not to sound stupid but,..

[Woodbender]

BTW thanks for all the replies on the "lifting" thread.

When I was at the post & beam outfit in Ma. we went through a LOT of timber. Literally we bought it by the train freight car load.  But it was all kiln dried Douglas Fir stuff.

Do most of you use kiln dried or can you get away with air dried timbers.  I realize it will take a while to get them to equilibrium but what I was planning to use for a kiln is simply not going to meet my needs.

[Dave Shepard]

I, and all of the framers I have talked to, use green timbers. They are cheaper and easier to work. I personally feel that not having to use a ton of kiln dried wood that has been trucked all over the continent is an environmental benefit of traditional timber framing. JMO.


Dave

[Woodbender]

Good morning Dave - thanks for the reply.

Do you mean green as in air dried or green as in still un-cured?  Next question then is are your timbers jointed and assembled wet?

[Dave Shepard]

Theoretically, you could chop down a tree, saw it into a timber, cut your joints, and raise it in the same day.  Typically you would want to get the frame raised as soon as possible before any of the timbers started to warp and check, at least that is my understanding.


Dave

[Raphael]

  My very last floor joist went from 'growing' Hickory to having flooring nailed to it in ~10 days.
In my experience pine timbers can stay stable for several months after being milled, but most of the other species I've worked with start moving and checking much sooner.  I did my cutting and raising in three stages which helped keep me ahead of the changes in the timbers.

[Thomas-in-Kentucky]

Started raising my frame with about 500 timbers done (those took over a year) and 40 to go.  Some of the last 40 timbers (e.g. ridge beam and purlins) were snaked from the woods, bucked, sawed, planed, joined, sanded, oiled, and raised into the partial frame within 24 hours. 

hmmm, that sounded really efficient.... so why has my project taken over two years so far? 

and why are there still two floor joists not in my frame yet? 

[Jayson]

Most of the projects I've been on use green timber. With the exception of one that used recycled stuff and one that paid lots of extra bucks to use kiln dried. I try to think about what guys would have done (since many of those building are still in use hundreds of years later) traditionally. I doubt that they slept with the animals outside for many years waiting for the wood to dry. We just try to get things together pretty quick to minimize the effects of movement. Sounds like Raphael's plan was darn smart.

[landrand]

I often wondered how you can plane a green timber.  I have a 12" Makita planer and tried to plane a timber that was relatively green.  It  didn't plane very welll.  The result was a bunch of chop like marks. I assumed the timber should be somewhat dry before running a plane across.  Maybe my planer blades weren't sharp enough to do the job on green wood.

[Jim_Rogers]

Maybe my planer blades weren't sharp enough to do the job on green wood.

That could be the answer.......

Jim Rogers

[Don P]

Sharp will help but green wood doesn't plane as well as dry. I try to let the surface air dry for as long as possible before using a power planer. Look carefully at the surface of your planed wood.
Are they chip marks, from inadequate chip ejection, the chips can make it back around the cutterhead and beat the wood. Lighter passes, slower feed. If there is pitch build up anywhere in the "chute" clean it up to get the chips out as freely as possible.
Is it tear out, wet wood is weaker and tends to lift and tear out chunks or strips along the grain more easily.Sharpen, lighter passes, slower feed
The reasons for green woodworking revolve more around the need to build within a reasonable time frame and ease of working the timbers with hand tools. Almost all power tools and cutters are designed for working with dry wood.

[landrand]

The Makita 12" planer was new and hardly used when I planed the green timber.  I doubt the blades of the Makita came very sharp from the factory.  I'm going to resharpen the blades and give it another try.   It makes sense to let the timber surface dry out a little before planing.

Do you plane all four sides of a timber or just the sides facing the interior and/or the best edge, best face sides.  I know the goal is to get the best edge, best face as square as possible.

[Thomas-in-Kentucky]

I planed just the sides that would show, using the 12" makita beam planer.  My wife wanted smooth timbers, and I hoped for timbers that were exactly the right size (at least before they dried!) and the planer accomplished this.  It is possible to take taper out of timbers by twisting the depth knob on the planer as you push it down the timber (or by taking multiple passes on only one end of the timber - obviously, do not start and stop at the same place each time though.).  Also possible, but even more painful, is making timber faces more square using the planer, by shimming up one side of the planer.  Best to get it right first at the sawmill though... for that I kept a framing square next to me and checked the timber each time I turned it on the sawmill, as the dogs do not always grab the timber squarely.

My personal experience was that the makita planer cut faster and easier on "slightly dried but mostly green" wood than it did on fully dried wood, with one caveat...  we had some problems with the planer clogging up with the long stringy chips produced by some of the softer green woods - like the walnut braces and poplar/basswood beams.  Those you might want to let dry a little longer.  Also, white oak (esp. the green stuff) tends to gum up the planer blades faster than it dulls them... like it does my sawmill blades.  When you turn the planer blades to use the second face, make sure to clean the gum off of them or they might not clamp correctly.

Finally, makita calls the blades "disposable" and their small format makes it hard to use a regular "planer blade sharpener" on them (conspiracy?!?  : ).  When I accumulated 10 pairs of the blades, I used a friend's water stone and sharpened them by eye/feel.  He then sanded the backs of them smooth again with 2000 grit paper on a piece of glass backing.  It worked well enough to get one more use out of the blades.  A second sharpening "by eye" is probably not feasible... not by a rank amateur like me.  I am lucky to sharpen my chainsaw w/o making it cut crooked.

BTW, "best face" is sometimes at odds with "crown up," so I always went crown up, unless the timber was straight - then I'd go with "best face showing."  This too is obvious I guess.  What the heck, thought I'd throw it out there. 

[sheneman]

I'd like a one-size-fits all portable power planer.  I've been considering the Makita 12" planer for awhile.  However, my timbers range in widths from 4" to 9".  Will this planer work well on the smaller widths, like 4"?   I imagine most of the planer will be hanging off of smaller-dimension beams, and that might be awkward??

Any help or recommendations would be appreciated.

Thanks,
-Luke

[Thomas-in-Kentucky]

Luke,

I think 4" beams are still in the reasonable range for the 12" makita.  But the thing does weigh something like 40 pounds.  Now, planing 2" with the 12" makita would be ridiculous and awkward.  You might want to get a 3" planer (they are abundant and cheap compared to the 12" Makita) for that kind of stuff.  I have a little Dewalt planer that gets abused (it has hit more than its fair share of embedded metallic objects) but keeps on ticking.

I have planed beams wider than 12" with the 12" makita by taking multiple passes, and I know of at least one person that gets by with a 6" planer to plane beams wider than 6", using the same strategy.  If you don't have a lot of wide beams, the 6" planer is a better price/performer.

-Thomas