the first time I am using plastic sheeting to channel the air flow through the boards. The shed is quite low and it is difficult to see but the plastic is at the far end. So far there is about 200 bd ft of pine. I have been accumulating it for about 5 days. I can make draping of the plastic more effective if needed. We'll see.



 

[WDH]

I was wondering if I stood the boards up after cutting the if they would dry better than stacking and stickering them?  They would definitely get more air flow.  it has been raining every day in Georgia and humidity is sky high.

Yes, but you have to have a lot of wall space to do that. 

[flatrock58]

WDH.  I have a 40 x 60 shed I just built.  I could stand up the boards along the side for a week or so and then maybe they would be dry enough to stack and sticker.  If I can get the plumbing done this week and get the slab poured, then maybe I will have power to run fans next month.  Seems like I got a lot more done in a day when I was working for a living!

[Kbeitz]

Make sure you flip your boards every day I you stand them up.
If you don't they will have a bow in them.

[YellowHammer]

The nice thing about pine is that it likes to dry fast, the faster the better.  Generally, I'll only put the big fans on a stack for a couple weeks, sometimes only a week, and it's past the danger zone, depending on how hot it is. 

I've never done the leaning trick, but I would be worried about them bowing too much while drying to be able to fix later by stickers.

[Solomon]

Mold. You need air circulation. You'd be better off outside but probably still need fans. Down here pine will mold overnight in summer.

I have had mold problems with SYP and Silver Maple  and I'm also in Virginia.
I have found White Pine to be a lot less prone to getting moldy or turning black
and I've had good results with WP but I may have gotten lucky.
Thinking back, I can't tell you what the humidity level or the weather was the few times I've sawn WP.
SYP seem to turn green if I don't take the board right off the mill straight into
the drying box with the fans running and I bleach it on the way in.
I have about 1k  BF  of silver maple that's stained up pretty bad/good but I will
build some paint grade adirondack chairs or a country pantry that I can paint.
  A gallon of Kilz and a good quality satin  extierior latex will make a sawyer what he ain't !!!!

[clintnelms]

I had the same problem over the last two weeks with some 1x12 board and batten I cut.  I have them stacked in the new shed but there is no power so no fans.  I unstacked them and sprayed bleach, but like yellowhammer said that does not stop the moisture problem. 

I was wondering if I stood the boards up after cutting the if they would dry better than stacking and stickering them?  They would definitely get more air flow.  it has been raining every day in Georgia and humidity is sky high.

I'm in South Georgia myself and having the same exact problem. Gotta be this heat and humidity we're having. Luckily the boards I've sawn so far have been furring strips and other boards that will be covered. I sprayed them good with bleach and got a fan blowing on them good and it helped. Definitely gotta figure something out for the board and batten siding I'm fixing to start on.

[OffGrid973]

You know what they say about stopping a jelly fish sting...maybe worth a shot

On a serious note this thread will save others from the issue, so you are paying it forward with the 40 hrs in.  Not sure that helps but hopefully eases the pain a little.

[Darrel]

I read this thread and it makes me glad that I live where I do. I feel for you. Had that problem when I lived in Roseburg. But on the east side of the Cascades it's much dryer. Today the temp was 90° F and the humidity 12%.

[fishfighter]

12% humidity? :D Down here in Louisiana at this time of the year it is around 75% all day and night. One's tee shirt sticks to you once you walk outside. :(

[Ianab]

75%, that's luxury...

I think we hit 80% today, as the low. Currently it's 92%. At least it's a cool, 46F.

Don't try and air dry pine around here at this time of year. Cold and humid enough that it wont dry, but not so cold the fungus and bugs wont get in there.

Summer you can dry pine, given a bit of air flow. Still  80% humidity of course.

[clintnelms]

8:15 AM right now and it's 81 degrees and  87% humidity. Supposed to be a high of 95 degrees today with a heat index of 100 to 105. I need to move up north!

[fishfighter]

That 75% is about avg year round. Of course the heat index the last week has been well above 100F. :(

[redprospector]

At 6:30 PM it has cooled down to 95 F at my mill. Humidity is about 15%.
Meanwhile, here at the house, it's a sultry 69 F with 30% humidity.
Lumber will dry pretty good either place.  ;D

[Dewey]

It all comes down to airflow....  Years ago I sawed 10'000 BF of Pine and stickered it all with just enough space to walk between piles in a fairly small area... the lumber on the outside piles dried fine, but the inner piles  stained allot..... I later started leaving at least 4' between piles on bunks 6"+ high and use dry stickers also sticker the lumber the day it was sawed ... one other thing that I think helps is when taking lumber off the mill thump the boards once on edge to knock any loose sawdust off that traps in moisture  .    I now saw Northern White Cedar the great thing there is no STAIN !!!

[clintnelms]

It all comes down to airflow....  Years ago I sawed 10'000 BF of Pine and stickered it all with just enough space to walk between piles in a fairly small area... the lumber on the outside piles dried fine, but the inner piles  stained allot..... I later started leaving at least 4' between piles on bunks 6"+ high and use dry stickers also sticker the lumber the day it was sawed ... one other thing that I think helps is when taking lumber off the mill thump the boards once on edge to knock any loose sawdust off that traps in moisture  .    I now saw Northern White Cedar the great thing there is no STAIN !!!

None of that helped me this time. I use a broom and sweep off all the saw dust off both sides before stacking with 1 inch stickers out in the open and they still molded like that. We've had a lot of rain lately though. Guess that hasn't helped. The stack was covered with metal roofing panels too.

[YellowHammer]

Mold needs surface moisture to grow, so the solution is to dry the surface of the boards as soon as possible.  This mold and stain issue is a significant one, and there are several papers written in the subject of drying soft and white wood, which is much different than drying conventional hardwoods. 

The drying effect of air velocity on lumber is proportional to how moist the wood is, and how fast the air is flowing.  The effect of air velocity decreases drastically as the wood starts to dry out.  High air velocities and wet wood result in very rapid moisture loss, heigh velocity air and drier wood, not so much. 

The solution is to get high airflow over the stacks as soon as it is milled and use H style stickers.  Typically, I can dry a load of pine out of the danger zone, with the big fans, in about a week, two at the most, in Alabama summertime. 

You don't have to worry about sawdust, when the fans fire up, a cloud will cover anyone downwind.  Thats when you know you have enough airflow.

[Peter Drouin]

You don't have to worry about sawdust, when the fans fire up, a cloud will cover anyone downwind.  Thats when you know you have enough airflow.

:D :D :D :D :D

[4x4American]

lol lol lol lol




Now what if theres sawdust under the sticker, more possibility of sticker stain eh?

[YellowHammer]

Yes, so the H stickers will trap almost very little sawdust under the contact area, especially is they were made on a molder and have a radius on the tips. 

[WDH]

Robert,

For a thousand H-stickers today, I will gladly pay you next Tuesday. 


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30knrJBeyr0

;D

[woodweasel]

 I wish I had a stack of oak that looked like that. I have a few customers who would pay nicely for that look. ;D

[paul case]

Come up to my place the end of next week when we finish haying and we will have some for you.

We often will stick our flitches  of 1com and better in the summer time so they keep long enough for us to get a load. It can take a while just getting a few off some tie logs along. We usually don't stick our pallet stringer flitches as we generally work them up each week, but with my hand injury and my help at the mill having to make most of my hay, we have 4 lifts of pallet flitches waiting to be edged that I think may look like some of them green sticked pine.

Kinda yuck to me.

PC

[Ga Mtn Man]

Anyone have any experience with a product called Pallet-Nu from this company?

https://www.envirotechenterprises.com/

[YellowHammer]

Robert,
For a thousand H-stickers today, I will gladly pay you next Tuesday. 

Heck, I'd have given you twice as many for half the price the day before last week... ;D

[Alligator]

Quite a few million feet air dried in south Alabama humidity like this.

[clintnelms]

mjeselskis,
So how's your boards looking now? After I sprayed mine down with straight bleach they cleared right up. I've started spraying mine down with bleach on both sides before stacking and haven't seen anymore mold yet.

[clintnelms]

So here's a little proof that bleach will keep the mold from forming. This board I cut and sprayed all but the last part of the board with bleach right after cutting it. Left in on my mill to air dry to see if it would mold. Only the part I didn't spray molded.

[btulloh]

That's a significant demonstration.  Helpful.  Thanks.

[mjeselskis]

mjeselskis,
So how's your boards looking now? After I sprayed mine down with straight bleach they cleared right up. I've started spraying mine down with bleach on both sides before stacking and haven't seen anymore mold yet.

They are looking good. The worst ones are still stained gray, but the other ones are looking good and air drying the stickers for a couple days looks like it helped too.

[clintnelms]

mjeselskis,
So how's your boards looking now? After I sprayed mine down with straight bleach they cleared right up. I've started spraying mine down with bleach on both sides before stacking and haven't seen anymore mold yet.

They are looking good. The worst ones are still stained gray, but the other ones are looking good and air drying the stickers for a couple days looks like it helped too.

That's good! I noticed mine that I sprayed with straight bleach have started to get a little bit of mold, but no where near like before. I've got probably 8 to 10 more 16 foot logs to mill so I'll be stocking up on some bleach. Mainly where the fans aren't blowing on them as good.

[flatrock58]

Stood some boards up yesterday and flipped them today.  So far looks good.  Will try to get them dry a wekk then maybe stack and sticker.  Time will tell.

  

 

[flatrock58]

Day 3 and no mold.  I cut this log without using the lubemizer and I scraped off the sawdust.  I think that helps to keep surface moisture lower.

[flatrock58]

Day 5 and we had some rain.  Notices some white mold on some of the boards.  Might not be out of the woods yet.

[4x4American]

Now change out your water in you lube with diesel fuel and you really won't have nothin to worry about lol

[flatrock58]

4x4american.  The guys I bought the mill from ran diesel instead of water and said it worked good.  I wondered if vinegar would work since it inhibits mold.

[4x4American]

Maybe.. I reckon it'd get pretty expensive/annoying to keep on hand though ... I ran out of water one day so I filled the lubemizer up with diesel and been running that way ever since.  It's easier to keep off hand cause everything I have runs off diesel and it lasts a long time.  I would use alot of water and it got obnoxious filling it up all the time.. the diesel is nice but not when the wind is in your face and not when you're sawing vegetable crate materials or tomato stakes :D