I love your old school approach to stacking your wood, I would love to know more about your operation, sell small scale steam kilns HDE dry kilns out of Portland Oregon
I totally agree with Gina.. thank you very much for the sharing of Knowledge. I am from the Solomon Is. in the pacific (Guadalcanal as you may know it) near Australia and we have alot of beautiful timbers but no one is knowledgeable enough about the drying process... all they say is sticker stack randomly for about 2-3 month & its all good to go for t&g... LoL . I have learnt few more things out of your videos and thank you for that
hi Brian, yes, i'm vaguely familiar with the solomons insofar as i know where they are. haven't yet been there but it might be a pretty neat trip if i ever get to go. just out of sheer morbid curiosity: what kind of wood do you have there? not having been there, i would be like any other guy thinking there were nothing but palm trees there, but your statement peaks my curiosity. feel free to ask any questions that may not have been answered in the video and many thanks for your comment and watching! cheers mike
I like your videos. One thing that would help is if you want to give us a link to something like the use of a psychrometer, put an actual link in the description rather than on the screen. That way the viewer can just click the link.
Very informative. Something i always do if i store anything of value on the ground outside or in the basement is lay a piece of 6 mil plastic. Is that a good idea for drying lumber? Thanks Ray
outside: only if the moisture is coming from underneath. if you have rain coming down and the water can't run off and pools underneath the stack you're back to square one. either way you should elevate whatever lumber you're stacking at least a foot off the ground. in the basement it works to an extent but then you get condensation underneath the plastic which could bring other problems with it such as facilitating mold growth etc. if you're seeing condensation underneath the plastic in the basement, it's probably not a good idea to store your dried lumber there
there are several all around the outfit i work in. have you tried looking in german ebay? there is one for sale there: www.ebay.de/itm/Raum-Thermo-Hygrometer-von-Lauber-fur-Temperatur-Feuchte-Anzeigegerat-rund-/380377847845?hash=item5890495825:m:meBS7u7V2cb6h8x9BGH-0bg they're not real cheap. you can also get them from the manufacturer direct: www.ds-messwerkzeuge.de/temperaturfeuchte-anzeigegerat-rund/ if there's anymore info you might need just give a holler good luck and thanks for watching and commenting.
I'd like to use my large four car garage for as much of the process as possible. How long would it need to stay outdoors to get under 20%? I know thow this is highly circumstantial.
if you stack it in the early spring time (april) usually by fall (late october) it will have lost enough moisture to put it in the garage. if security isn't an issue, it would be advisable to leave the bay door of the garage open where the lumber is stacked. with a good freeze during the winter, by early the next summer you should be seeing moisture contents of around 12 to 16 % depending on how good of an airflow you've had over the winter
HolzMichel Firstly thank you for the video series as well as your response it is truly appreciated. Damn. That's quite a lot longer outside then I expected. 7 months? The problem with my current property is that it's a lake front property. With a double car and 4 car garage behind that. Bought it for the 4 car garage to become a workshop thought it would be a huge benefit which it is, but there isn't really much of an area to put lumber to dry outside besides a 4 foot wide section behind the garage and a fence which won't work. Really overlooked the need for some outdoor storage space, was too intrigued by the vast amount of indoor workshop space. You told another guy to fell the tree and leave it there without limbing for a log cabin. Could I do the same to maybe speed up dry times? Whole summer is a lot. Will be leaving it on a friends property I supppose which is fine really
yes, your drying time will speed up marginally by cutting the tree in the summer and then allowing the foliage to pull out the moisture. you'll still have roughly 40 to 50% moisture content if you do it that way as opposed to 100% if you go to milling the log right away. keep in mind that in the absence of an energy investment you will still be stuck with a time factor
sorry if i overlooked your question. YT doesn't always notify when a comment comes in. if you're curing sawn beams then proceed as you would with any board lumber. just keep in mind that a 10x10 beam will take about two to 3 years before you should be building with it. providing it was sawn from green stock. if you cut your beams from standing dead timber you can use them right away, if they have heart checks in the log. if they don't show any cracks at the time of milling, you should let them dry for at least one summer and let them show some cracks before using them in a building project. unless you have quartersawn beams, they're gonna crack. which is not a bad thing, cosmetically it's sort of a downer but it doesn't impact the beam in a negative way.
yes, they work really well. they're not quite as accurate as using a probe-type moisture meter but they are usually within 1 to 2% which is really good. the newer ones i imagine have only gotten better. the sad thing is that they are insanely expensive, even a used one. i see them in flea-bay on occasion and they command some pretty steep prices.
thanks for watching and commenting, if you're curious to see what a kiln looks like from the inside there is a short video of mine in the random length series episodes 5 and 6. this short series is to help the average home shop out in getting to some fairly decent dried lumber without the use of a kiln. kiln drying is a science unto itself and gets to be quite complicated. at some point i will make a video on that subject but there are so many in the interim lineup that it be a while before i can get to it.
they become available in german ebay once in a while but they are available from the manufacturer directly. here's the link to their website: www.ds-messwerkzeuge.de/temperaturfeuchte-anzeigegerat-rund/ hope that helps.
the company got them from the manufacturer direct if i'm informed correctly. there is a website that does a realtime translation of websites: www.online-translator.com/ it works reasonably well and you should be able to figure out how to get an order in. the other option is keep digging in ebay as these things do pop up from time to time.
the short answer: yes. it just takes a bit longer. i talk about it briefly in the subsequent video on atmospheric humidity. the process is referred to as sublimation otherwise known as freeze drying. the paradoxical thing about it is that the colder it is, the faster it dries. relative humidity can be almost 100% at temps ranging from -2 to +10 C so the drying process slows to a crawl at those temps. as you dip below -5 C the drying process gets going. the frost forces the moisture out of the wood up to the surface and there it turns to its gaseous form and evaporates at rates depending barometric pressure.
I have logs that I want to season for wood carving, I've sealed them with end grain sealer. It's spring here in New Zealand at the moment. Can I put them up in the attic to season or would I be better off stacking them outside for now? Cheers.
well, now there's a loaded question lol... for wood carving there are a whole different set of parameters. if you're looking to carve the whole log and keep the bark or the surface of the log under bark, you have several options. the first is what you are doing. the drying process will take several decades as the water will only escape through the parenchyma and not the end grain. another is allow the log to dry without the ends sealed which will also take a few years depending on the diameter and length of the log. in either case you will end up with heart checks on multiple facets of the log since the wood shrinks the most in its tangent if you want to avoid cracking, the best way is do what you did, (seal the ends) but then split the log lengthwise but do not seal the exposed inner wood. if the log is split with a froe, wedge or an axe, the two halves will not mate back up 100% because of the shrinkage that has occurred once the wood is dry. the best way to split the log is by sawing it. allow it to dry and then run the two faces over a jointer and glue them back together. the drawback of course is that grain will never match up 100% again which is probably why you're carving out of a log to begin with another option is to take a worm gear skilsaw and saw a longitudinal cut from end to end into the pith of the log. this is a good option if the carving will have one side up against a wall or in a corner and the cut can be hidden from view. because as the log dries out, the cut will get wider. some hairline cracks may appear in other quadrants but will be rather minor and shouldn't be too much of a detraction from the carving. since green wood is easier to carve on than seasoned wood, it may be more advantageous to do your carving green and allow it to dry on its own. the carving will distort but if you can predict how it will shrink, you can use that to your advantage. cracking would probably be at a minimum as you could be relieving the wood in places that would otherwise warp if grain patterns are not an issue with your carving and it is not exposed to the elements, the absolute best option is to have your end grain sealed log sawn into half inch thick boards, stack and dry in your attic. they will be more than dry enough at the end of summer. then run them through a thickness planer and glue them back together in the order they were sawn. you still maintain some of the original profile of the log but there will be some loss due to the milling. the reason for half inch, is a commercial grade thickness planer can mash the board down and create a smooth glue surface and when you go to glue up the boards will also have enough give to them that your clamps will be able to deliver enough pressure to close the gaps. the thicker your planks are, the more you have to joint them in order to eliminate the gaps in glue up. if you have a thin kerf bandsaw then a few more cuts won't cost as much material as thick planks will. no matter which way you go, the attic will always be the best place to dry your wood in the absence of a drying kiln, providing it has a little bit of ventilation to carry off the moisture. wood moisture levels in the single digits are possible in sawn lumber in two years time in the attic. hope that helps. cheers mike
Thanks Mike! This is huge as I have been struggling to find this kind of info on the web. Another question I have is in regards to drying times; is it true with logs that an inch of wood thickness = a year of drying time? Its a theory that I have seen around on the internet. I don't know though how accurate this is, and whether or not it applies to ring porous woods or diffuse porous woods. Cheers.
that rule of thumb is fairly accurate but is only applicable to sawn or split lumber and not logs. oak (ring porous) will dry at a slightly faster pace than maple (diffuse porous) for obvious reasons, but the rate of drying is more dependent on relative humidity and density of the wood than anything else. round wood that is horizontal takes much longer to dry since there is no active mechanism to enable the moisture to escape. dead standing however is a total paradox. if for example a tree dies off and the foliage is still attached, it will take the summer and it will reach fiber saturation and begin to crack. that is because the evapo-transpiration mechanism is still in place and will continue to wick moisture out of the bole. even with the foliage gone the limbs will also continue to wick moisture. i have seen moisture content as low as 10% in the tops of lodge pole pine and doug fir that was dead standing. if you're going to dry round wood in your attic, if it's shorter than 3 feet laying it horizontal will make it dry faster. if however the chunks are longer than 3 feet then you should keep them in a vertical position with the end on the floor sitting on a stick or something to ensure there is no broad contact with the floor
Thanks for your help and your time Mike, I've learnt allot through watching your videos and your replies have been the icing on the cake, now I will be drying my own logs and lumber with confidence, Cheers.
always my pleasure to be of assistance. if there are ever anymore questions feel free to fire away. there are always other folks out there following the threads with the same or similar questions and this channel is here to disseminate this kind of information. cheers mike
the lumber in the videos belongs to a former employer. it's not mine. as a rule i do not build anything with the live edge on it.. it's really hard to clamp a table top when trying to keep the live edge and not damage it. it can be done and i have done it before, but it was a real pain and added a huge expense to the piece
+Daniel Grass that would be like an attic i would tend to think. as long as the air is pretty dry, or have plenty of air movement it should work really good. many old mills in europe use old barns that have been re-tasked as drying sheds with a pretty good end result. just make sure you get the bottom of the stack far enough up off the floor so it doesn't take up evaporating ground moisture and you should get some pretty good results. thanks for watching and commenting!
Hey guy's 'n' girl's out there, just take a few seconds to scroll-down this page and check the number of " replies from HolzMichel " This man has the best response rate that I've ever seen from any RUclips uploader. That alone will tell you much of the man, then there's the hard-won knowledge that he's giving away for free. Sir, I salute.
thank you for the shout out and checking out the channel and the material presented...been waiting for a while to see if anyone else catches what you did. there is hope out there after all.. if someone has a question i will always do due diligence to get them an answer.
north idaho is relatively humid as well, not as bad as is back east but you should be able to achieve some fairly low humidity levels. it just may take a while longer. if you really want to know what's possible in your neck of the woods just take a moisture meter and go measure different wooden features in old barns. old barns aren't heated and usually pretty drafty. so they will reflect the ambient rh. the higher you go up into the rafters the drier the wood is going to be.
Thanks for taking the time to make these mate, loved your battery-relatef subtitles.
hey thanks, hope the info was helpful to you
I love your old school approach to stacking your wood, I would love to know more about your operation, sell small scale steam kilns HDE dry kilns out of Portland Oregon
Thanks once again for sharing your videos! Your knowledge is priceless please continue to share it with us.
my pleasure, it's nice to hear that someone is getting something out of them. :)
thanks for watching and commenting!
I totally agree with Gina.. thank you very much for the sharing of Knowledge. I am from the Solomon Is. in the pacific (Guadalcanal as you may know it) near Australia and we have alot of beautiful timbers but no one is knowledgeable enough about the drying process... all they say is sticker stack randomly for about 2-3 month & its all good to go for t&g... LoL . I have learnt few more things out of your videos and thank you for that
hi Brian, yes, i'm vaguely familiar with the solomons insofar as i know where they are. haven't yet been there but it might be a pretty neat trip if i ever get to go. just out of sheer morbid curiosity: what kind of wood do you have there? not having been there, i would be like any other guy thinking there were nothing but palm trees there, but your statement peaks my curiosity.
feel free to ask any questions that may not have been answered in the video and many thanks for your comment and watching!
cheers
mike
Great video ty
thanks, and thank you for watching and the sub!
I like your videos. One thing that would help is if you want to give us a link to something like the use of a psychrometer, put an actual link in the description rather than on the screen. That way the viewer can just click the link.
ok, good point. thanks for pointing that out!
thanks for watching and commenting and also the sharp eye :)
Thaks
Very informative.
Something i always do if i store anything of value on the ground outside or in the basement is lay a piece of 6 mil plastic. Is that a good idea for drying lumber?
Thanks
Ray
outside: only if the moisture is coming from underneath. if you have rain coming down and the water can't run off and pools underneath the stack you're back to square one.
either way you should elevate whatever lumber you're stacking at least a foot off the ground.
in the basement it works to an extent but then you get condensation underneath the plastic which could bring other problems with it such as facilitating mold growth etc.
if you're seeing condensation underneath the plastic in the basement, it's probably not a good idea to store your dried lumber there
where did you find the "Lauber Thermo-Hygrmeter" model number D-73553? Couldn't find in anywhere I searched.
there are several all around the outfit i work in. have you tried looking in german ebay? there is one for sale there:
www.ebay.de/itm/Raum-Thermo-Hygrometer-von-Lauber-fur-Temperatur-Feuchte-Anzeigegerat-rund-/380377847845?hash=item5890495825:m:meBS7u7V2cb6h8x9BGH-0bg
they're not real cheap.
you can also get them from the manufacturer direct:
www.ds-messwerkzeuge.de/temperaturfeuchte-anzeigegerat-rund/
if there's anymore info you might need just give a holler
good luck and thanks for watching and commenting.
I'd like to use my large four car garage for as much of the process as possible. How long would it need to stay outdoors to get under 20%? I know thow this is highly circumstantial.
if you stack it in the early spring time (april) usually by fall (late october) it will have lost enough moisture to put it in the garage. if security isn't an issue, it would be advisable to leave the bay door of the garage open where the lumber is stacked. with a good freeze during the winter, by early the next summer you should be seeing moisture contents of around 12 to 16 % depending on how good of an airflow you've had over the winter
HolzMichel
Firstly thank you for the video series as well as your response it is truly appreciated.
Damn. That's quite a lot longer outside then I expected. 7 months? The problem with my current property is that it's a lake front property. With a double car and 4 car garage behind that. Bought it for the 4 car garage to become a workshop thought it would be a huge benefit which it is, but there isn't really much of an area to put lumber to dry outside besides a 4 foot wide section behind the garage and a fence which won't work. Really overlooked the need for some outdoor storage space, was too intrigued by the vast amount of indoor workshop space.
You told another guy to fell the tree and leave it there without limbing for a log cabin. Could I do the same to maybe speed up dry times? Whole summer is a lot. Will be leaving it on a friends property I supppose which is fine really
yes, your drying time will speed up marginally by cutting the tree in the summer and then allowing the foliage to pull out the moisture. you'll still have roughly 40 to 50% moisture content if you do it that way as opposed to 100% if you go to milling the log right away.
keep in mind that in the absence of an energy investment you will still be stuck with a time factor
I need some 10" x 10" beams. How do I go about curing that wood?
sorry if i overlooked your question. YT doesn't always notify when a comment comes in.
if you're curing sawn beams then proceed as you would with any board lumber. just keep in mind that a 10x10 beam will take about two to 3 years before you should be building with it. providing it was sawn from green stock.
if you cut your beams from standing dead timber you can use them right away, if they have heart checks in the log.
if they don't show any cracks at the time of milling, you should let them dry for at least one summer and let them show some cracks before using them in a building project.
unless you have quartersawn beams, they're gonna crack. which is not a bad thing, cosmetically it's sort of a downer but it doesn't impact the beam in a negative way.
Have you ever used the wagner digital moisture meter that sends some kind of a wave 3/4-1" in the board to measure moisture ?
yes, they work really well. they're not quite as accurate as using a probe-type moisture meter but they are usually within 1 to 2% which is really good. the newer ones i imagine have only gotten better.
the sad thing is that they are insanely expensive, even a used one. i see them in flea-bay on occasion and they command some pretty steep prices.
Great, good job.but what about inside of a kiln? All the best.
thanks for watching and commenting, if you're curious to see what a kiln looks like from the inside there is a short video of mine in the random length series episodes 5 and 6.
this short series is to help the average home shop out in getting to some fairly decent dried lumber without the use of a kiln. kiln drying is a science unto itself and gets to be quite complicated. at some point i will make a video on that subject but there are so many in the interim lineup that it be a while before i can get to it.
Thx for your video. Where would I buy the thermohygrometer you showed from Lauber?
they become available in german ebay once in a while but they are available from the manufacturer directly. here's the link to their website:
www.ds-messwerkzeuge.de/temperaturfeuchte-anzeigegerat-rund/
hope that helps.
Not much help unless you speak German, any suppliers in USA, where does your company get them
the company got them from the manufacturer direct if i'm informed correctly. there is a website that does a realtime translation of websites: www.online-translator.com/
it works reasonably well and you should be able to figure out how to get an order in. the other option is keep digging in ebay as these things do pop up from time to time.
in your previous video it appeared to be winter. Can you dry lumber in the winter? If so, how long would it take on average?
the short answer: yes. it just takes a bit longer. i talk about it briefly in the subsequent video on atmospheric humidity. the process is referred to as sublimation otherwise known as freeze drying. the paradoxical thing about it is that the colder it is, the faster it dries. relative humidity can be almost 100% at temps ranging from -2 to +10 C so the drying process slows to a crawl at those temps. as you dip below -5 C the drying process gets going. the frost forces the moisture out of the wood up to the surface and there it turns to its gaseous form and evaporates at rates depending barometric pressure.
I have logs that I want to season for wood carving, I've sealed them with end grain sealer. It's spring here in New Zealand at the moment. Can I put them up in the attic to season or would I be better off stacking them outside for now? Cheers.
well, now there's a loaded question lol... for wood carving there are a whole different set of parameters. if you're looking to carve the whole log and keep the bark or the surface of the log under bark, you have several options.
the first is what you are doing. the drying process will take several decades as the water will only escape through the parenchyma and not the end grain.
another is allow the log to dry without the ends sealed which will also take a few years depending on the diameter and length of the log. in either case you will end up with heart checks on multiple facets of the log since the wood shrinks the most in its tangent
if you want to avoid cracking, the best way is do what you did, (seal the ends) but then split the log lengthwise but do not seal the exposed inner wood. if the log is split with a froe, wedge or an axe, the two halves will not mate back up 100% because of the shrinkage that has occurred once the wood is dry.
the best way to split the log is by sawing it. allow it to dry and then run the two faces over a jointer and glue them back together. the drawback of course is that grain will never match up 100% again which is probably why you're carving out of a log to begin with
another option is to take a worm gear skilsaw and saw a longitudinal cut from end to end into the pith of the log. this is a good option if the carving will have one side up against a wall or in a corner and the cut can be hidden from view. because as the log dries out, the cut will get wider. some hairline cracks may appear in other quadrants but will be rather minor and shouldn't be too much of a detraction from the carving.
since green wood is easier to carve on than seasoned wood, it may be more advantageous to do your carving green and allow it to dry on its own. the carving will distort but if you can predict how it will shrink, you can use that to your advantage. cracking would probably be at a minimum as you could be relieving the wood in places that would otherwise warp
if grain patterns are not an issue with your carving and it is not exposed to the elements, the absolute best option is to have your end grain sealed log sawn into half inch thick boards, stack and dry in your attic. they will be more than dry enough at the end of summer. then run them through a thickness planer and glue them back together in the order they were sawn. you still maintain some of the original profile of the log but there will be some loss due to the milling.
the reason for half inch, is a commercial grade thickness planer can mash the board down and create a smooth glue surface and when you go to glue up the boards will also have enough give to them that your clamps will be able to deliver enough pressure to close the gaps.
the thicker your planks are, the more you have to joint them in order to eliminate the gaps in glue up. if you have a thin kerf bandsaw then a few more cuts won't cost as much material as thick planks will.
no matter which way you go, the attic will always be the best place to dry your wood in the absence of a drying kiln, providing it has a little bit of ventilation to carry off the moisture. wood moisture levels in the single digits are possible in sawn lumber in two years time in the attic.
hope that helps.
cheers
mike
Thanks Mike! This is huge as I have been struggling to find this kind of info on the web. Another question I have is in regards to drying times; is it true with logs that an inch of wood thickness = a year of drying time? Its a theory that I have seen around on the internet. I don't know though how accurate this is, and whether or not it applies to ring porous woods or diffuse porous woods. Cheers.
that rule of thumb is fairly accurate but is only applicable to sawn or split lumber and not logs. oak (ring porous) will dry at a slightly faster pace than maple (diffuse porous) for obvious reasons, but the rate of drying is more dependent on relative humidity and density of the wood than anything else.
round wood that is horizontal takes much longer to dry since there is no active mechanism to enable the moisture to escape. dead standing however is a total paradox. if for example a tree dies off and the foliage is still attached, it will take the summer and it will reach fiber saturation and begin to crack. that is because the evapo-transpiration mechanism is still in place and will continue to wick moisture out of the bole. even with the foliage gone the limbs will also continue to wick moisture. i have seen moisture content as low as 10% in the tops of lodge pole pine and doug fir that was dead standing.
if you're going to dry round wood in your attic, if it's shorter than 3 feet laying it horizontal will make it dry faster. if however the chunks are longer than 3 feet then you should keep them in a vertical position with the end on the floor sitting on a stick or something to ensure there is no broad contact with the floor
Thanks for your help and your time Mike, I've learnt allot through watching your videos and your replies have been the icing on the cake, now I will be drying my own logs and lumber with confidence, Cheers.
always my pleasure to be of assistance. if there are ever anymore questions feel free to fire away. there are always other folks out there following the threads with the same or similar questions and this channel is here to disseminate this kind of information.
cheers
mike
Do u do live edge slabs?have some killer red ,white oak and sugar maple huge 50" plus
the lumber in the videos belongs to a former employer. it's not mine. as a rule i do not build anything with the live edge on it.. it's really hard to clamp a table top when trying to keep the live edge and not damage it. it can be done and i have done it before, but it was a real pain and added a huge expense to the piece
What about air drying in a barn in what used to be a hay loft?
+Daniel Grass that would be like an attic i would tend to think. as long as the air is pretty dry, or have plenty of air movement it should work really good. many old mills in europe use old barns that have been re-tasked as drying sheds with a pretty good end result.
just make sure you get the bottom of the stack far enough up off the floor so it doesn't take up evaporating ground moisture and you should get some pretty good results.
thanks for watching and commenting!
Hey guy's 'n' girl's out there, just take a few seconds to scroll-down this page and check the number of " replies from HolzMichel " This man has the best response rate that I've ever seen from any RUclips uploader. That alone will tell you much of the man, then there's the hard-won knowledge that he's giving away for free. Sir, I salute.
thank you for the shout out and checking out the channel and the material presented...been waiting for a while to see if anyone else catches what you did. there is hope out there after all.. if someone has a question i will always do due diligence to get them an answer.
I can believe that in Idaho, 8%. That would never happen here in PA, way too humid.
north idaho is relatively humid as well, not as bad as is back east but you should be able to achieve some fairly low humidity levels. it just may take a while longer. if you really want to know what's possible in your neck of the woods just take a moisture meter and go measure different wooden features in old barns. old barns aren't heated and usually pretty drafty. so they will reflect the ambient rh. the higher you go up into the rafters the drier the wood is going to be.
@@HolzMichel That is a fantastic idea. Thank you!
Phoenix az wood dries very fast
yes, i would think it should. what sort of average humidity does phoenix have thru out the year?
I believe the formula should be: MC = (w - d)/w * 100.