"Greg Lyman" wrote in message
...
Our rule of thumb here in the desert (Albuquerque, NM) for air drying most
hardwoods to EMC is one inch per year plus a year. Tracking the change in
weight tends to confirm that this is a pretty good guide for this climate,
at least for the wood I get. I'm just interested in reducing this time to
reduce storage space. Thanks again for the references.

Well, that rule of thumb is for planks drying in outdoors New England. Also
assumes spring saw. Winter produces no drying. FPL experimental data shows
a summer's dry as adequate for most domestics. My rule of reality in
Michigan is to take 4/4 planks of local hardwoods (hard maple, cherry,
birch) sawed in June after the crops are in, sticker and stack for the
summer. Bring indoors in October when the nights get cold. Sticker, stack
in basement, and by January the stuff's at 6% by meter and oven dry.

Of course, you're not drying planks, and end grain dries at 10-15 times the
rate of face grain. Scientific and valid. That's the bad news. With solid
pieces short relative to their thickness, accommodating the drying schedule
to the end grain while waiting out the slower lateral (inverse square rule)
transfer from cell to cell takes special effort. It's the good news when
you speak of roughed containers with any depth, because no place is more
than an inch or so from open air through end grain.