The Forestry Forum
General Forestry => Drying and Processing => Topic started by: xlogger on October 14, 2017, 01:16:21 PM
I've got a guy that wants me to dry some 4/4 hickory for him. It's been air drying about a year and I tested a couple boards around 16%. I've never dried hickory would you treat it just like anything else and turn it up to 120° and set the wb at 75? He also said he might have some oak not sure red or white that was cut at same time he might want to put in kiln with it.
Yes Sir. That is what I would do.
I didn't test the oak, he did not bring a sample over with him. Do you think I could tell him to bring both? Probably not over a couple hundred feet of both.
If the oak is air dried, should be fine.
The temperature you suggest is fine, but the WB is too low. Drying Hardwood Lumber suggests two percent drier than the surface MC, which is likely around 13% MC, so start at 11% EMC. Then after about 12 hours, go directly into the schedule values, or maybe take an intermediate value and then the schedule.
With hickory, the machining quality really drops if you over-dry the wood, so avoid an EMC under 6.5% EMC.
Mixing oak and hickory at low MC is not an issue.