It seems like the sticks toward the end are more important than the sticks in the middle. So I am doing a test to see if I can eliminate a couple sticks per layer. We will see how this pans out. All 4/4 cherry.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/25938/IMAG0635.jpg)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/25938/IMAG0636.jpg)
I do the same thing, seems to work ok EXCEPT stuff with spiral grain, sweet gum, sycamore, persimon, etc. Those tend to twist while drying, so you need lots of stickers and weight..
Should, for best results, have each column of stickers supported all the way to "ground".. to handle the weight above.
But your experiment should work if straightness is not real important in the end.. like if siding.
If running through a moulder or planer, then straightness is important and worth the extra stickers.. IMO.
Good catch beenthere...I have recently started using less stickers, with good success... The most important stickers being the end two and center ones of coarse, however all sticker rows to the ground most important...
I used to use 5 or 6 4x4s on the ground, but found that if they weren't all leveled perfectly, the lumber would show the irregularity. It is much easier to get two on the same plane, and the straightness of the boards averages out and keeps the lumber straight. The only boards at risk would be the ones in the lower couple layers and the upper few layers.
A sticker that is four feet long costs about 50 cents. It will dry one to ten cycles...let's assume 7 average. So, that is 7 cents per cycle or load. If I count correctly, for 30 layers you save 60 stickers or $4.20. This stack with 12' lumber and 4' wide, that would be 45 BF per layer (a few gaps) or 1350 BF in the stack. The savings in stickers would be about $3 per MBF. How much warp before we lose $3 in value or usefulness of the lumber? Maybe more stickers should be considered an insurance policy against warp that costs $4.20.
I get my stickers for free. They are cull stickers from a local kiln. My savings comes in the time department.
Similar to hackberry jake, its the time, space, handliy, and drying that makes them a bit of a pita at times...
I lean the other way. 16" on center.
I make a base from two 10"x10" timbers. I level side to side, but don't worth about the length, this ensures my dunnage is level. I put dunnage under every row.
Quote from: hackberry jake on November 17, 2015, 11:10:22 AM
I get my stickers for free. They are cull stickers from a local kiln. My savings comes in the time department.
Fewer stickers = less chance of sticker stain.
Quote from: Dave Shepard on November 18, 2015, 11:09:57 AM
I make a base from two 10"x10" timbers. I level side to side, but don't worth about the length, this ensures my dunnage is level. I put dunnage under every row.
Now there's an idea. I may have to incorporate this.
I'm with WDH, 16" spacing
I don't have any pics uploaded, and my connection is too slow to try uploading one right now. It's pretty easy to visualize. I use junkish logs that are too nasty for other uses. I do most things 24" on center, because that is what my stickering station is, and cherry 12", I just eyeball the split between the jigged 24" stickers.
I normally do 16" spacing. I also place a 4x4 at the base of each column of stickers.
I like 16 inch spacing. I've done wider, but definately more degrade. I start with a single sided skid and then start stacking. I hate stickering as much as anybody, I've certainly had to do my share, but it's just one more step to getting the best yield.
I've got load like the picture below to pull and unsticker today, but thankfully it was raining because I really wasn't up to it tonight. Lots of stickers...
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/21488/image~57.jpg)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/21488/image~160.jpg)
yanno, I can walk into a mill anywhere in the world and it doesn't matter where it is, or how big the operation is... if its got 10 million tied up in gear and another million in logs in the yard or its some little show with a beat up portable sawmill and holes in the roof - and I can tell if the operator is serious or not just by looking at the stacks of timber.
There aint no such thing as saving money with stickers. Time is money, so there's no saving that either. And its this simple - you've spent the money to get a log into the mill one way or another. You've spent the money to put it through the mill one way or another. And that whole investment of resource, time and money now depends on you now getting that timber out of the mill and to market in flat, straight lengths of lumber.
In this industry regardless of size mills that make flat straight lumber survive and mills with low grade trash go under. And the smaller you are the more important it is to have a quality product.
Stripping out timber to dry is one of the two most important jobs in a mill. (The other is getting dimensional accuracy so it can lay flat in a stack in the first place). You just have to get those little bits of uniform thickness lumber stacked one atop the other. How hard can it be?
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/32746/IMG_20151003_172814_671.jpg)
How do you get airflow through your stacks when there's a wall on one side?
Deceptive camera angle... There a gap just wide enough to walk up between back of stack and wall. It's the western wall so it gets hot of an afternoon... More airflow and it would dry too fast, I'm concerned that it's drying too fast now.
Australia, depending on what part it gets pretty hot and dry. Slowing down drying might be a good thing.
That looks nice, what rig did you use to get the stickers lined up so nice?
ROL says it looks temporary at best :D
Quote from: YellowHammer on November 19, 2015, 10:25:23 PM
That looks nice, what rig did you use to get the stickers lined up so nice?
We use what we call a racking frame, which is basicly a steel base with cross bearers on stick centers, and vertical posts with a groove in them up one side. All our stickers are a standard size so they just slot back in the groove and it holds them straight.
We actually have half a dozen of them... on a big single species run we might be cutting each log for 4/4, 6/4, 8/4 depending on its merits so we've got a running pack for each. Other times we might pull out of the main run and cut something else to fill an order... frames complete with running (unfinished) packs are lifted out the way and the next lot of frames lifted in and away we go. It's a very simple way of making sure your sticks are aligned, and the standardised nature means that one pack sits on the next pack with the stickers lined up every time. The only manual alignment is the far end because it can vary depending on the length of pack.
It's quick (a lot faster then unguided manual placement), simple, and it mostly works, at a price little guys like us can afford. Truely once you build the first one the next couple become priorities because of how easy it makes an otherwise tedious job. My pay for themselves about once a year just in the time saving.
Another way I've seen is a "sticker guide" but I dont particularly like it. Not as fast, not as accurate, and I cant just pick up a frame complete with an unfinished pack and shift it out the way with a forklift.
I did a quick web trawl and found some pics to illustrate, (attached as PDF) if you need some more detail let me know and I'll grab some pictures of mine.
Here's my jig:
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14240/1723/DSC_0973.JPG)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14240/1723/DSC_0972.JPG)
Nice, both you guys. Thanks. I see Dave's is made of wood, LL's is steel. I see how the back of the sticker stays lined up in the groove, but what about the front? How does the metal loop in LL's second photo function? Not sure I have that figured out yet. Thanks for helping on this, I like the part about "its a lot faster then unguided manual placement." I know you guys wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't a better mousetrap.
In my frame the sticks sit back in the groove about 6/4. They're firm on the sticks left to right, stickers slip in easily but cant move about too much. The front of the stick can't move more then a few degrees left and right. As with manual placement once you got a couple of boards on them they don't move, and when we go to tie off a pack it's simple to straighten the front anyway because the back is firm inside the groove. Unlike Dave's we have a sheet of ply across to give one solid end.... Once a board is down in each row we can slide the next board along it until it hits the ply and then flip it onto the sticks, the far end of the pack is always even without walking to check it that way.
The other picture is the sticker guide I mentioned... Piece of steel with them things on it that sits on one row of stickers and allows you to position the next couple of rows. Then you lift it further up the pack and go again. Totally unrelated to the racking frame, its a handy thing to have if you're portable.
Quote from: longtime lurker on November 20, 2015, 03:55:47 AM
if you need some more detail let me know and I'll grab some pictures of mine.
Yes, would you post a picture of an unloaded one? The other picture is very pixelated and I can't make out the detail of the slots in the uprights. Are they channel or machined out?
Thanks
Quote from: YellowHammer on November 27, 2015, 11:39:31 PM
Quote from: longtime lurker on November 20, 2015, 03:55:47 AM
if you need some more detail let me know and I'll grab some pictures of mine.
Yes, would you post a picture of an unloaded one? The other picture is very pixelated and I can't make out the detail of the slots in the uprights. Are they channel or machined out?
Thanks
Ill grab some pictures of one of ours Monday, that picture was one I found on the net to illustrate when you asked how I did it.
Mine has 1½" x ¾" unequal angle iron welded onto some 2" flat bar.
popcorn_smiley popcorn_smiley popcorn_smiley
Also liking the sticker rigs. smiley_thumbsup smiley_thumbsup smiley_thumbsup
I had to make some stickers today. Air dry sycamore and elm through the table saw with a power feeder. One pass through the planer tomorrow and they'll be ready.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/25938/IMAG0725.jpg)
Hackberry , is the planer just to make them smooth or to make sure they are all the same thickness?
Quote from: dean herring on November 28, 2015, 09:27:36 PM
Hackberry , is the planer just to make them smooth or to make sure they are all the same thickness?
It's to make sure they are all the same thickness. It probably wasn't necessary since the table saw and feeder made a pretty accurate cut, but I did it to be on the safe side. I also made them in the "H" style like yellow hammer does. It was rainy so I just used the dewalt since the powermatic is pointing outside.
Here is the planing process.
https://youtu.be/b4tfev59SVY
Here I am running them through the shaper to make the "H". I have a 1/2" cutter I was planning on using but the 5/16" cutter was already in the Oliver, so that's what I went with.
https://youtu.be/mcJKx5RTtcQ
Finished product
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/25938/IMAG0740.jpg)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/25938/IMAG0739.jpg)
Slick. ;D 8) 8) 8) 8) :snowball:
I learned a very important lesson rather quickly, namely this. One can't have to many stickers or keep them too straight. On California's north coast, we'ed put redwood and spruce on sticks. Spruce was 36" on center and redwood was 48". When I got my mill some forty years later, I stacked black oak with stickers every 36 inch just to be on the safe side. Big mistake! I now stack my black oak with stickers every 16".
The stickers look great. As much money as a high grade stack of boards will bring, and as many times as stickers can be reused, its a good idea to make sure the profiled stickers are dead on. Its time well spent.
Quote from: YellowHammer on December 02, 2015, 09:21:24 PM
The stickers look great. As much money as a high grade stack of boards will bring, and as many times as stickers can be reused, its a good idea to make sure the profiled stickers are dead on. Its time well spent.
Like. :)
I used aluminum stickers for nearly one year, they work well, but a little expensive, about 4 USD per metre...
So far, it costs me thousands of dollars. :-[ but no more stain, mold, and bugs from stickers, also very durable.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/39060/IMG_3636.JPG)
I wonder what the crush strength is on aluminum extrusion like that. I can see how it would last a while if stacks were kept short.
I seen a sticker experiment go horribly wrong 10 years ago or so! It was at morgan lumber in bingham maine. They was sawing hemlock for a Canadian outfit and had 50 or so tractor trailer loads all ready to go and they refused them because they wanted 2 more stickers per layer! They had to unbundle everyone and redo! These was loads on a trailer truck grossing 100,000pounds! They fought them but had to do it!
Trucking lumber on stickers?? Must be air drying in transit. ;)
Can't quite picture the height of stickered lumber stacks to get 100,000 pounds (but then if green weight starting out, might get it all on).
Keeping those stacks strapped down tight as they were shrinking while being trucked must have been a steady job for the trucker.
Quote from: beenthere on December 23, 2015, 03:56:16 PM
Trucking lumber on stickers?? Must be air drying in transit. ;)
Can't quite picture the height of stickered lumber stacks to get 100,000 pounds (but then if green weight starting out, might get it all on).
Keeping those stacks strapped down tight as they were shrinking while being trucked must have been a steady job for the trucker.
Its done all the time! I have never seen a trailer load leave a mill not stickered. This was green hemlock and its not a issue to gross 100,000 with lumber. I would guess its not a problem strapping cause everyone is hauling it .
A stack of freshly sawn eastern hemlock, 8/4 with 3/4" stickers (2.4" per layer total) that is 8-1/2' wide and 40' long on a flatbed trailer would be 47 cubic feet of wood. This is about 2400 pounds per 2.4" layer (adding a bit for stickers). With a maximum freight weight of 48,000 pounds on a flatbed, that would be 20 layers of 340 be for a total of 6800 be. Some states would have higher loads, but not in spring when raids are soft. A tandem trailer would have more of course. A 100,000 pound payload would be 8' high stack.
I have not seen stickered lumber on a flat bed very often. Usually the purchaser wants to grade it before purchasing.
Quote from: GeneWengert-WoodDoc on December 24, 2015, 12:00:36 PM
A stack of freshly sawn eastern hemlock, 8/4 with 3/4" stickers (2.4" per layer total) that is 8-1/2' wide and 40' long on a flatbed trailer would be 47 cubic feet of wood. This is about 2400 pounds per 2.4" layer (adding a bit for stickers). With a maximum freight weight of 48,000 pounds on a flatbed, that would be 20 layers of 340 be for a total of 6800 be. Some states would have higher loads, but not in spring when raids are soft. A tandem trailer would have more of course. A 100,000 pound payload would be 8' high stack.
I have not seen stickered lumber on a flat bed very often. Usually the purchaser wants to grade it before purchasing.
All the mills in maine send their lumber on flatbeds and the loads are pregraded and stickered.
In my previous posting, it should have been BF and not be. "With a maximum freight weight of 48,000 pounds on a flatbed, that would be 20 layers of 340 BF for each layer or a total of 6800 BF."
I know that a flatbed trailer has a maximum legal limit on federal highways of 48,000 basically, is designed to hold this weight (when empty it is curved upward, but it is flat when at this peak load) and that the trailer would likely break, or bend permanently, with a 100,000 payload.
Grading before stacking, drying and planing is interesting indeed. I do not understand how it works, so can you help with further explanation? I seem to be missing something about this system.
Any idea why they would sticker at the mill rather than at the drying facility...in other words, what is the advantage? Is it possible that the lumber drying operation also owns the logs, so the sawmill is just custom sawing?
What is this pre-grade based on...just knots? It would seem that warp, checks, splits and wane would be determined after shrinkage in drying and planing. For dimension lumber, warp and wane are the big grading factors, but they cannot be determined prior to drying and planing...this is why I am confused how this system works.
Are these loads sold based on the pregrade or is payment based on the final grade? How about footage? I would think that the mills with kilns that buy such lumber must remeasure, edge and trim, plane and regrade after drying in order to provide a grading stamp on the lumber.
Do they return the stickers to the sawmills after drying for free or do they charge for them? How do they handle sticker breakage? Who owns the stickers? I would guess that with this system, all stickers need to be identical in species and size as it would be hard to keep each mill's separated. True?
Is there a standard load height for these stickers piles...how many layers on a flat bed trailer?
Thanks.
Quote from: GeneWengert-WoodDoc on December 25, 2015, 09:42:06 PM
In my previous posting, it should have been BF and not be. "With a maximum freight weight of 48,000 pounds on a flatbed, that would be 20 layers of 340 BF for each layer or a total of 6800 BF."
Grading before stacking, drying and planing is interesting indeed. I do not understand how it works, so can you help with further explanation? I seem to be missing something about this system.
Any idea why they would sticker at the mill rather than at the drying facility...in other words, what is the advantage? Is it possible that the lumber drying operation also owns the logs, so the sawmill is just custom sawing?
What is this pre-grade based on...just knots? It would seem that warp, checks, splits and wane would be determined after shrinkage in drying and planing. For dimension lumber, warp and wane are the big grading factors, but they cannot be determined prior to drying and planing...this is why I am confused how this system works.
Are these loads sold based on the pregrade or is payment based on the final grade? How about footage? I would think that the mills with kilns that buy such lumber must remeasure, edge and trim, plane and regrade after drying in order to provide a grading stamp on the lumber.
Do they return the stickers to the sawmills after drying for free or do they charge for them? How do they handle sticker breakage? Who owns the stickers? I would guess that with this system, all stickers need to be identical in species and size as it would be hard to keep each mill's separated. True?
Is there a standard load height for these stickers piles...how many layers on a flat bed trailer?
Thanks.
Gene, years ago when I worked in the big mills on the west coast, we did the same thing. I don't ever remember rough green wood getting a grade stamp though. Grades were things like "mill run" which was any and everything that came out of the mill that met the size demands of the buyer. Shop grade, 1, 2, & 3 which would have knots and other defects as long as it had parts on the board that could be cut out for furniture and the like. With # 1 being the better grade. It was very often sent out on sticks and the sticks were owned by the mill and often would come back on a return truck.
The advantage of doing it this way is that the lumber is handled once at the mill and is stickered right off the green chain. Then air dried or kiln dried by the purchaser then used in their facility as they see fit. The end result is that the lumber is handled one less time, saving $$. When I worked in a redwood furniture factory, we would return the stickers and if we lost or broke more than about 4% we had to pay for the shortfall.
I can see where transporting it on stickers might take some time constraints off the wood. If you dead stack pine here in summer you have a couple of days before bad things happen. If it's on stickers and has to sit for a week before it gets into a kiln, not so bad.
Between that and the double handling I can see why a mill and a processing plant might agree to do the stickering right off the mill. The boards have to be handled to be flat stacked anyway, so stickering at that point isn't a lot more work. Then at the destination, it's just a forklift job to unload and into the kiln, and if it's a week before that happens, it doesn't become a mushroom farm inside the stack.
But most mills locally run kilns on site, that way you aren't paying to truck 1/2 a load of water all over the countryside. Once it's dry, it can be flat stacked and wrapped in plastic to keep it dry, AND it's lighter to carry.
Darrel, I have seen a few loads of mill run Douglas fir stickered, with this wood being very low MC. But the original comment about this technique involved pre-grading of eastern hemlock, which is somewhat different with a heavier green weight.
Darrel and Ianab, The single handling is indeed an advantage at first, but would the mill base its payment on this "pregrade" and "pre volume" calculation? Experience shows that many mills that do not use the official grading rules, do not accurately determine value. How can you accurately value softwood lumber that has not been dried or planed? Do we have an official, or even semi official, grading system for rough, green lumber? So, "mill run" seems to be the only option. But eastern hemlock has wetwood (also called sinker or wet pockets) with shake. It also has compression wood.
Note that handling and shipping kiln stickers back to the sawmill after every load will offset some of the double handling savings. Also, can I count on every mill doing the high quality stacking job? Plus, won't some of the kiln sticks in a stickered load move during loading on to the truck and during transport and then during unloading? The loss due to warp when the sticks move could also potentially offset the double handling.
In Maine, the weather is fairly cold much of the year, so tight stacks are not so critical when being stored as in the Warm South.
With an automatic sticker machine at the drying site (they can afford this due to their large volume...even though such a machine is expensive, the large volume would mean lower cost per BF), the double handling extra cost would just be at the sawmill and would be for tight stacking, which I would think is very small. Plus the advantages of more lumber on a truck, potentially better stacking at the drying site, no cost for bundling and shipping stickers (and keeping them dry when shipping), more consistent, potentially more precise and uniform grading and volume measurement, and automatic stacking would seem to favor stacking at the drying site.
If I was sawing, it will cost me quite a bit to sticker my lumber ($15 per MBF?) and ship it on sticks versus tight stacking. Yes? To do stickering at the mill would take at least two employees, plus a longer green chain, expense for sticker handling, and more care when loading stickered bundles onto trucks. Plus I would need a pretty good grader to do the presorting. So, with these extra expenses at the mill site, I would have to get more money ($ per MBF) for my stickered lumber compared to shipping tight stacks (without or with pre-grading). Why would a drying operation pay more for a process that they might be able to do more cheaply?
So, I must be missing something about this, as it seems with what I envision that it is not cost effective. From what I know about eastern hemlock and the reliability of some mills to be able to grade accurately, the only way it would seem to be able to work is if I paid less than the true vale to cover the quality loss. If I paid less, then this would offset double handling also, and not be favorable for the sawmill.
I have sold many thousands of feet of hardwood lumber to a local larger mill in my area. It was always graded----- fas ,1face,select, 1--2--and3 common and if wouldn't make grade it was an"out". Warp, crook and cup didn't really come into play because of being fresh cut there really wasnt any to speak of. It was graded by cutting units. I believe fas had to be 92% clear with 1 sawcut. 1 face was 1 side clear with a 1 common back etc. so you could have alittle wane without being docked. Cherry sometimes had spec. like no more than 10% sap on 1 face usually depending on demand. I believe the lumber was primarily going to end users and most likely wasn't graded after drying. I've seen lifts of lumber leaving in trucks never on stickers, no grade stamps but marked" select and better" or "face and better" etc.
So heres what I can add to this:
Working "bush" I've stickered lumber coming off the mill and trucked it home when we had a load before a couple of times. It worked and worked well... I didnt grade it and there wasnt too much fault docking done, rather I just put each board directly into a pack, strapped the packs off, and when we had our 10t we came home. I had concerns about the top layer of the packs (sun induced drying faults so we were piling sawdust on top of them as we went, and tried to put basicly dunnage/ pallet grade material into the top layer of each).
End result was that I eventually had to grade and dock the material at a later point, post drying.
Next end result was that we lost the top layers to a large degree but I kind of expected that.
Most interesting end result was that there was little drying degrade in the packs whatsoever, and we had them at 15% moisture inside a week of the tree being felled. Do not discount the drying effect of a five hour truck ride - its a low temp kiln process with 60mph airflow, and the drying was even and consistant, with no sticker stain whatsoever.
In Australia its pretty common for the smaller mills to sell to a wholesaler green. (Most of the the wholesalers are a long way south of here so out of this area timber tends to be sent south green flat packed, but for mills closer to them being sent in stripped out isnt uncommon.) It enables smaller mills to operate without kilns and the staff to run the kiln while maintaining cash turnover. It also means that you as a sawmiller dont have to build a customer base - you only need 1, the wholesaler. The wholesaler typically has numerous kilns, large drymill capabilities, and dedicated sales operations to onsell at the trade and commercial level. The wholesaler buys timber both domestically and internationally and itsw not uncommon to see a container load of flitches from South east Asia or Africa or South America in their yard.
From point of view of selling to the them, you would be expected to put timber into packs based on the grade that it would be reasonably expected to go... no pallet boards, no big shakes, free of sap etc. Its a market for higher grade timber - flooring, panneling, cabinet and joinery timbers etc. You negotiate your price and stick it on a truck and wave goodbye.
When negotiating your price both sides are aware that the risks of drying degrade belong to the wholesaler. He pays less because of that. Issues like excessive wane, sapwood, misgrading etc arent really issues because these relationships are developed over time... occasionally you'll get a cheque back thats been discounted due to excessive fault but for the most part if you screw up regularly they ditch you and find another supplier.
Money wise its not particularly profitable to the sawmill but when you factor in the whole equation - no kilns, no drymill, no need to build a customer base for value added product - its not that unprofitable either. It leaves you hungry, but not starving. Last numbers I seen that I'd consider reliable the wholesaler was paying about 50 cents on the (retail) dollar landed in their yard... so the mill pays for freight etc out of their 50 cents.
I've never met a broke timber agent yet. :D
The grading rules for hardwood lumber are designed for green and air dried. So, West Penn's explanation indeed reflects the common practice with hardwoods.
Eastern hemlock is generally lower priced compared to white pine and spf from Canada. Wholesalers would not like this species as profits are low and markets weak. Do we have softwood lumber wholesalers for green softwood?