We had a storm last year that blew down 5 large pine trees in my
yard. My friend cut them into 4/4 and 8/4, 8 feet long and 10-14
inches wide. I have them stacked with 1" square scrap sticks between
boards. The 8/4, 18 each, are stacked in the boat house, open to the
air at both ends, and the 4/4, about 24 each, are stacked in the
heated garage/work shop. I will paint the ends today with some paint
to seal the ends. I will not need the boards till this winter at the
soonest.

I will use the 8/4 stuff for raised flower beds, some table tops,
or whatever, and the 4/4 for furniture.

Lessons learned so far: It's good to have a chain saw! It's good
to have a friend with an almost portable saw mill. It's good to have
a pickup that tolerated gross overloading (Chevy S-10!) That wet wood
is REALLY heavy! That the wood is beautiful, that pine with the blue
areas, and many free of knots . That Flexall 4-5-4 is on sale at
Walmart!

So... what am I forgetting?

On Fri, 6 Jun 2008 10:34:25 -0700 (PDT), rich
wrote:

We had a storm last year that blew down 5 large pine trees in my
yard. My friend cut them into 4/4 and 8/4, 8 feet long and 10-14
inches wide. I have them stacked with 1" square scrap sticks between
boards. The 8/4, 18 each, are stacked in the boat house, open to the
air at both ends, and the 4/4, about 24 each, are stacked in the
heated garage/work shop. I will paint the ends today with some paint
to seal the ends. I will not need the boards till this winter at the
soonest.

I will use the 8/4 stuff for raised flower beds, some table tops,
or whatever, and the 4/4 for furniture.

Lessons learned so far: It's good to have a chain saw! It's good
to have a friend with an almost portable saw mill. It's good to have
a pickup that tolerated gross overloading (Chevy S-10!) That wet wood
is REALLY heavy! That the wood is beautiful, that pine with the blue
areas, and many free of knots . That Flexall 4-5-4 is on sale at
Walmart!

So... what am I forgetting?


I had a large 80' pine tree fall 2 months ago. So far I have stripped
the branches. I turned some, but it is very wet. I plan on cutting a
few 2x2' slabs to be used as chair seats. I have so much pine and can
not give it away. It takes about 1 year to dry an inch, and if dried
too quickly it will split. You may need a moisture meter.

rich wrote:
I will paint the ends today with some paint
to seal the ends. I will not need the boards till this winter at the
soonest.

They probably won't be dry by then. Normally a rough guess is 1 year
per inch, then some more time in the shop to acclimatize after
rough-cutting to size.

A moisture meter is probably a good thing to buy, since it will save
some guesswork.

Chris

I wouldn't have guessed 1 year per inch! Sounds like I get to make
other things this winter. Pine, oak, walnut... all the same to me!

On Sat, 7 Jun 2008 06:25:50 -0700 (PDT), rich wrote:

I wouldn't have guessed 1 year per inch! Sounds like I get to make
other things this winter. Pine, oak, walnut... all the same to me!

In my experience, pine dries much faster than other, harder woods, especially in
a warm climate..

I'd keep a close eye on it and mist them once in a while, assuming the ends are
well sealed..
Never dried pine boards, but bowl blanks, even with the pith cut out, tend to
dry very fast and crack a LOT.. YMWV


mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

On Sat, 07 Jun 2008 10:46:32 -0700, mac davis
wrote:

On Sat, 7 Jun 2008 06:25:50 -0700 (PDT), rich wrote:

I wouldn't have guessed 1 year per inch! Sounds like I get to make
other things this winter. Pine, oak, walnut... all the same to me!

In my experience, pine dries much faster than other, harder woods, especially in
a warm climate..

I'd keep a close eye on it and mist them once in a while, assuming the ends are
well sealed..
Never dried pine boards, but bowl blanks, even with the pith cut out, tend to
dry very fast and crack a LOT.. YMWV


mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

I have successfully dried pine without cracking by keeping in a large
bag of wet chips, allowing the chips to slowly dry over many weeks.
Too much moisture for too long can grow fungus. With a solar kiln,
wood can be dried in a month or two. Some wood is going to split or
crack no matter what, making drying wood somewhat of an art. I would
never attempt to make a table top with wood moisture above 10%.