Can I air dry logs?

[Riles]

I realize the preferred method is to slice your boards and pop them directly into a kiln. Second choice is to slice and air dry. But I have a problem.

I bought 35 acres in NC for my retirement home and have been doing some improvements to the land. I won't be able to actually build the house for another two years since we'll be in Louisiana finishing off the wife's Air Force career. There's some nice white oak and cherry on the land that will make nice cabinets when we do build. But if I put up a pole barn and stack cut lumber in it, I'm certain it will "walk off."

Now logs are a lot less likely to be stolen, so here are the questions. What happens if I end coat the logs and "air dry" them for two years? Is the oak going to end check mercilessly? Would they need to be in a pole barn out of the sun or can I just buck them on ties off the ground? Will the two year old logs be harder to mill?

In a related question, how should I handle the sweet gum? Everyone bad mouths the tree, but it has the straightest trunk in the forest and no limbs to 40 feet. And I've got tons of 'em. The service forester tells me (in addition to cutting them all down to get rid of them) to leave them on the ground until the bark starts to sluff off because milling green gum will just cause warping. I'm thinking I could build a lot of pole barn with sweet gum 2x4 and 2x6.

There's also pine and cedar for the taking, but I've got time before I have to worry about them.

Thanks for the advice.

[WH_Conley]

How about lettin em stand on the stump? I know you said you were doing improvements, trade off, improvements put off two years vs degrade in the log or "walking off", have heard of cases of logs walking off to, you already have the work done, be easy for someone to just load them up. Just my 2 cents.

[Riles]

Well my thought was to start them drying so they'd be ready when I begin construction of the house. It'll take a year to build it, so leaving them standing is an option. The forester said the woods need to be commercially thinned, but I can wait a couple years until I live nearby.

The cedar seems to be the most likely to fall on its own. There always seems to be a couple down, but I've allowed the neighbor to take those rather than let them rot. Kind of a pain living 10 hours from the farm, I can only get up there a couple times a year.

[Jeff]

You cant dry your lumber in the logs.  What will happen is that the dryer logs will be much harder to mill and the odds of lumber being miscut will climb. You want to mill logs as soon as you can after the tree is down.

[Tom]

Yes, the drier the log the harder it is to cut.  You are also allowing fungal stains, rot, etc to get strted in the logs. 

Lumber stores best on the stump.   Wait until you are ready to start processing it before you take it off of the stump.

Perhaps you can meet some neighbors there who will look out for your drying boards and you can air dry in a pole barn.   Have you met any of your neighbors yet? 

[Ga_Boy]

Riles,

When I am not doing lumber for myself I am in the LE/Security business for the federal govt.  There are many inexpensive ways to secure your material if you decide to cut and let air dry. 

Just a thought.



Mark

[Riles]

I have met the neighbors, in fact they're the ones I bought the property from. The son has been pulling windfalls off the land for years to rebuild one of the barns on their property. He's also very diligent about running down people he sees, but he can't get them all (deer hunters, dumpers, and people pulling dogwoods for their yard).

There is a tiny corner of the land, a piece of pasture on the far side of a tree line, that would be completely out of sight from my land, but in a place where they have a view. The Forest Service just planted trees in the way making it harder to get to, but I guess that works both ways.

Sounds like the best approach is to wait another year and put a pole barn in that corner, then cut and air dry for a year. Then as I build the house, I can put in the solar kiln to finish drying and start on the cabinets.

[Kirk_Allen]

Welcome to the FF Riles. 

I agree with Jeff and Tom on this issuse.  I salvaged over a hundred dead trees from my grandparents property.  Some had been dead for 3-4 years.  I did get it done and got some great wood but those timbers were some of the first I had cut with my mill.  Not haveing anythig to compare too I didnt think it was to bad. 

Now after haveing cut Green wood freshly felled I dont think I ever want to go back and cut a dead or dry log, unless its Walnut, Cherry, or some nice White oak ;D

[rebocardo]

> The service forester tells me (in addition to cutting them all down to get rid of them) to leave
> them on the ground until the bark starts to sluff off because milling green gum will just
> cause warping.

If NC is anything like GA, if you leave them on the ground for even a month you will likely find termites have moved in and have started to swiss cheese the wood. It is like candy for most bugs. For the six months it takes for the bark to fall off, I think you might only have a few inches of good sapwood left.

Then there is the critter factor. Around here, if you leave a tree down in a wooded area lots of critters move in such as wasps, yellow jackets, snakes (water mocassins etc.), coons. Out of all of them, I would worry about the yellow jackets the most.

About the only tree I would not worry about removing would be the cedar. I have ground cedar stumps that still looked new after 30 years and for the trees that fall, the trunk gets hard as a rock, but, it does not decay much.