idry quality question

[nativewolf]

Seen lots of people buy them and get them going.  I've seen good posts on pricing.

I am curious as to the quality of some tough to dry products:

#1:  Sugar Maple- does it stay snow white?  I mean if @ehp brings in some of his stellar HM will it look great after drying?

#2:  QS WO- can you dry QS WO from green without noticeable degrade?  Anyone try it? if so how long for 4/4.  Anyone ever do a 8/4" QS WO ?  

[scsmith42]

Seen lots of people buy them and get them going.  I've seen good posts on pricing.

I am curious as to the quality of some tough to dry products:

#1:  Sugar Maple- does it stay snow white?  I mean if @ehp brings in some of his stellar HM will it look great after drying?

#2:  QS WO- can you dry QS WO from green without noticeable degrade?  Anyone try it? if so how long for 4/4.  Anyone ever do a 8/4" QS WO ?  

Re 8/4 QSWO, when I toured the plant and spent 1/2 day with Jim Parker, he told me that he does not recommend the iDry for drying 8/4 oak from green.
4/4 white oak is probably a 3 week kiln run from green.
Reportedly the iDry system is a great product for many species, except for drying oak from green.  

[ehp]

Nw.  Thats a problem the mills have . You cannot mix lumber from here on sand with lumber cut on clay 25 miles away. Its a total different color . 2 or 3 years ago the mills would not even buy the hm if it came of clay ground . Its a more cream color . Soft maple is even worse . Coupleguts sold some soft maple logs to mill in Quebec  and they quit buying as soon as they saw them into lumber  cause they could not mix in the lumber from else where

[boonesyard]

You need to air dry oak before going in to the idry.

[WDH]

That requires patient customers :D. 

[tule peak timber]

Like me , respectfully read the current evolving threads on this subject.I am a silver bullet wannabe. Cheers.  Rob

[Larry]

They sure are shiny.




He started with the two baby ones and added the big one just recently.

[Walnut Beast]

And moved into a new shop 😊

[nativewolf]

Like me , respectfully read the current evolving threads on this subject.I am a silver bullet wannabe. Cheers.  Rob

yep, read every idry thread.  Larry have you had a chance to dry any QS WO in the idry? Anyone?  Just curious as to behavior.  
@ehp- I believe it.  Your HM just looks stunning.  It should be in special category.  Is Danzer still buying around the lake?

[Larry]

Larry have you had a chance to dry any QS WO in the idry?

Those kilns are owned by an outfit by the name of Rackensack Kilns up the road from me.  They mostly dry slabs but you might give them a call and visit with them.  They have always been friendly to me.

[boonesyard]

I dry WO frequently. In Yellowhammer's words. It's cranky, so is Black Walnut. If you don't air dry it, you'll end up with a lot of twist, crook and moisture pockets. The stuff will lock up, and won't dry down any further until you take it out of the kiln, let it rest, and sometimes spray the whole load down after the rest and put it back in (along with a lot of new words I've discovered :D). I'm mostly talking about 8/4 slabs and up, but 4/4 can get nasty if you don't air dry as well. Also, the key to this stuff is weight. Weight on the stack while air drying and weight in the kiln. If your patient, it works, if not, it won't. It's our most expensive species to dry correctly and we reflect it in our price.

[YellowHammer]

Well said.  Some wood is just cranky, no matter how it's dried. 

[Stephen1]

I have a load of WO slabs and RO slabs that have been air drying since August and they are going in next week. Some of it is QSWO 2.5" slabs. I will lelt you know how it turns out.
As some one said its the Cranky customers that are the problem, not the wood. 
I have a load of QS RO for my own flooring going into the kiln in the new year. 
I will keep every one posted on how it goes. I have it air drying (winter time here) since November and hope to put it in the idry in march or april .

[boonesyard]

Here's a load of white oak we just pulled out of the kiln. You can see some cupping on the ends of a few boards, but all-in-all, it's nice stuff. Other than the top slabs (they were 12% when they went in), the load is 1-1/8" thick and was air dried to about 20%. This load was in for 9 days and landed at about 7%. 

[YellowHammer]

As some one said its the Cranky customers that are the problem, not the wood.

I think that's a common trait of any kiln.

[Larry]

You can see some cupping on the ends of a few boards, but all-in-all, it's nice stuff.

It seemed like most cupping was the result of me trying to saw wide boards from small logs.  Just because the cup showed up in the kiln doesn't mean it was the problem. 

[boonesyard]

You can see some cupping on the ends of a few boards, but all-in-all, it's nice stuff.

It seemed like most cupping was the result of me trying to saw wide boards from small logs.  Just because the cup showed up in the kiln doesn't mean it was the problem.

Totally agree

[YellowHammer]

Since I like digging through old research, I found a document titled "Vacuum Drying in a Small Commercial Kiln - 18 Months Experience", R.W. Rice, E. M. Wengert, Brooks Forest Products Center.  It was an 18 month study encompassing more than 30 loads of lumber and discusses two items I have heard discussed from some customers who have bought vacuum kiln dried wood, as well as the topic of this discussion, revolving around quality and cup.

In this document, it was quoted as "The overall quality....has been excellent.  From time to time, for reasons not fully understood by us, we did notice more more cup than we would have expected n conventional drying.  We also seem to find....a piece of lumber that had a region of high moisture content even through the rest of the piece was quite dry.....we found that white oak did not dry satisfactorily."

Other observations of note were "Shorter pieces dried to a more uniform MC and faster than long pieces...Thinner lumber dried better and more evenly than thicker."

Its a very concise paper by @GeneWengert-WoodDoc  and I would recommend it as very useful reading.

[Stephen1]

 
Here is some pics of SM coming out of the kiln today . Some is white, some has a yellowish hue to it, I am thinking because it is from different trees and areas