OK, How many of you have kilns?
What size charge does it take?
What type of Kiln you have?
What is the interior made from?
Rick-Wi
Don't have one but sure would like one ;D
I don't have one either but it has been a dream for a lot of years. Thought first about a solar kiln from Woodmizer and then about building my own. I have a friend with a 15,000 BF Nyle and I'm jealous.
I dont have one either :'( and those big stacks of lumber air drying for more than a year is always in the way :( ;)
Hi- This is my 1st post on this forum. I've been visiting here quite often over the last few months and have learned a lot.
I have been running a Nyle L-150 since 1989. I dry mostly hardwoods that I have sawn on my orange machine ;D. I have found that about 1500 bf of 4/4 dries nicely in the 10'x18'x8' high chamber.
The kiln is located outside. The walls are constructed with 2x6's with 3/8 cdx plywood for the interior. I applied a very heavy coat of Alum. asphalt roofing on the interior face of the plywood. I used stainless steel screws to fasten the plywood to the 2x6's. I then used 6 mil plastic for a vapor barrier between the plywood and the insulation which is 5" of blue Dow Stryofoam. Then 3/8 cdx ply on the outside with 1" Hemlock board and batten. Probably overkill, but it shure helps with the electric bill in the winter here in W.NY. Brian...
Welcome, Brian.
Wish you lived a little closer,as there are no kilns nearby.
Tell us a little more about your operation.Winters are cold out here too.
What are drying times for 2",in the kiln?
sooo.... that was you out there window peakin eh Brian? Just kiddin. Welcome to the Forestry Forum.
Welcome to the Forestry Forum Brian. This is great....we have a kiln operator now. Thanks for posting...stick around...we're going to be needing you. :D
Welcome Brian, we ordered a Nyles L200 and we are making the chamber now. Our building is 16' deep and 34' long. The chamber is in the center with covered and two sides closed on the ends. That we will use to hold lumber waiting for the kiln or air drying. Kiln chamber is 17'x12'x8'.
How did you do the ceiling of your kiln, same as the walls? I would like to use fiberglass in the ceiling to at least R50
Rick-Wi
Thank you for the Welcome.
Paul H. -
I don't dry much 8/4 in the kiln as it takes forever to get it down to 6-8% mc. I only saw a few hundred bf of each species that I use, so I never seem to have enough to make up a load. What I have found that works real well for me, is to let the 8/4 air dry to about 16-18%. Then put it in the kiln for a couple of days @ 140 degrees to kill any unwanted wood munchers. Then bring it into my shop/ storage area to finish drying. I'm real fussy about any wood that comes into my shop / lumber storage area. It has to be sterilized first!
About my operation, I'm just a serious hobbyist that has sawdust in his veins really bad :D. I've been a Woodmizer owner since 1984. My current mill is a LT-40 Superhyd./ 35hp. Wisc. I had a Sanborn Min-Max band mill for a few years back in the 80's. It ran a 5" band and boy could it cut lumber. It was too much of a mill for a one man show. So, I sold it :'( and went back to to a Mizer. It still amazes me on how well a sharp 11/4" band cuts lumber!
I'm retired from full time employment and now work longer and harder for myself. I do some custom sawing, sell KD hardwood lumber to area woodworkers and build furniture mostly in the winter.
I just bought a Hardy 1700 ST knuckleboom loader and forwarding trailer to use around the mill and my woodlot. I also have an Auto Crane on my Truck to haul logs over the road. Well, that's enough for now, sorry if this is too long.
Jeff B. -
How'd you know it was me? You know, I'd look in all those windows and all I could see was a computer screen with a Forestry Forum page up. So, I sez's to myself, I sezs, why not join in the fun? :) Brian...
Welcome to the forum Brian Baily. I don't own a mill but I do enjoy woodworking and learning about wood. There's a bunch of nice and neat people on this forum. I hope you enjoy being a member as much as I have. I've learned a lot too.
I bought an LT15 back in March 2002 and my friend is sweat equity in this
hobby/venture. He built a solar kiln in his backyard based on Gene Wengert's
design. It will hold about 750 bd ft of stickered lumber. Floor size is
six feet by 12 feet. North wall is 12 feet high, South wall is six feet high.
He had to buy some translucent corrugated roof panels, some ply wood and
a few 12 ft 2x4's The rest of the structural lumber we got from my neighbors
burn pile when he tore apart an old deck made of redwood. We got all the
nails out and planed about 1/8 inch of the 2 X's and they look good as new.
Our next endeavor we will build for about 2000-3000 board feet.
Rick-WI
You will be very happy with Nyle, they make good equip. and their tech. support is excellent. One thing I like about low temp. DH drying is, it is pretty darn hard to ruin the lumber your drying.
Rick,
If you cut a lot of 8 footers, I would extend the lenght of your chamber a foot or so. If it's not to late. The reason I suggest this is. The 8 footers I saw generally are over lenght by 6 to 8''. If your chamber lenght is 17' you will not be able to get 2 stacks end to end without end triming. I like to leave any overlenght on the board because it helps in getting a few more cutting units that might raise the grade of the board. Just a thought.
My ceiling is the same as the walls. I'd stay away from fiberglass. The mice love to build nest in it and they make quite a mess. I know from personal exp. Plus if it gets any moisture in it you will lose the insulation value of it. Hope this is of some help to you. Brian...
Sounds like a nice operation Brian. Welcome. So what, roughly would the investment be in a kiln similar to yours?
I built a solar kiln acouple of years ago, about 700 bf capacity. I'm still fiddling with it, and it works pretty well now.
The latest project is to try to add some heat to get the temp high enough to set the pitch in pine. I can hit 125° to 130°, so I'm hoping it won't take much to get to 160° +.
Brian,
Sounds like our place, less the kiln. We use a custom dryer about 45 minutes down the road. We have a Hardy log trailer as well. Best money I ever spent.
Geoff
We've been running a Nyle L200 for about a year now. The folks with Nyle are real helpful and easy to work with. We used Celotex insulation on the inside and outside of 2x6 walls and used a vapor barrier on the inside under the Celotex. Our kiln is inside a Morton building so weather is not a problem for me. The biggest mistake I made was in not making the chamber big enough, Brian makes a good point about the size and we are considering a new chamber to correct this problem.
I air dry my lumber until it's about 25-30% and then run it in the kiln to get down to 6-8%. I find I don't have problems with case hardening if I go this route. The biggest problem is keeping the wood at this level unless you have a climate controlled shop with storage.
Eggsander,
I have about 8,000 invested in the kiln equip.& bldg. Sounds like a lot of money but the payback is fast. I looked into solar kilns but ruled them out due to the almost constant cloud cover from lake Erie and Ontario. I'm glad I went the DH route because of the ease of operation and the precise control of temp. and humidity in the kiln.
Norm F,
I also air dry first, then kiln to 6-8%. I shut the compressor off when the moisture meter reaches 10-12%. I use probes in the sample boards, then run the cables thru the wall . That way I can moniter the mc without going into the kiln. I then raise the temp. to 140 for a couple of days. When thats done , I go into the kiln real quick and pour 2 to 4 gals.of water on the floor depending on the amount of lumber in the chamber. Close up the kiln, turn off the heat and just let the fans run. In about 3 days the lumber will be between 6-8%. I don't know if the water thing does any good but the prong test doesn't show any casehardening. Brian...
Welcome Brian. I thought I had post this moring , but guess to many senior mements today. :'( I have kiln operation in place. I use an Ebac 800 in a refer semi trailer. My primarely heating system is a Taylor hotwater furnace feeding a heat exchanger in the trailer. I only reinsolated the walls and installed several electrical outlets for fans and lights. I have been very happy with the the Ebac system, so much so, that I bought an Ebac 3000 for the future kiln building, still on the drawing boards of life. :'( I can dry approximately 2000 feet at a time with this system. ;)
When we are done with the building and instalation of the L200 we will have about $10000 invested in the Kiln. The reason we are doing it is that air dried and green lumber is very hard to sell here. Also we have some nice Walnut, cherry and maple to cut. It wouldn't make sence to try and sell anyother way but KD.
Rick-Wi
Welcome Brian Bailey.
Please share with us the profitability of your Nyle 200 Kiln. When you said you recouped your initial investment of $8k real fast, how many charges did it take to do that? Are there any hidden costs in constructing the Nyle Kiln Building?
If you don't mind, please elaborate on how many charges of what type of 4/4 lumber are you running in a 30 day period? I'm just curious about the turnaround time on one of these babies. I've ordered the plans and the operating manual, but haven't actually ordered the kiln yet. What are some actual, non-manufacturer provided operating costs?
Thanks in advance and again welcome to the forum!
I went the kiln route for the same reason. We have many mills in the area that are wholesaleing green lumber. Many are now Kiln drying their own lumber too. Extremely tough market for a little guy to break into. Kind of like the dairy industry here, Get BIG or get pushed out! I wanted to stay small and keep it all or most of it anyways.
I read in one of the trade mags, that they estimated over 60 thousand woodworkers in the western NY area. I decided there's the market to shoot for. I've been chasing this market for a quite a few years and have had a good time, met a lot of nice folks and made a few bucks too. Brian...
I don't have one i air dry then rent one to get it down to 6 or 7% to sell to small wood shops.
I recently bought a nyle L-200 system but have yet to get my building up. Hope to get it built before the snow fly's and get started drying. . 8) My plan is to build the chamber 12x17x8 inside dimensions. I plan to use r-30 fiberglass insultation and saw my dimention lumber to fit around the r-30. If anyone has any other suggestions i am all ears.
First I know you're gonna shriek at the size mix here...but we were in a bind and just wanted to knock some weight and moisture off the barn posts :D. Or...we were using the 6x6's to equalize the 4/4...yeah that's it...I'm sticking with that
This is Horselogger's L200 on an old dairy box. He plans to upsize the chamber but it got him up and running for very little investment in the chamber.
(https://forestryforum.com/images/YaBBImages/userpics/hlkiln.jpg)
Now there is a great idea. How many of you guys are going to be heading for the salvage yard looking for retired refrigerator trucks now?
Think about it. Just perfect if you can find the size your looking for. If you can do any iron work, I can picture a sliding cart system for loading and unloading
I would probably enjoy just looing at the old box more than using it for a kiln. That is really a "cool" idea! ;D 8) 8) 8) 8)
gee, I was just outside finally putting the trim on the kiln to try to keep out the snow this winter.
I have a Nyle L-50. I got it to dry the wood when I doing the finish work in the house. It runs off of 110V, so I can run it with a heavy duty extension cord. I had the electrician run a separate circuit for it and put the box on the outside of the garage that plug in a 100' heavy gauge cord..
I built the building out of left over contruction material from the house. It was originally built in my garage without a roof on it since I needed to get the cherry, ash, and pine dried. That was done before I poured the slab. Then I used the tractor to pull it out of the garage and then I put a roof on it. Then I moved it again with the tractor to its current location. I only ripped out half of the floor joists doing that. So I used to tractor to lift it up in the air and we repaired them. It was a little too flexible on the floor especially with a full load.
The walls are made from 2x4 covered with 1" insulation board and then 1/2 plywood on the interior with R-13 in the wall cavity. That gave me about R-20 on the walls. On the outside I had just 1/2 plywood but my friend recently gave me some of the insulated panels that are used for buildings. That more than doubled the wall insulation. That seemed to help a lot on operating costs. It was costing around $50 a week to run.
The chamber is a little over 16' long, 7' feet wide, and about 7' high. Depending on the wood length it will fit a bit over 1,000 bd.ft. with a stack width of 3'.
It was worked pretty well and I also done some drying for others (including woodman with his smelly red oak 8) ).
If I had to do it over then I would get a larger unit mainly because I cut a lot of pine and it would be really handy to do 1500-2000 bd.ft without it staining. Of course, I was hoping to win the mill at the Woodmizer party and then trade it in but that didn't work out. And now with a longer mill, I would build it longer too.
Someday, I'd like to add tracks and loading carts to make it easier to load and unload. It only took me a couple of years to put on the trim so carts should be done in around 10 years or so. :D And also a concrete pad too to keep out the chipmunks.
garry
Thought I would let you all take a look see at my solar kiln. The studs and floor joists are cottonwood. For the inside and outside I used 3/8" exterior plywood and some cottonwood bats to make it look a little better. Insulation is 4" of pink foam that I got for free off of a construction site. They were using it to form up concrete and after the concrete set up they threw the insulation in the dumpster. A lot of the 4' X 8' sheets were broken but it is R-5 per inch. Roof is just corrguated fiberglass. The fan is a old furnace blower with a baffle to circulate the air.
I built the kiln in 1994 and dry any where from one to three loads a year in it. It will hold a 1,000 BF of 4/4 lumber 10' long. The only upkeep is a little paint once in a while and I have replaced the blower motor once but the orginal motor was a used one.
There is another picture of my kiln on the inside cover on the June/July issue of Sawmill & Woodlot.
Larry
(https://forestryforum.com/images/YaBBImages/userpics/fff1.jpg)
Here is a look see at my little DH kiln. I bought a used Ebac LD800 with a new compressor in it dirt cheap a couple of years ago. Built a new chamber for it. It will hold about 800 BF of 4/4 lumber 10' long. I really like how it works but as I said it is small and green lumber off the sawmill takes a LONG time.
I am relocating (someday) from NW Missouri to NW Arkansas and plan on buying a new Nyle L200 and building a drying shed along with tracks and kiln carts.
Larry
(https://forestryforum.com/images/YaBBImages/userpics/ff2.jpg)
Hey JoeyLowe,
I have to apologize to you. I just noticed your post (7/27) asking me specific questions about the kiln. I don't know how I missed it but it wasn't intentional.
The profitability of the kiln will depend on what kind of markets you have available to you. In my case, I'm taking lumber that would sell for approx. .75 cents / bf green, Kiln drying it and getting over $2 / bf. I get twice that figure for black cherry. Figured woods even more. So the potential for some large profits are there, you just have to find the buyers.
I know of a guy that had 2mbf of 8/4 FAS Walnut dried and sold it to a Japanese Co. for $12/ bf. That one load would have paid for the kiln and then some. This is what I meant by fast payback, opportunities like the above. You have to have the kiln to grab hold of them!
I didn't have any hidden costs except for replacing the fiberglass insulation with Dow blue board insulation.
I'm not a production mill so it's kinda hard to nail down a pattern of use. I have had my kiln since 1989 and have dried a little over 40 loads. Some years I run year round, others just a couple of loads, it all depends on what my needs are.
I dry mostly Red Oak, this species is my biggest seller. I only sell retail to local woodworkers and to some small cabinet shops.
On 4/4, I air dry first then it goes in the kiln for approx. 3 wks. White Oak takes a few days longer. I have an electric meter on the kiln so I know exactly how many kilowatt hours are used / load. I pay between $80 - $120 / load for electric.
Joey, I hope this is of some help to you.
Dugsaws,
Nyle doesn't reccomend you use fiberglass Insulation.