white pine?

[raycon]

I remember reading or someone might have told me this that acid rain will discolor (milled) white pine. Is this true? That is  the chemicals in acid rain (sulfur dioxide etc...) will cause a chemical reaction on the surface of the wood that results in discoloration (chemical or fungal?)... talking freshly milled lumber not tree form.

Thanks for any info?

[Tom]

Doesn't look like anybody knows or they'd have jumped in here real quick.  

I don't cut white pine, so, I don't know.  My concerns with rain are that it carries mold spores from the air and innoculates my drying stacks.  If the wood has already started to dry, it's not too bad as long as the inside of the stack, especially around the stickers, dries quickly.

I dead stack behind my mill as I saw.  Sometimes that stack will stay there 3 or 4 days before it is stickered.  If the weather is dry, 4 days is about the maximum before molds begin to appear.  If it happens to rain, it seems that molds appear almost immediately.

I think that the worry for stain would probably be from the molds, not the rain itself.  'Course that's just an opinion.

[Jeff]

I would have to agree with Tom. Rain will cause problems on raw lumber period. Saying Acid rain in particular I think would just be adding an unnecessary variable adjective.

[SwampDonkey]

I agree, a combo of rain soaked lumber and sap staining fungi spells green white pine. It will go green even if its in log form on the ground for too long, then sawn.  In a few weeks the lumber is stained green as grass. Also the borers like buprestids and sawyer beetles will have it full of holes as soon as the weather is warm. We cut white pine in winter months if it has to lay around for a while, otherwise get it through the mill, stuck and under cover and use only white pine for stickers. My grandfather worked his tail off one winter cutting white pine and yarding it on the head pond ice to a landing. It was to be used for mother's cupboards. It wasn't sawn till mid summer and turned green as the lawn and went musty. What a waste.

[Ron Wenrich]

The only thing I get on white pine is blue stain.  That only stains the sapwood.  I have the same problem with other wood.

We try to saw our pine up before the summer, but there are times when a pine log will lay in the yard through the summer.  The heartwood is still good, but the sapwood is usually blue.

We don't have problems with mold, since we always stick pine right off the mill.  We use dry stickers of any species.  No problem.

The budles will get a natural grey look.  I saw it on barns before acid rain was a problem.  It cleans right up when you put it through a planer.  Its just natural oxidization.

[SwampDonkey]

I've used white ash or yellow birch for stickers on pine, and it stains the wood where the sticker made contact.

Switchin species here for a sec: ;)

Yellow birch is worse, it spoils fast and gets black and green streaks right through the heart even. (spalted) Not even good for firewood then. I know a certain mill that tried selling that spalted yellow birch to a mill in Germany and it was promptly rejected. It laid around for most the summer before it got sawed, while the mill was getting refinanced and upgraded, shame. If yellow birch started gettin stained on the end of the log the veneer buyers will also reject it, they don't know how long its been layin in the heat.

[Ron Wenrich]

We don't have yellow birch.  Most of ours is black birch.  It has a lot more heartwood than the yellow birch, so staining is not as much of a problem.  

Veneer buyers like the whitewoods, but that is mainly sapwood.  It stains very easily.

[SwampDonkey]

Getting off topic again, as usual for me ;)

As far as veneer is concerned, the heart of the hard maple (sugar maple) isn't utulized because its not stable enough for veneer. As far as white birch and yellow birch is concerned they can use the heart, which is much more stable for veneer. When you get one of those big old yellow birch when the bark turns rough like maple bark, they are mainly all heart. The wood is pink as black cherry on some of'em. And when its sliced and you get to the area between the sapwood and the heart you get flaming birch affect on the veneer slice. But, flaming birch can be something different as well, such as curly grain. ;)

Do black birch get real big Ron? I've only seen pole sized black birch in Virginia on disturbed sites and fields reclaimed by forest. Just curious. I'll have to spend some time in the PA forests. I gotta see the black cherry down there everyone tells me of.

[Ron Wenrich]

Upper limits on the black birch seems to be about 24".  A lot of this has come up on the high graded areas.  The lumber grade seems to be pretty good, but tree form isn't nearly as good as it is for the oaks.

I put an increment borer to one during the spring.  The water flowed from the borer in a pretty good stream.  You can make birch syrup from these.  You can also make an alcoholic birch beer, but I haven't tried it.

I'm too far south for the good quality cherry.  There was a storm several years ago that took out some really big cherry up in Ricketts Glen State Park.  36" cherry were not uncommon and they logged it with helicopters.

Best place to see cherry is on government property.  The privates have had theirs pretty well cut over for cash.  Ricketts Glen is in the northcentral area of the state.  Some of the state parks can have impressive stands of cherry.

We also have a couple of areas of virgin hemlock.  I don't think the adelgid got it yet.  

[SwampDonkey]

Thanks for the info Ron. Our cherry here is all diseased and high graded to death. I do have quite a few behind the house in the orchard I cleaned up, but they all diseased. I'll be able to get some short sections from them if I have a need to cut them for the shop. And there are all kinds regenerating also. I'm at the end of its range here, if you go outside my community to the north its extinct. It may have something to do with the Appalachians which come from Maine from the west and traverses north east across the province. Mars Hill, Maine which is just a step over the border is beside my woodlot and I did see one basswood stump sprouted there and our other farm had a grove of'm just 2 miles down the road. Its pretty much the limit north for them as well here. I was on a woodlot the first of the week for 2 days and I  was in a pole-sized poplar stand with tons of basswood seedlings everywhere in one section and even alot of white ash germinated this spring. Also, found some pole sized cherry making its way up through the aspen (no disease yet). Its nice ground down there and the farmer has increased his acreage to fields by 70 acres or so in the past 3 years. I haven't had frosts here for 4 weeks now and just last week they had 3 hard frosts 30 miles to my north, probably makes a big difference for those species. If you look at a climate map of my area you can see that the hills influence it according to the way its mapped. (kind of a warming trent coming across from Maine). I've heard of people tapping yellow birch here also, tastes minty or like root beer, but most folks shun the idea and favor the maple flavor. I've heard the black birch is stronger flavored, then yellow. It think it would be a good change and can see it used as an extract or on ice cream or something. Expensive stuff though. ;)

cheers

[raycon]

Flippin throughSteve Chappell's "A Timber Framers Workshop" last night he has a blurb on acid rain and white pine.

6) Acid Rain. In the northeast acid rain has become a serious problem when handling timbers. Pine will begin to turn black after one rainstorm if not protected. In itself,it doesnt harm the timber but it can add plenty of time to the clean up and finishing process. A liberal coating of a 50/50 mix of gum turps and boiled linseed oil will prevent staining for a few storms, but care should be taken to protect timbers from rain before during and after cutting.

"Saying Acid rain in particular I think would just be adding an unnecessary variable adjective. "

Jeff not to pick on this but it sort of helps to paint the big picture ....my goal is good looking timbers for the least amount of $$$/time what works in one part of the country or may be best practice in that region may not work in another.That is MI may not have an acid rain issue so its a nonfactor -- the north eastern seaboard having an acid rain issue it may be a considerable factor.


My personal experience has been the spring snowfalls -- high in slush content appeared to stain the white pine  black where the slush sat. One storm,one or two days and the weather side was blochy black. Air temps were probably 20-40 degrees F -- Some white pines I get are blue stained trees felled a couple years ago I don't think blue stain develops over night in 20 -40 degrees F -- and I don't think mold spores are an issue in March. I drained my blind mortises a couple of days ago and I saw no evidence of the black bloches etc...who knows .  I'd just recommend if you're on the north eastern seaboard  you may want to watch what happens to your freshly milled white pine during the early spring snow falls and if they turn black shield from rain cause it might not be blue stain, mold spore,poor stickering...etc.  
  

[Tom]

I wonder what the chemical specifics are that cause the problem.  If it is the acid rain, then the compound on the timber should be identifiable.  Do you have a Forestry Service or University close by that would know?  I'm interested.

[Ron Wenrich]

Let's see if I can't do it with pictures.  Mill location is SE PA, so I should be in the acid rain belt.  Here's some pine that we cut back in May.  The trees were cut in March.



Things are changing color, but they aren't black.  What has turned, is the sapwood.  I wanted it sprayed with a preventitive, but the "brains" of the outfit said it would be OK.  Here's what the blue stain looks like up close.




Much of the blue stain will mill out or can be hidden in the cants.  We won't be as lucky with the sidecuts.  We turn them into either T&G boards or siding.

Now, here is some cants that have been laying for several years.  



Is this the black that you're refering to?  This is a natural aging process.  Look below and you can see that it is just superficial.  It will come out in the planing.



The only other thing I can think of is that you are getting a water stain from it sitting in water or you have some kind of salt in the slush.  The slush would act like a sponge on both water and airborne pollutants.

To avoid the problem, you could put your wood under cover.  We have buiilt a pole building which we can drive a forklift under, and holds about 4-5 trailerloads of wood, maybe more.  We put a roof on 15' pipes.  

Tom:

Acid rain comes from sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxide.  Both are pretty prevalent in coal burning plants that don't have up-to-date scrubber technology.  Combine it with water and you have acid rain, which is diluted sulphuric acid.

There was one place in PA that recorded rain with the acidity level of lemon juice.  Acid rain frees up the heavy metals in the soil and allows it be absorbed into the plant.  Aluminum seems to be the easiest metal freed.

In really bad areas, the lakes are dead, since fish haven't been able to survive.  You are also seeing stunted growth in the woods, as well as some diseases that are believed to be associated with it.  Beech are getting hit real hard.

[SwampDonkey]

Yup, I agree with Ron on that type of discoloring or staining. We are also down wind of all the big factories here and there has never been any mention of anything drastic to causing lumber defects. I see the stain Ron has displayed in alot of mills where the lumber was kilned and stacked outside for a few months. As Ron says, it'll plane out just fine. Now if we were in a different climate where it rains alot, there would be alot of mould and decay in the lumber pile. But, the bulk of their lumber in the Pacific NW is hemlock and red cedar which are more resilient to decay, more Doug Fir, lodge pole pine and sitka spruce to the south and interior of BC for instance. We don't have any dead lakes yet, but our water has alot of natural lime to. Come over to my place and I'll boil a pot of water down to 1/2 or so, and see all the lime crystalizing on the surface and the sides of the pot. ;D