Mixed species stickers for air drying?

[Warthog]

Just a quick question:  I have a custom saw job for about 1k bf of white oak which will be air-dryed.  The customer has a "junk" pine log he wants to use for stickers.  Is it safe to use pine stickers on green oak, or should we cut oak stickers from the same logs?  Thanks for the help!

[Tom]

you really shouldn't use green (wet) stickers, but we all do from time to time.  It causes sticker shadow,a stain, and can promote rot where the sticker contact is located.

You are usually better off with stickers of the same species, but commercial stickers are pine and various other woods.  Pine makes a good sticker. Many guys will get kiln dried wood from the dumpster of a building site and cut it into stickers.  Plywood makes a pretty good sticker.

I would think that the your pine is usable, but warn him about the "shadow".  He might avoid it by restickering a time or two to allow the stickers to dry some too.

[Warthog]

Thanks we ended up using plywood and it seemed to work out fine, other than hitting a half dozen nails! :-\