Well I really did it. Last night I moved 13,000 bd. ft. of hard maple out of my drying room/ living room. so I could use that space for some milling operations under way.(what you don’t use your living room to do wood working?) I set it out on the deck and failed to tarp it properly….OK, OK, I forgot to tarp it.. there! now you know so go ahead and laugh! (wait, I have to kick myself again) Just out of courisity, before I set everything out on the deck I checked the boards and they were all at 6 % moisture so I felt pretty good although I did see some black mold on some of them. (so far most of it is just surface mold) I woke up this morning to the sound of pouring rain!
Now what? should I unstack the wood and resticker? cover it and forget it? plan on a lot of bon fires?
Replies
Jeez Frenchy -- what were you thinking (or more realistically not thinking) ?
If the wood was dead stacked, the major exposure was to boards on the outside of the pile (top, sides and ends). As such boards in the middle of the pile are probably unscathed/unchanged. End trimming should likely take care of most of the end adsorption.
The boards on the top and sides were probably only surface wetted. Restack these boards and place a fan so that it blows on the pile. After a day or so, place the fan at the opposite end and have it circulate air across the pile for another day or so. Likely by that time the surfaces will have redried. (see my comments on hysteresis in the Thick Veneer thread)
The stains you are talking about might be remedied with a mild bleach solution if planing and/or sanding does not remove them.
I find it hard to believe that if you can afford 13,000 bdft of wood, you cannot afford a tarp. Or was it perhaps you actually believed the meteorologist's forecast on the nightly news?
PS Try to avoid having these wet board getting in contact with iron or you will have some really nasty staining
My only excuse was I was dog tired from hauling all that wood. The tarp was sitting right there, it would have taken but a minute.. ah well, here let me kick myself a few more times.....
Actually that was 13,000 bd.ft. of mill run hard maple. I expect to waste about 20 % of it but I only paid 60 cents a foot. so some loss isn't major but I hate to waste evan inexpensive wood. there are some nice 16 inch wide boards in the pile that got soaked.
I did cover it up... too late of course and now it's had two days steady down pour so any thought of drying out is long gone. The bad thing is I've got to stack a little over 3500 bd.ft. of cherry on top of that. then the Black walnut goes next.
All this cause I'm tearing down the part of the house that the wood was stacked in and need the space to work on the rest of the stuff.
Jeeze.. could you rent a storage shed and then sticker it and leave a light on. I've heard of people doing that. They say the light bulb puts out just enough heat to slowly dry the wood preventing checks and splits.Steve - in Northern California
Steve,
I already had it down below 6% on the moisture meter. so it was dry. Then bone head me leaves the tarp off, here let me kick myself again please! and again!
Zoning won't let me have a shed, hence the use of the deck.
Frenchy, 16"wide maple???
bend over dude cos I am sooooo gonna boot you!! :)
I get a lot of Rimu ( free rimu ) out of old houses. the stuff is dry as it can get. It often gets rained on before I get to it. I just stack it up ( mine is one end ) and let it get on with it. Rimu is pretty tempermental stuff, but so far it seems to take this OK with few problems.
I assume that because it was already nice and dry ,the moisture it absorbs wont do it too much harm cos its 'rain wet' as opposed to 'sap wet'. if that makes any sense.
I do think you need to introduce a fan or two under that stack though to keep that air moving, because if you get a hot day all the moisture trapped under that tarp WILL cause problems.
go and buy a fan, right now, run dont walk.
I think I need to boot you some more..................................
Wood Hoon
Hey AJ,
Don't worry, the stack of black walnut is well under a tarp. WOW! does that make a nice working wood. So well behaved, so easy on tools and edges. It's very easily my favorite wood of all time to work on. I promise i'll send your's as soon as I get the time...
The maple is just hard. it's alot more work to cut/shape etc. and dulls the blades faster, but not as fast as white oak! Now that's some bad as* stuff! about the only wood that's nastier is elm.
As for the maple I'm worried because there is a surface mold on some of it already and I don't want to stain it. what I'm afraid of is that surface mold leaching into the board and causing me to reject more of it.
Oh, I did mention that I've got 22 inch wide burl oak didn't I?
your just messin with my head aincha???
as if I didnt get tormented enough these days without all this talk of 16" boards and stuff <grumble, mumble>...................
Wood Hoon
Hey,
you hadda chance to play with my wood (no comments please) and decided that you'd rather play with your new bride. Well! it's not too late, I still have the great room to do. Ya wanna hang from the scissor trusses 28 feet from the deck?
I could still use some help!
By the way, the benefits package includes all the wood that will fit in your suitcase/es...
OK, how about this.
A return air ticket to you ( can be business class, I'm not picky ) and I will arrange a container to get some wood home with.
In exchange i will happily hang off anything ( no comments please ) , eat all your food, drink your beer, ummmm, oh yeah do some work.
Wood Hoon
OK
Cool!
Wood Hoon
frenchy, did you forget to mention the rope... LOL.. Whhooooopppps... Dang slipped again... now I'm ROFLMAO....Steve - in Northern California
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