first stickers can I just use pine from lumber yard and cut others myself later?

[bikedude73]

I just got my mill up and running and need stickers and didn't know if it is ok to use just pine from menards or not????? :P

[Dan_Shade]

as long as the pine is dry, I would think it should be fine.  I've used 1x2 furring strips in a solar kiln for several years now with no noticeable effects.

[petefrom bearswamp]

Shoot,
If I am sawing softwoods i just use stock from the edgings for stickers with no problems.
Hardwoods are another matter.
Pete

[evergreen]

what effect does hard wood stickers have?

[Tom]

When using wet stickers  you run the risk of sticker stain or sticker shadow.  There is also the possibility of rotting fungus' getting started where wet wood touches wet wood.

I've seen lots of folks scavenge plywood scraps from building sites and cutting stickers by running them through a table saw.   they seem to work pretty good too.

[evergreen]

So pretty much any dry wood or plywood would work for stickering? Try saying that fast 10 times! :D

[jeffreythree]

I have been using $.25 KD 2x6 or wider pine from the bargain bin at the local HD big box store.  They cut damaged ones in half and paint the end to show what price they are.  Throw a stack on the mill and cut them all at once.  I usually only find 6-10 4' boards a trip; so it can take a while to build up a supply.

[Magicman]

I sawed a job last week, and the customer had split bamboo for stickers.  That was a first for me.  Since there is minimal contact with the lumber, I see no reason why it will not be satisfactory  ???

I go to my local moulding/millwork shop.  They have piles of "straight line edging".  Just don't expect to fine any during tomato/bean sticking season....  

[stonebroke]

Where did he get the bamboo?

Stonebroke

[Magicman]

Where did he get the bamboo? Stonebroke

I called it bamboo, but I really don't know what variety of cane it is.  Here are a couple of pictures from my backyard.  This stuff is very invasive and will easily grow to 2" diameter.







He just ripped it on his table saw.

[Okrafarmer]

I was also wondering about this topic, as we are probably about to get a mill for the first time. We will be sawing many different species, and air drying (at least at first). We have a lot of yellow pine available and will probably consider using edges for stickers, and maybe sawing a bunch of the new 1x pine up to make stickers. Yellow pine isn't nearly as sticky as white pine. Would it help to cut them out of recently dead trees rather than live ones? Will green pine stickers make marks on hardwood? Will the marks on the hardwood really matter if they're going to be planed?  :-\

[Tom]

Magicman,
That looks like canepole bamboo to me.  It's not a clumping bamboo, but is what they call a Forest bamboo.  It is invasive but responds to mowing the new sprouts.   The new sprouts are supposed to be edible too, and are grown for that purpose in parts of the world.

If I had a bamboo, that is the kind I would want. 

A young kid could make a real business out of making cane poles, if he were of a mind.  Cut'em, trim'em, dry'em and varnish'em.  Then sell them to someone who doesn't know what you did, or how you did it. 

In the 1970's and 1980's we used to buy cane poles at the tackle shop for just a little bit.  10 footers were about a dollar and twelve to 16 footers were from two to five dollars and the monster bamboo, in lengths of 18 to 25 feet were ten dollars or more.  We used the big heavy ones for dip nets off of the bridges and for bridge gaffs, etc.   People buy them for picking pears too.

The woodier the cane and the smaller the hole, the better the pole.

I don't think that bamboo would make a good sticker.  Stickered lumber can put tons of pressure on a sticker.  One concern about stickering lumber is crushing stickers and lumber.

Okrafarmer,

It used to be said that the best sticker material was the same as the lumber that it stickered.   I don't that that is really true.   But, pine does make a good sticker if it is dry.  There are other stains, besides, chemical stain from the sticker, that will affect lumber.  Look up terms like sticker shadow, etc. Some of that stuff can't be planed out.  Even if you cut your own, you are better off drying them before use.  Make sure that they are the same thickness and have no bark on them.   

There is a fallacy that it's the sawyer that is responsible for the value of the lumber.  Actually, you have to start with something decent, have a sawyer that will break open the log fairly accurately and with attention to stress, grain and faults, then, the rest of it is dependent on the drying procedure.  The drying can be quite complicated and more knowledge is required than the general layman knows.  A poorly stickered and irreverently dried stack of lumber can be ruined very assuredly, in a short amount of time, by someone who does the job haphazardly.

Even standing dead trees, turned into lumber or stickers, must be dried.

I've stickered with green stickers many times in the past and, for construction lumber, get away with it.  It's better not to do that if you can do it right.

One of your first projects, when you get your mill, should be to create a lot of stickers and dry them.  Most of us wish we had done that. 

[Magicman]

I don't think that bamboo would make a good sticker. 

That was the first and only time that I have ever seen it done.  His stacks were only a couple of feet high, so I guess that he was OK.  Maybe the "dividers" in the cane gave it some additional strength?  I had stickers for him, but he didn't use them.  I just bundled them back up and they went to the next customer.

[tyb525]

Most of my stickers came from some reclaimed pallet boards (with nails removed!). Stood them up as wide as I could on the mill and cut 'em down. The pine that is heat-treated works great.

[Okrafarmer]

Good idea, tyb. I'll have to look for some good pallets, maybe.

[Okrafarmer]

Also, for reference, when I worked at Hancock Lumber in Pittsfield, Maine, it seems that they used birch stickers in the pine. All they milled there was white pine 1" boards, nothing else. They had huge baskets of the stickers which they would move around with forklifts. It was quite an impressive operation-- a 36" gang saw instantly sliced each log into 1x material and everything else was to scale. Not sure where they came up with the birch stickers-- I seem to recall they were birch, but they were definitely hardwood and they would use them over and over again in a continuous cycle. That was about 10 years ago.

[StephenRice]

Use them dry like suggested above, but also make sure that they are thick enough to allow good air flow between the lumber.  1" should do the trick fine, but 1/2" plywood strips might choke off the air flow.  Also, use enough stickers so that the lumber does not sag between them.  Stickers are cheap, so don't you be!  Keep the stack tight, and weigh down the top of the stack to help prevent cupping and twisting and such.