Confused about all this AD and KD talk! HELP!

Schramm · February 12, 2013, 09:57:47 PM

Quote from: Dan_Shade on February 12, 2013, 08:32:05 PM
If you have old wood, you'll know you have powder post when you stick it in the planer

Exactly what I thought, the wood is easy to work with. I have never had issues with bugs and here are the steps that I always have followed before I knew it may need kiln drying and heating:

Step 1: Bring back to my building and stack to acclimate for a minimum of 5 days to get use to my temps/humidity.
Step 2: I joint face and 1 side and stack to allow to acclimate 3 more days as from what I understand anytime that you break open the old wood it need to acclimate a few times.
Step 3: Plane all boards to thickness and then cut to size and restack for 48 hours before working with it.

For Barn wood siding I end out with 3/4" material most of the time, if the jointing or planing takes too much of the wood, I take that down to 1/2" material for use in smaller projects or to raise moldings. Below is a pic of 150 yr old red pine with a beautiful tung oil finish. While I am excited to get the mill set up for cutting some new wood logs, I am way more pumped about cutting down barn beams! So many around here that it is not funny. While I say that this wood is 150 years old, that was actually the age of the barn (1853), and I have the trolly with the date.

GeneWengert-WoodDoc · February 12, 2013, 10:58:55 PM

Let's look at your three steps.

Step 1 is not that effective in your case as the wood is already quite dry. Also, if you could significantly change the MC of wood in five days, we would not really need kilns. You will change the MC of the outer fibers a bit if the air is moving, but that will the planer shavings and not the wood you are using.

Step 2. Repeat above, for the most part. Also, with white pine, the movement with MC is very small so even if the MC is not perfect, it is not too serious. Temperature has no effect. But three days is too short to help that much.

Step 3 has the same concerns as above, with two days after planing being too short to help.

So, you can proceed directly to planing to the desired thickness, assuming your MCs are correct or nearly so.

Should you find hardwoods, it would be prudent to heat them to 130 F and also get the MC close to its final MC in use, as hardwoods shrink more in most cases.

Schramm · February 13, 2013, 12:02:06 AM

Doc,

I am not shooting for a new MC, I am taking the steps to keep the boards from bending after breaking the outer fibers. Keep in mind that this wood is not some new stuff this is better then 150 years old and has been stored in one environment for more then 1 year. If the MC is 5% then I would think that is under control however since the wood has been in 1 climate for so long the EMC is used to that climate. From what I understand about EMC the wood gets use to being in 1 climate but once you change that environment the wood needs time to acclimate to the new surroundings and I was told that 5 days in a building (mine is heated to 60+ degrees) was a fair amount of time to allow the wood to adjust to the new temps and humidity. Now I cut the wood which changed the tension of the wood by breaking the outer fibers. With a MC of 5% I am not looking to change the MC I am just allowing the wood to readjust to the new environment after breaking the outer fibers. There is a difference between drying wood and acclimating wood.

acclimation
Web definitions
acclimatization: adaptation to a new climate (a new temperature or altitude or environment)

While I am not the sharpest tool in the shed, I have been wood working for a very long time, I have made my own moldings for years in both traditional and now with the Woodmaster. I build everything from simple mirror frames to furniture as well as making moldings that match existing moldings from 100+ year old homes. I may be new to milling wood but I am far from new in woodworking. I have done 3 restorations of Frank Lloyd Wright homes 1 in Schamburg, 1 in Springfield and another in Winter Haven FL. I also do traditional finishing including full knowledge of how to match finishes as well as distressing to match. I feel like you want to make your point no matter what and while I feel that you know a lot about your business and I respect your opinion warning after warning makes me feel like you are the robot on Lost in Space and I am Will Rogers and all I hear is, "Danger Will Rogers". I get it trust me wood has bugs!

Rob

GeneWengert-WoodDoc · February 13, 2013, 08:18:13 AM

The idea of acclimation is fine, but for wood that means changing the MC, if necessary, in response to the new EMC. In your case, you are already quite dry so you are already so close to the new environment in your shop that adjustment is not necessary.

As I stated, temperature is not a factor when working with wood as temperature does not cause the wood to swell, shrink, etc. so, we are not concerned about temperature acclimation. The only temperature issue is when gluing and that relates to the effect of wood on the temperature and viscosity of the adhesive.

Even if the EMC and the MC were not close, five days at 70 F is not long enough to change the MC of the piece, except for the surface, which is the planer allowance. So, the idea of acclimation in a few days does not make sense...it does not hurt, but it is not necessary in your case. If the MC was not equal to the EMC, then we need more than just a few days at room temperature.

In my case, I have been involved in wood manufacturing at all levels for over 50 years. I have seen many, many problems with wood...from drum sticks to guitars, from flooring to moldings to furniture to RR ties. Much of my cautions are similar to wearing a seat belt...most of the time, it does you no good, but someday it might save your life. Let''s hope you do not need that protection, but there is a small risk you might. Just because you have not needed it in the past does not mean you will not need it is the future.

Specifically, with hardwoods, the PPB risk is real for wood that has been in a barn.

Incidentally, your moisture value of 5% MC means that your wood has been in an environment of 25% RH. In a home in the wintertime, we seldom will average under 6% MC or 30% RH. In a barn or unheated warehouse, we would find the EMC would be around 11% EMC. In a steam kiln or DH kiln, we seldom find EMCs under 5% EMC. So, your wood is already extremely dry from being stored in an extreme and unusually dry environment. It is just one percent drier than the interior of home at this time of year. It is already acclimatized. It is also too dry to support the lyctid PPB.

GeneWengert-WoodDoc · February 13, 2013, 08:30:14 AM

Back to PPB, there can be a year or more delay between when the eggs are laid and the insect finally leaves the wood -- that is, until we see the exit holes and frass. So, visual inspection is not always 100%.

On the other hand, often the eggs (which are laid in the nooks and crannies on the surface) are removed when planing, so the planer shavings should be removed from a shop to prevent a risk of spreading the PPB.

Schramm · February 13, 2013, 09:18:33 AM

Thanks

Ryan J · February 21, 2013, 11:20:33 PM

Hi, I'm new here, so hopefully I'm doing this right. I too work with salvaged wood, primarily from barns. I've found wood that looks like it has or has had ppb at one time. I actually have customers who want the "little holes", (if they only knew). Anyway, I'm starting to get paranoid myself about the little critters. I'd like to find a way to heat the wood enough to kill any bugs inside. (Though I've never actually seen any bugs, I'm just starting to worry) I haven't found any kilns that were too excited about bring ppb in their space, understandably. Anyone know of any plans for a small kiln I could kill the bugs with? I'm not as worried about MC, most of the wood's been air drying for 100 or more years and it's usually coming in to my shop at around 8% or less. I'm open to any suggestions! I've been following this thread and appreciate all the info. Thanks!

Jay C. White Cloud · February 22, 2013, 12:29:24 AM

Hello Ryan,

Welcome to the Forestry Forum. ;D

I have been a restoration timber wright for many years. I started with barns back in the 70's and 80's, and now do them as well as other folk architecture. We have, if you do a search of the Forestry Forum site, discussed this to some extent. Kiln drying barn wood or timber is not practical and in most cases not necessary or warranted. Unless I was bring back a frame for overseas, like say Japan, our frames there that are for sale will have to be fumigated and inspected. I have the back ground to do this work myself but will still contract the bulk of the labor to be done by local technicians, and perhaps again stateside. This is a precautions to keep out invasive species, and is the only reason to do any kind of "tent treatment." You can surface treat your timbers yourself, if you would feel better, but trying to kiln or "cook," the wood of a vintage frame very well may give you much bigger concerns.

Regards,

Jay

GeneWengert-WoodDoc · February 22, 2013, 08:03:44 AM

I have heard of people that rental a small enclosed trailer, put the wood in it and a heater, and heat the wood to the magic temperature of 133 F by heating the air to 150 F. Probably easiest to do this on a warm day. Probably a fire risk if careless, so be careful indeed.

thecfarm · February 22, 2013, 08:55:03 AM

Hello Ryan J,welcome to the forum. What kind of sawmill are you using? Or do you use something else to cut the timbers? What's all the salvaged wood being used for?

Ryan J · February 28, 2013, 04:12:02 PM

Thanks for the info guys. I don't do major milling, just using bandsaw, table saw, jointer, planer ect. Typical wood shop stuff, though I'd like to get a portable mill eventually. I'm mostly turning the salvaged wood into custom furniture, so it gets quite a bit of milling before it goes into a home. I've just been recently paranoid about the possibility of the ppbs ending up in someone's home. I've been reading up on solar kilns and smaller "halogen light kilns" hoping to find something to help me sleep better. I'm milling some fir right now that has evidence of some kind of insect damage, I even found a few old dried exo-skeletons in the wood but nothing alive. I tend to err waaaaaaaay on the side of caution when it come to things like this. For a small business like mine I have to make every effort to protect my reputation, and a nice pile of sawdust under a table wouldn't be a good thing. I had a small kiln owner/operator tell me that a small insulated box with two 500 watt halogen lamps and a fan would heat up the air enough to kill critters. If I did use such a thing I'd likely set up in the driveway far from anything else in the case of fire. Sorry for the delay in responding. I thought I'd get a notification sent to my email. Thanks again for the info!

Ryan J · March 04, 2013, 07:00:44 PM

Hey gents, I took a piece of 5/8" fir that I had milled to use as ship lap on a case piece and put it in the oven @ 170 for about an hour. It had some evidence of some kind of bugs, though I only found some brittle old exo-skeletons when I milled it. I tested the internal temp with a meat thermometer, don't know if that's accurate, but it read 130 after about an hour. It also dropped the MC from 9% to 7% in that time as well? Seems pretty quick.... As thrilled as my wife was to have old wood cooking in the oven, I was just testing to see how long it would take to raise the internal temp. I still would like to try to build some type of "bug cooker" for salvaged wood. I know a lot of salvage companies only spray their wood, if they do anything at all. I'd like to do something more effective for my peace of mind and for my customers. Thanks again for your input.

GeneWengert-WoodDoc · March 04, 2013, 07:07:33 PM

A big business in the past decade has been heat treating pallets to kill whatever might be in them. They use, in many cases, a regular lumber kiln and run it to 160 F or so. So, you might see of you can find a steam kiln operation near you and get a contract with them. A few DH kilns can also get hot enough. Otherwise, maybe you can rent a trailer, etc., as mentioned earlier above, and do it yourself.

Ryan J · March 04, 2013, 07:13:24 PM

Thanks Gene, or is it Doc? I'm leaning towards trying to do it myself at this point. I'm expecting baby #6 any day so money is tight. If it works well and business continues to grow I may look at contracting a kiln. I've found a few locals who don't want to take the risk, or don't want to turn their kiln on for small batches or only have solar kilns. Do you know Steve McFarland?