The Forestry Forum

 ??? I am drying my first load of  dead green white oak and made the mistake of assuming that if I followed the scheduals I would be safe.Well the first two days I lost 3% and 2.9% and developed some small checks.The books say that a very conservative schedual must be followed for the remainder of the charge but are vague on just what that means.Does anyone have any advice on the appropriate depression, temp adjustments,and safe %mc loss/day in this situation?  Thanks

What was the schedule that you followed that dropped the mc that much?  

Many times, with oak, the surface damage is done within hours (minutes in the sun) after sawing. If I remember right, the surface must be kept free of air movement and almost the equivalent of being sprayed with water. It is tough to avoid surface checks in the initial stages of drying oak. Then as the drying progresses, the surface checks close and are never seen again until after drying is complete, and the finishing begins.

And, if the surface checks are not too deep, you won't have enough internal stress to cause problems when the core comes dry.

What are you using for a kiln? for sensors? What you need to do is keep the temperature low but keep the humidity high (wet bulb depression low).

Bake samples and watch the MC difference between shell and core.