The Forestry Forum
General Forestry => Drying and Processing => Topic started by: D6c on August 14, 2021, 05:28:01 PM
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Is cherry particularly difficult to dry and keep it straight?
I had a pallet full of 4-5' lumber that I sawed to 1¼", air dried, and ran through the kiln. It wasn't what I would call high grade, and that may be the problem, but it twisted and cupped badly. I got about ⅔ of it to clean up at ⅞. The remainder may not clean on ¾ and might be firewood.
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sappy cherry doesn't behave well during drying. Especially if the sap is heavy on one face. But my experience has been good with all red cherry.
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Yes, cherry is one of the most difficult species to dry flat and true. It is one of the more technical species to mill, and stress must be read constantly.
Knots will pull.
Sapwood will pull, cup and bow. Cut the sapwood off, basically trim off the fat. It has to be done before drying, not after.
Unbalanced grain will twist like snake.
Pith is bad.
Improper sticker placement will cause bow or kinks.
When drying, it’s imperative to have weights.
If it is over dried, say 6% EMC, a flat board will begin to bow, cup, and twist like a country road.
That’s just cherry, it's pretty grumpy, but it can be tamed.
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Yes, cherry is one of the most difficult species to dry flat and true. It is one of the more technical species to mill, and stress must be read constantly.
Knots will pull.
Sapwood will pull, cup and bow. Cut the sapwood off, basically trim off the fat. It has to be done before drying, not after.
Unbalanced grain will twist like snake.
Pith is bad.
Improper sticker placement will cause bow or kinks.
When drying, it’s imperative to have weights.
If it is over dried, say 6% EMC, a flat board will begin to bow, cup, and twist like a country road.
That’s just cherry.
Lol.... I think I did most of those things wrong.
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It happens. I have killed countless boards learning the tricks.
Cherry and walnut, two high value woodworker and furniture species, are among the hardest to dry flat and true.
This applies to commercial producers as well. I sometimes purchase both of these from some of the highest quality producers in the country and without fail, bow, twist, curve etc are the most common defects I see.
Of course, this is one of the thing that separates our business for others, and with a few tricks of the trade, we can dry both dead flat and true, and it gives us a significant market.
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The pith is really bad in cherry. With the sapwood bad and the juvenile core/pith bad, you need larger logs. In Georgia, small cherry logs are mostly sapwood or juvenile core/pith and really makes good smoking wood for meat and very poor lumber.
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Almost all species develop excessive cup if the wood is within about 20 growth rings of the center.
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Now I read this. :D
I had a call for wide cherry slabs last spring. I found some good size logs from a firewood producer. I sawed them at 2" LE.
Well after drying down to 20% I put them in the kiln. They did not come out so nice. I was able to get some 1.25" shelves for another customer out of them. IMight have broke even on those boards. could see where the problems were based on the defects in the wood and what I just read here. I am slowly learning about defects in the wood, sawing, drying.
On another note, I sawed 3 logs into 4/4 x 8" 13' long flooring blanks hoping to get 1x6. I did something right as I was able to straightline and get 1x7.5" T+G flooring for my new house. They were nice straight logs with no defects.
I will post pics of the new flooring when i'm done