Hello: Should I sticker wood that is already dry? My storage area is quite stable and my rack is open to the air. I also have no wet lumber.
KDM
Kenneth Duke Masters
The Bill of Rights December 15 1791
NRA Endowment Member
LEAA Life Member
CRPA Member
Edited 1/11/2005 7:06 pm ET by duke-one
Replies
The answer to your question is yes, you should always sticker your wood piles so that the wood can gradually gain or lose moisture as the humidity in your shop changes.
If you leave the pile tightly stacked, any wood you pull out from the center of the pile will rapidly gain or lose moisture when it gets exposed to the air. This rapid change in moisture will cause the dimensions of the wood to shift enough in the course of a day or two that anything you build from the wood will have problems with warping and joints not fitting well.
John W.
JohnW
while you are correct you are also a bit anal..
My answer is ,.... it depends. Are you storing wood for the next decade? then sticker it.. if you're storing wood for an ongoing project, ta heck with it.. get on with makin' sawdust..
If you are going to have a few left over pieces the answer stands. if you're going to have a couple of hundred bd.ft. around for a while then go ahead and sticker it.. For me I sticker only green wood and maple.. I have tens of thousands of bd.ft. hanging around and I'd have stacks of wood twice as tall as they currantly are..
To me wood is wood, it's not some metal that we worry about .003 of an inch...
I leave most of my wood rough so if the wood gets used when the moisture has swollen almost all the wood used at that time will be swollen the same amount..
If I were total anal about it then I couldn't possibly work wood during the high humidity months of the summer.
Frenchy, did you have to re-register when you came back from your "working vacation?" Your profile has you as a member since Dec. 28. Yeah, I'm thinking, Dec. 2000 or somethin' like that. What gives?forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)Another proud member of the "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
Yeh I did, but my old password and name worked so who cares? Actually I've been posting for much longer than that but whenever a virus hits me and I have to reregister I guess I have to start from scratch.. I know almost nothing about computers so maybe I'm creating extra work for my self, but what the heck..
Skim plane it then dead stack it.
Duke
I agree with John on this one. But, only if it's a decent amount of wood, say for a table. If you have 2 or 3 boards, and you're going to use them quickly, then no worries. If you've got 100 bf and you're making a table, you bet your but you'd better sticker it, or it's gonna warp after assembly for sure.
Hey, Frenchy- Where do you get off calling someone anal who's here trying help somebody. Way out of line. Besides, a little more of that approach in woodworking is the difference sometimes between success and moderate failure. I'd like to see you make some of the chairs I make where the angled mortices won't fit at all if the stock warps 1/32 after fitting, let along 3/16. Just my .02. Let's help and learn here, and save the name calling for the political threads.
Jeff
>> Hey, Frenchy- Where do you get off ...Well, you know how it is. A guy who buys lumber for 19 cents a board foot can afford to be a little casual about his stacking practices.
Uncle
Handle this for me, will you
Jeff
Here is one of the chairs that I build (Design cudos to Jeff Miller). They are constructed with mortise and tenon joinery, all on angles. If you try constructing these with stock which has moved after you mill it, you'll never get the joints tight, if together at all!!! These joints are dead nuts tight and flat because the stock was handled properly (and I'm pretty good .............lol........)
Jeff
Beautiful work Jeff!
Thanks.
Jeff.
Thanks all for the discussion; I live in the S.F. Bay Area where the weather is generally mild. My lumber is all dry when I get it and the lumber rack is in a stable, airy basement area. That should go a long way toward keeping boards straight, no? How about this for a tangent: Can you tell looking at lumber if has been properly dried? Beside jointing and planeing both sides evenly what else can you do with a warped board? Will it tweek again?
KDM
Kenneth Duke Masters
The Bill of Rights December 15 1791
NRA Endowment Member
LEAA Life Member
CRPA Member
The only problem with this as an example is that I've seen Jeff Miller's shop and he dead stacks his lumber.
Pay attention, cstan. I said designed by him, not built by him. You've always got 2 cents to put into a 10 cent pot. I've spent quite a bit of time with Jeff, and he'll be the 1st to tell you that when he's working it, after milling it, and waiting for it to acclimate, it get's stickered. I've been there for it 1st hand.
Always a pleasure hearing from YOU
Jeff
So, at the end of the day your lumber is always stickered.
Hooray. What an Epiphany for us all.
I try to reserve judgement on folks until I actually meet them in person, but it is becoming extremely clear that what everybody says about you is true, you are a complete and udder idiot. What a proud moment this must be for you, as it seems that the only reason why you stampede around this site on your high and mighty horse is to see who you can goad into an altercation. Just be careful which tree you find yourself barking up, as you might not like what comes back down.
Feeling ever so inspired and truly sickened,
Jeff
you are a complete and udder idiot.
FWIW, the word is spelled "utter." I suppose in some sense I am an "udder" idiot as I've never milked a cow.
Feeling ever so inspired and truly sickened...
What an "udderly" terrible thing to say, Mr. Heath.
Several other people have disagreed with the assertions that you've made in this thread. I'm not the only person to disagree with your theories about stickered lumber. I just happen to be far less diplomatic than most other people.
Edited 1/14/2005 2:49 pm ET by cstan
"I just happen to be far less diplomatic " And proud of it, as usual.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)Another proud member of the "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
I'm shocked, Jamie, "udderly" shocked at your response.
I totally agree with you on the cstan issue.
But Pete, do you keep your stock stickered?
No I do not, why do you ask? [so politely that is]
Just curious, Peter. This is the original post in the thread since you're getting on board a little late...
Hello: Should I sticker wood that is already dry? My storage area is quite stable and my rack is open to the air. I also have no wet lumber.
Thank you for pointing that out [so politely that is]
Context is often important.
I do applogize for the use of a word that some found offensive.. It's just that I've noticed that some people are far more concerned with the process than the results..
I know several wood workers who while it's admittedly a part time hobby, they can manage to take two years to make a cabinet.. a basic box sort of cabinet that can be knocked out in a few hours..
Watching pros who do this for a living and I notice little such extra effort. amd the results appear similar.
I realize that some use the shop to escape to and they may enjoy all the extra work without any return..
As for tight toreances, I see beautiful work done on a routine basis in shops where the wood isn't sticked..
As for tight toreances, I see beautiful work done on a routine basis in shops where the wood isn't sticked..
Let's drink a toast to dead-stacked lumber. I couldn't agree more.
Maybe I'm missing something here..
I use a moisture meter when I'm working with wood and test read just about everything (heck I paid for the darn thing I may as well use it ) I don't have a problem! I air dry untill the wood gets into that 7/8/9% moisture range and then just stack it.. When I'm doing critical work I check every piece. If it's not so critical I may just check a couple of pieces.
Wood does move a bit but I've found that if there is warpage it's usually caused by the grain of the wood and not how dry it is..
Face it, some wood is going to be reaction wood, Mother nature seldom grows perfectly straight trees.. as the wood gains moisture from the air it's going to react to the ingrown stress..
"I air dry untill the wood gets into that 7/8/9% moisture range..." OK, frenchy, go ahead and brag. What area of the country do you live in?! I'm jealous.
I haven't air-dried more than a few small pieces here in the Great Northwest, but I can bet the farm it wouldn't get down that low, LOL!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)Another proud member of the "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
Hey Forestgirl,I recently purchased one of the pinless moisture meters, and discovered that nothing in my occasionally heated Seattle shop is less than 12% moisture.You can complain about the damp, but it could be worse, many parts of the country not only have much higher humidity in the Summer, but also much lower in the Winter. Damp is tough, but changing from damp to dessicated has got to be worse. I'm glad I live in a wood friendly part of the country.The old mossback,
Tom
Thanks for the info, Tom. I don't have a moisture meter yet, and wouldn't have guessed correctly on that figure. Yes, it is good that at least our atmosphere is relatively consistent.
Whereabouts is your shop?? I'm out on Bainbridge Island.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)Another proud member of the "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
Hey Forestgirl,My shop is in an old (1913) vaudeville theater in the upper Fremont section of Seattle. I moved in in May 2004, and I've been discovering the joys and pains of old buildings since then.Perhaps when things are a little more finished, I could host you and Dennis, and any other local Knotheads for a shop visit, if you're interested.Tom
Hi TMS, what a cool location! Fremont has a personality, doesn't it? Don't worry about things being "a little more finished" -- from what Dennis tells me and front what I know about my own shop, things are pretty much "in process" all the time.
I get over to Seattle with the car about every 6-8 weeks, so if you want to get together for lunch, I'll drop you a line.
PS: I have a woodworking friend who is also a theater director here on the island -- he'd get a kick out of your location!
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)Another proud member of the "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
Edited 1/16/2005 12:12 pm ET by forestgirl
Hey Forestgirl,Unfortunately, my day job makes lunch a difficult prospect, unless you're thinking of a weekened. I'd like to get a number of local Knotheads and other woodworkers together sometime, if possible.The building has had many lives since the time it was a theater, and it no longer really resembles one. One characteristic that remains are the 17' ceilings, which are both a joy and a pain. A joy when you're moving long stock around; a pain when you need to rent a manlift to install heating, lighting and ductwork.I thought I would finish installing my air system today, but when I charged it up, I found a defective tee fitting near the compressor. Looks like yet another day of shop improvement still in order.Tom
Edited 1/16/2005 10:30 pm ET by tms
Well, awhile back, a bunch of us met for lunch as a break from the Seattle woodworking show. Unfortunately, they're not having one in Seattle this year -- it'll be down in Tacoma.
Maybe we could start stirring the pot in a couple months and try to get a bunch together. Who knows, there might be some event we can orient it to.
I ahve business cards from several of the people who met in 2002, a talented group it was. forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)Another proud member of the "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
I would like to try that.Many years ago, I worked as a student at a place called "The Wooden Boat Store". There was a Woodworkers Guild that met there two or thee times a year. In addition to a social gathering, the meeting also included an open question period, and a show and tell session. It was a learning experience that was unmatched.My shop has a retail front to it. With some furniture (and some heat) it would make a great meeting place.Tom
Edited 1/16/2005 11:44 pm ET by tms
Great idea! Maybe we should wander off to another thread (I think we've officially hi-jacked this one, LOL) and start drumming up participants. Two questions about starting a new thread:
Now or later?
You or me?forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)Another proud member of the "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
Yea,I apologize to the stickering folks for the hijack.Since you probably have more web contacts than I do, why don' t you start a thread in the Knotfests folder?A roll call of Seattle based Knotheads might be a good start.Tom
I'm sitting in my kiln as I type this.. err, my home.. I just stuck the moisture meter into a piece of wood and the reading is less than 5% Here in Minnesota we get nasty cold weather and during the coldest part the furnace sucks all the moisture out of the air.. .
Skin dries up and cracks and if you sleep with your mouth open it'll take you half the day to get enough moisture together to spit.. sure does wonders to bring in a bunker or two of wood. Last year when my daughter enjoyed the company of a bunker of Maple fiddle back she didn't have one tenth of the sore throats or colds that she does this year! Too bad it takes only a couple of months to bring wood down to single digits..
Oh, Frenchy, better you than me. I can't even imagine being that cold. Gets dry enough in our house with 30 degrees outside at night.
You are a hardy sort, French!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)Another proud member of the "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
Forestgirl?
Hardie?
Ha! Stupid is far more likely!
I mean ducks with tiny little brains are smart enough to fly south for the winter but here I sit..
This year at least much of the house is enclosed and other than the occasional draft the furnace if it runs continuously is almost able to get the house warm.. (that is if you are able to snuggle under a blanket or work at a decent enough pace to stay warm..)
JHeath,
I just watched a video of the Stickley factory in New York. I think you'll agree they build some very fine furnature.. Mortice and tenions that are as fine as any. and Wooden drawers that no matter how wide can be slid shut with one finger from either side.. (no there isn't any metal or plastic used just workmanship!) I can attest to the fact that a heavily loaded drawer can but easily slid shut from anyplace on the drawer..
Anyway they don't sticker their wood.. watch the wood piles in the background and you'll see a lot of wood and nothing stickered..
duke,
None of the shops I have worked in stickered their kiln dried lumber. The wood was kept under roof, in the same environment that it was to be worked.
If you are storing your lumber outside, or in a shed that's open to the elements, you would want to sticker it.
With the lumber that I'm drying myself, I sticker it when I first move it into the loft above the shop. It stays that way at least until it's been thru a summer up there; if I need the room for more wood, I'll move it and dead stack it so it'll take up less room.
Lumber that I move down into the shop for an upcoming project is dead stacked in the rack there for a week or two to acclimate to the heated/ac area. I don't have problems with movement or warpage treating it this way.
Regards,
Ray
This is a generalized observation, but in all the shop pictures I've seen in various magazines, I can't remember any where the main lumber stack (for to-be-worked lumber) was stickered. Frenchy's (?) point about how much more space it would occupy is a salient one!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)Another proud member of the "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
forestgirl
Just because it saves space, doesn't make it right. I have a cherry table top (2 halves) that I built about 7 years ago leaning against the wall in my shop, just waiting for that perfect coopered hall table I've always wanted to build. I used the same principles about shop acclimation with that pile of cherry regarding time ( I bring my wood inside a month ahead of build, because I air dry everything), only that was the last large amount of wood that went unstickered. The center of the stack WILL NOT acclimate properly. Then, as we all know, when you start to work it, following all the proper guidelines of flattening, planing equally on both sides, let it sit a few days, and final mill. The stock will not be consistent MC, and thus will move. I've got pneumonia right now, (kicking my butt), but when I'm healthy in a few days or a week, I'm gonna post a picture of the two beautiful pieces of cherry tabletop that look like a banana slide, all caused from non-stickered wood in the shop for acclimation.
Take care.
Jeff
I absolutely agree with Jeff's remarks about the risks of failing to sticker lumber.
If you live in a climate where the weather never changes, and the relative humidity is absolutely steady, then you can pack your lumber tightly together. In the real world typical of most shops, and certainly in New England, a tightly stacked pile will have its moisture content all over the place and will certainly cause trouble during construction.
John w.
The Stickley factory in New York doesn't sticker! The weather changes a bit there I hear.. I live in Minnesota where if you don't like the weather, just wait, it will change and I don't sticker. I never have seen a professional wood shop here that stickers.
I've never seen a pro shop in Southern California that stickered..
While it is possible that there are professional shops in the southern portion of the US that sticker I don't ever recall seeing one.. space and time are the two reasons that I can imagine them not wanting to sticker..
There is no comparison between what goes on in a furniture manufacturing facility like Stickley's and the conditions in a small shop.
In a large plant the wood is ordered to be at a very specific moisture content and the relative humidity in the plant is carefully, and expensively, monitored, and humidified or dried as needed, to keep the wood from gaining or losing moisture while it is in the plant. Also in most production facilities the wood doesn't spend more than a few hours in the production area before it is turned into a completed piece of furniture, at which point gaining or losing moisture won't make a difference if the piece was properly designed.
Stickering has always been the best practice, has been for forever. Being that it takes so little extra time or space to sticker properly, I can't understand why anyone would skip doing it, given the total amount of time and material that goes into making a piece of fine furniture.
John W.
"just waiting for that perfect coopered hall table I've always wanted to build." Grimmmmmly funny. Oh dear.
I wasn't trying to say that "saving space makes it right." Obviously, that would be ridiculous. But with respect to storing especially kiln-dried wood for long periods of time, seems like many if not most shops dead-stack it (new vocabular term). Around here (Puget Sound) if I had lumber stacked outside, air dried, and brought it into the shop for final acclimation, my instinct would be to sticker it.
[darned thing posted itself!]
I don't pretend to know the answer to this question, or even be able to argue it one way or the other. I was mostly just making an observation.
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)Another proud member of the "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
Edited 1/13/2005 12:21 pm ET by forestgirl
duke,
None of the shops I have worked in stickered their kiln dried lumber. The wood was kept under roof, in the same environment that it was to be worked.
If you are storing your lumber outside, or in a shed that's open to the elements, you would want to sticker it.
With the lumber that I'm drying myself, I sticker it when I first move it into the loft above the shop. It stays that way at least until it's been thru a summer up there; if I need the room for more wood, I'll move it and dead stack it so it'll take up less room.
Lumber that I move down into the shop for an upcoming project is dead stacked in the rack there for a week or two to acclimate to the heated/ac area. I don't have problems with movement or warpage treating it this way.
Regards,
Ray
Thanks for this post. This gee-haws with what the vast majority of us do and/or have experienced.
Duke, For anyone to answer your question, we all need to know more about your shop atmosphere.
Do you keep it heated all winter? If you do, and if you have bought kiln dried lumber, it is not likely that it will be taking on moisture, so it doesn't matter.
In spring and summer, if you open the windows and turn on the fans, and the RH outside is in the 90's, if you have lumber which was dried to 6 - 8% and if you have it stickered you will be taking the whole stack back to the level of air-dried lumber which is 12 % for my location. Under these conditions, you should stack dead, and cover the stack with plastic.
I know as usual you get answers which are all over the map, and it may be hard to sort out the best answer, so maybe this will help. Check out this link.
http://www.woodweb.com/knowledge_base/Storing_kilndried_lumber.html
RootBurl: Thanks for the reply. Here in Berkeley the humidity is the opposite of the usual in the eastern US; winter is damp; summer is dry. The basement where my lumber rack is is not heated per say but keeps evenly warm from the water heaters and other such items. It is quite dry around here from April through November or so. All of which is to say that my storage area has mostly even humidity and temperature. Maybe it is time for me to buy a moisture meter, any recommendations? I think I'll make a new thread for that with a refence to this one.
KDM-->--> -->
Kenneth Duke Masters-->
The Bill of Rights December 15 1791-->
NRA Endowment Member-->
LEAA Life Member-->
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Edited 1/15/2005 11:04 am ET by duke-one
It sounds ike you are having a little more moisture than usual this year. Is your shop in the basement also, or just your storage area? Basements here in the mid-South tend to be more damp than above-ground structures.
I can't say how it is where you are, but here, I would stack it dead and wrap it in plastic if I were going to store it for long in a questionable atmosphere.I have a mini-Ligno meter which I have had for years. It is the pin type, and I guess I trust it. I would like to have the pinless type, but until this one quits, I am not likely to buy one.The meter will tell you if the wood has soaked up moisture from the air after it is too late, but another way is to monitor the air, and learn the relationship of RH and the MC in the wood, and control the RH in the air.
I believe Dr. Wengert at woodweb has stated that if your shop air temp is 25 degrees over the ambient outside temperature that you should not expect any gain in wood at 6 % MC.
That helps all of us on the other side of the Rockies, but probably doesn't help you any down on the lower left coast. I hope this helps, KeithSince you are out in Ca. If you have anything to enter a juried show, you have till the end of Jan to enter this one. http://www.furnituresociety.org/frames/fforums/home.shtml
My "basement" is at ground level of a two story duplex w/ concrete floor. Lots of air flow. Looks like a moisture meter is in my future. Good point about reading the wood after it has already picked up moisture. At least I'll be able over time to get an idea of what goes on in my lumber.
KDM<!----><!----> <!---->
Kenneth Duke Masters<!---->
The Bill of Rights December 15 1791<!---->
NRA Endowment Member<!---->
LEAA Life Member<!---->
CRPA Member<!---->
<!----> <!---->
I don't own a moisture meter although I plan on getting one. What I do have however is several pieces of wood about 12" wide kept near my bench. I record on them what there widths are each month of the year and it gives me a pretty good idea of what goes on in my shop. It is fairly amazing to see how much wood actually expands and contracts over the year. I have not done this yet but I plan on getting around to puting the same species of wood, of the same width in my dining room to compare with my shop and a forced air heated enviroment. Probably also be useful to record temp. and humidity.
The interesting thing about the Bay Area is that all the wood yards are just about like your basement. No heat and all the doors are wide open all day. So, I'm guessing if you are buying KD lumber in the area (at least at PALS/Earthsorce or MacBeath) it's not going to change all that much once it gets home.
Well, Duke-one, you asked a fairly complicated question, because there are lots of factors involved. And several opinions, based on the situations of each of the respondents.
First, a humble admission: we bought our moisture meter after fabricating a large spiral stairway for a converted warehouse in Nashville; the central column was about 9" in diameter. We bought kiln-dried oak from a local (large) company with its own kilns. The wood had been in an open shed here in humid Tennessee for an undisclosed time. When we delivered the stair parts to the building in Nashville (inhabited and heated) in mid-January, the main post started to crack open before we could even install it. The lumber had apparently been in the open shed quite a while; we bought the moisture meter with the profits from the job (there were profits only because the owner of the building loved the stairway so much he ignored the cracks.)
OK, back to the original question: here in Tennessee, air dried wood (in a covered stack or open shed) never gets below 12% moisture content. This is fine if your project will be in a similar environment (swing or table for a covered porch, etc.) For indoor climates, especially heated winter/airconditioned summer houses, the moisture content needs to be in the 6-8% range, which in our area, and probably the Bay area, means kiln drying, or stickering in a heated/airconditioned environment till the moisture content comes down to 6-8%. (Garage/shop attics in the summer are often functionally a heated space, so some folks have success using them as an uncontrolled dry kiln (tho they would blow apart green lumber.)) In the arid southwest, 4-5% seems to be better.
So, if you bring air-dried lumber into an interior space, and its final destination is also interior, sticker it so it will dry further and acclimate to the drier interior environment. If it comes in as kiln-dried lumber, at the moisture content suitable for its final destination, flat stack it so it stays as much as possible at the already suitable MC. (As the above story shows, you will only know if it is a suitable moisture content with a moisture meter; having been kiln dried does not guarantee anything unless you know it's just out of the kiln, and you know the kiln operator's reputation.) If you have trouble with a humid shop (which we flirt with here in humid Tennessee,) definitely flat stack it, and the higher (and warmer) location the better. All our long term lumber racks are from 7' to our 10' ceiling.
So, when you get a board that is seriously warped/twisted/cupped, you can assume that when the inevitable moisture content variation occurs, that that particular board will be very shape-unstable. The fact that you can flatten it out on a wide jointer before planing it to thickness leaves it still unstable. With cherry, sometimes the sapwood pulls the board crooked, and cutting it off will leave a much more stable board.
Working with cherry (in particular) that is fresh out of the dry kiln is a real pain; letting it sit for 6 months or so will allow the internal stresses of the drying process to start to even out. Other woods will probably be the same to lesser or greater extents.
A friend and I were about to start building a cherry armoire a few years ago, and we purchased the 8/4 lumber from a reputable (thankfully) lumber dealer in Nashville. It was pretty -- bright cherry color and straight. When we brought it into my shop, my friend, more experienced with commercial lumber sources, cut a couple of inches off several of the boards. Inside each one were a series of lens shaped checks, totally invisible from the outside, called honey-combing, that is an indication that the lumber was dried too rapidly. It had been put straight from the sawmill into the dry kiln. The outside dried rapidly, shrank a bunch, and compressed the softer, wet inner area beyond its limit of elasticity. When this inner area dried, it also shrank, pulling itself apart in the lens shaped cracks. Fortunately, the purveyer gave us our money back, even tho a few boards were shorter by a few inches. We replaced them with lumber from a place that air dried their lumber first, which meant that it was gray instead of bright. We had no trouble with it.
A drying story with a slightly different twist: I bought some black locust for a deck on my house, stickered it under some old roofing metal, and let it mostly dry before using it (tho not so dry as to get totally unworkable.) When I installed the deck floor, I spaced the boards the recommended 1/8" apart. It turns out that the MC in use is significantly higher than the wood was in the stack, and the cracks have almost completely closed, which means the crud doesn't fall thru properly. So here is a situation where the wood needed to be wetter.
Any more questions, be sure to ask.
JHarveyB
JHarvyB: Thanks for that most complete answer. I've taken three (?) things from it:
1) I need a meter
2) The way the wood is processed and where its been after is very important
3) Grey is a good color (Cherry only?)
3a) Cherry is a pain
4) Wood can be too dry
5) Where the final destination is for the piece or boards matters
6) When in doubt cut off a bit and look inside
7) I've got soooo much to learn
Thanks again, KDM
PS I've ordered a copy of "Understanding Wood" by Bruce Hoadley, is that a good source?<!----><!----> <!---->
Kenneth Duke Masters<!---->
The Bill of Rights December 15 1791<!---->
NRA Endowment Member<!---->
LEAA Life Member<!---->
CRPA Member<!---->
<!----> <!---->
Let me add to that grey is good comment. It takes from 3 to 19 months here depending on the species of wood for the wood to turn grey. during that time reaction wood is likely to do it's thing! Warp, curve, bend, dance, or jump up and do the hootchie kootchie.
thus as you sort thru the stack the worst offenders can be sent to pay for their sins (fireplace wood anybody? while particularly critical wood will be those that remain straight and true..
All you need to do is move your wood in your shop well in advance of your project. Buy kiln dried lumber from a reputable dealer. Don't buy noticeably warped stock from your dealer - wood bought flat often, but not always, stays flat. Why hassle with stuff you know is going to cause a problem. Occasionally it's worth it for boards with eye-popping figure.
A meter doesn't do you much good unless your dealer will let you pin the stock in the bin and that's a BIG IF. If they are reputable they are probably justified in telling you "no" to metering. Usually these dealers will take reaction wood back for a refund or replacement. What they want you to do is trust what's in the bin and that's reasonable as long as they'll take back the bad stuff. They know some of it will come back from time to time. Don't be sheepish, but don't take one or two boards back for a refund.
Once the wood is acclimated to your shop (two weeks minimum) what else are you going to do or could you do? Not a whole lot. Make the project. As you are selecting individual boards for the project reject noticeably warped boards. Warped meaning all the usual defects although you of course can and must deal with light to moderate cup, bow, and twist. It is the rare board that's perfect.
If you pick a board up and it feels unusually heavy (vs. other boards in the batch about the same size) then set it aside. It's probably too wet. Oh well, one got through. No big deal. This is why virtually everybody buys WASTE FACTOR - for your screwups and for a bad board or two.
In a perfect world you would have a centrally heated and cooled shop that basically matched the environment in which the piece will live. Barring that, all you can really do is buy your stock and let it settle down before you use it. If it makes you feel good to sticker it then do so. You don't have to. Improper stickering will not help the cause. If you do sticker, then space them about a foot apart. If you're going to do it might as well do it. You don't want to induce warpage by spacing them too far apart. Always use sticker material that is matched in thickness. Sticker on top of a sheet of plywood.
Will you occasionally be disappointed by a board that moves after it's been placed in the project? Oh hell yes. That's part of it. There is no single cure. I can assure you that stickering is not a cure-all or a panacea.
Skim plane both sides and cut a half inch off of each end when you bring an order into your shop. This is assuming you're buying rough-sawn lumber and you should be. When I say skim plane I mean just that - take a smidgen off - some parts won't get hit. Don't worry. I skim plane with a jack plane. If you're using rough-sawn stock you're going to have to be able to see grain and color anyway. Can't look for these attributes unless you skim it.
There are two appraoches that people take. One is they carefully select and sort and buy exactly what they need. for a given project they may pay say $150.00
Others will order $150.00 worth of wood at wholesale prices from the sawmill get 100 times the amount of wood and select perfect boards from those. The down side is you'll have a lot of wood laying around..
as for selecting wood by weight, it doesn't often work that way.. Look at the grain, are they very close together? Another words old growth stuff? Those boards will be much heavier. I've noticed too that boards with a lot of burl or knots in them will also be heavier than straight grain stuff is..
I whole heartedly agree with you regarding buying wood rough.
I still set unusually heavy boards aside, unless I have a gun to my head. I've been amazed over the years that those I have set aside were much lighter two months later. However, your point is well taken and I'll keep it in mind.
If I get a bad feeling about a board I do my best to reject it and find something else in the pile that looks like it will work.
Hi Duke-----I have read most all the replies to your question about stickering. There is some truth in all of them. I too worked with a millwork company for about 5 years. There are several things to take into consideration-----is it air dried or kiln dried? What is the average moisture content in the area you live? What are you making and where will it be used(inside or outside) ? So------I do not believe there is any one concrete answer to your question. I have even read where it is suggested to rough cut the project parts(such as pieces for a table) and put them in the actual area it is to be used for a period of six weeks with stickers to let it acclimate!! Regardless of how much care you take with the issue of stacking, wood sometimes has a mind of its own. Take all the precaution you feel is warranted-----but remember we can not control nature.
Regards, walnutjerry
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