Cutting Stickers

[Al_Smith]

I went around and got dunnage boards from a couple of lumber yards ,freebies .Set up my table saw and cut them down to 3/4" stuff ,all 4 feet long .I had a couple of paper barrels full at one time. They are pine of course but they must have worked because the air dried lumber seems to be okay .There isn't any sticker stain on the oak, ash ,walnut or black cherry lumber I've seen .

Those woods don't count. It's sugar maple, elm. clear white pine, tulip and other 'white' woods that the stickers can ruin.

Now a question because I really  don't know as I have none of those "white woods " .Generally speaking the rough lumber would be 1" thick and then planed down to say 3/4".Does  the planning remove the sticker stain ?

[moodnacreek]

Sawing and drying white woods in hot weather must be strictly controlled from the stump to stored dry lumber.  I am a rather rough mill with no kiln and mostly outdoor storage.  Low grade softwood for 1x12 rough, a.d. and oak trailer plank in any condition is my main thing. Most lumber sold here is sold off sticks. However as the area changes from country to city the loggers are gone and the logs come from tree service. [a chosen few operators]  So high grade sometimes lands here and i was reselling it until covid.  I have proved after past failures that I can air dry hard maple without sticker shadow not that anybody wants it but I pride myself with at least knowing how to do things right like if I can't sell the logs and must saw them. Same goes for clear white pine even though many think it is cute. Funny how customers cull the blue stained boards.  

[YellowHammer]

There are several types of sticker stain, and it varies with the species of wood, and whether it manifests in the heartwood or the sapwood, or both. There is also mold stain as well as enzyme stain. 

Oaks for example, will come down with a dark streak stain, generally caused by mold and insufficient airflow, either air drying, or in the kiln.  Its is generally only a few fibers deep and easily planes out.  Its will get worse deeper in the stack, and sometimes can become a problem in the sapwood of some species, such as white oak and hickory, where it won't plane out, although it will plane out in the heartwood.  So when this happens, the solution is to edge off the sapwood, or better yet, don't let it happen in the first place.

In some species, using too dry of a sticker will cause reverse sticker stain, or white streaks, and I've seen it go deep enough to take a couple passes to plane out, which can be a pain.  I generally see this in cherry or or sassafras, or other mildly shaded wood species.  So I cycle my stickers and don't use just out of the kiln stickers for green off the mill wood.  I'll let them air acclimatize in a bin and get to them after awhile. 

The absolute worst, and generally the most common in "whitewoods" is enzyme stain.  It can show up as black streaks under the stickers, or as white streaks because the rest of the white wood has turned gray.  This enzyme stain almost always shows up in warm to hot weather, either outside while air drying or in the kiln.  Basically, the sugars in the wood get too warm and begin to discolor, and this "gray stain" will go completely through the wood, and can't be planed out.  Sometimes it even gets worse the deeper the wood gets planed.  This is some bad stuff, and will ruin entire packs of wood.  Sometimes it will even be so bad, its will look like "zebra stripes."  Some big mills even have this problem.  It has different stages, and spiral stickers will help in the initial stages, but the conditions are completely wrong, then nothing will help.  In a kiln, the general rule of thumb is a 20 degree WB/DB separation, with air flows up in the 400 feet per minute range.  When air drying, fans blowing over the stacks will really help, as it evaporates surface water and also helps keep the stacks cool.

Sticker stain in professionally kiln dried wood is a litmus test.  When I purchase packs of wood from others, (I sometimes can't keep up with sales) then I will always grade them on their ability to dry "clean and bright."  I just had a pack of poplar that I sent back to a relatively well known manufacturer because of some enzyme stain.  It was a swing and a miss.    

  

[moodnacreek]

I went around and got dunnage boards from a couple of lumber yards ,freebies .Set up my table saw and cut them down to 3/4" stuff ,all 4 feet long .I had a couple of paper barrels full at one time. They are pine of course but they must have worked because the air dried lumber seems to be okay .There isn't any sticker stain on the oak, ash ,walnut or black cherry lumber I've seen .

Those woods don't count. It's sugar maple, elm. clear white pine, tulip and other 'white' woods that the stickers can ruin.

Now a question because I really  don't know as I have none of those "white woods " .Generally speaking the rough lumber would be 1" thick and then planed down to say 3/4".Does  the planning remove the sticker stain ?

In the case of hard white maple it will not plane out for sure. All 'white woods ' are touchy.

[farmfromkansas]

I have had ash get sticker stain.  My sticks are scraps from the wood shop, boards never work out full width.  Haven't gotten into shaping the sticks.