I just milled some Holly. Everything I read says to dry as soon as possible after cutting, with a kiln being the preferred method and shed drying second. My kiln is nothing more than a sealed chamber with a good fan and a home dehumidifier inside. I've air dried some red oak and finished it off with this setup, but this is the first time I've started with green wood off the mill.
The more I think about it, I'm not sure this small dehumidifier is going to do the job. Should I pull the wood out and put it under a shed with a fan blowing on it? or leave it be? or add some heat? ??? ??? ??? ??? ???
Thanks,
Wade
I think you might be OK.
The reason for the fast drying is to preserve the "white" wood. While your dehumidifier might not dry real quickly, the fans will keep the water off of the surface of the wood and you are probably as well off as you would be air drying it in a shed.
It might be a good idea to check it now and again for Sticker stain or 'shadow' from the stickers.
If you have doubts that the humidifier is keeping up, just keep the fans going and vent the kiln for a little while at night. That is a procedure used for solar kilns and helps to get rid of the access water (humidity). I'l bet it would help your dehumidifier keep up too
Tom, It's pulling water out, can't remember for sure how much, but I think it pulled about three gallons today. Gonna have to measure in a different bucket to see how much. This chamber (4' x 8' x 16') is fairly tight, insulated with 6" fiberglass and ½" foam, covered with black poly. Inside temp will hold 8* to 12* over ambient. That's what I'm wondering about. It was running around 76* - 78* at 4:00PM. Damp + warm = fuzzy?
I'll vent it, see how it works out. Ifinn it don't, does Holly make good firewood ???
Even if goes gray, it makes good rocking chair stock and furniture faces. It just doesn't make good inlay and inlay is where the money is.
Holly is not easy to dry with high quality. It is claimed that you need to dry very quickly to keep it white. While you are worrying about the color, it will warp like a bag of potato chips - wavy potato chips!
The wrong color is blue/gray/green. In vacuum drying, I noticed that the stain seemed to be worse at the drying "front" where the vacuum was vaporizing the liquid water. This led me to some testing with solvents and I discovered that a blue green pigment was deposited at the drying front. So what does this mean? First it is not true to think that decomposition causes the discoloration. Secondly, the pigment that causes the discoloration is always there. The question is "how do you keep it spread around and not concentrated"?
Woodwalker - I don't have any advice but cross your fingers.