Harvesting and Seasoning your own wood

[BigBoreBLR]

What do you do to get it seasoned. Do you cut it down as small as possible to get it to dry quicker.

What do you do to prevent splitting on the ends. I know commonly wax or something like it is applied to the ends.

Whats an ideal drying area comprised of.

IS there an ideal time of year to harvest stock wood.

Do you do anything to test the grains before drying begins. Like stain a spot wet to look for curl.

I got a nice 10" maple on the north face of a catskill mountain in a dry spot.

I also plan on harvesting 2 lengths of cherry.

How do you know your wood is dry. Do you weigh and measure it before and after.

What if your blank is a little bit bowed when done?

I got 2 chainsaw. One plain jane stock to crosscut. I also got a saw with a milling guide attachment with a rip saw blade. I used it to make rough lumber for hiking trail maintenance like small foot bridges.

 

[Birddog6]

There has been Umpteen posts on here about cutting trees/logs, cutting stocks, how to cut, how to store, how to dry,
how to stick the planks, how to seal them, etc...

Keith Lisle

 

[MSW]

What do you do to get it seasoned. Do you cut it down as small as possible to get it to dry quicker.

to get it seasoned you must sticker the boards ... more on this later ... as regards the thickness, this is something of a give-and-take. If you cut the slabs too thick, you have to wait longer than you need to, and you will put a lot of wood on the shop floor unnecessarily. But if you cut them too thin, you run the risk of 'running out of real estate' when you go to make the slab into a blank into a stock.

What do you do to prevent splitting on the ends. I know commonly wax or something like it is applied to the ends.

I use paraffin, which can be found at the local Agway or hardware store in the canning section. Melt this in a double boiler (the stuff is very flammable- you can also make candles out of it if you're so inclined) and then brush the melted wax on to the ends of the board ... the brush, of course, will be useless for anything else after this, so don't spend a boatload of your hard earned, God entrusted, overtaxed dollars on an expensive brush for this function.

Whats an ideal drying area comprised of.

I dry my boards (planks, blanks... not sure the proper term here...) in my basement, which is probably wrong. I think the 'school solution' is to build a proper contraption which will raise the pile above the ground at least a half a foot or so, then sticker the boards so that air can circulate in and around the pile. Cover the pile with a tarp, and set up the tarp so that it doesn't touch the boards and that rain will run off and the water will not pool. You want good air circulation: don't make a de facto water still.

I hope others will chime in ...

IS there an ideal time of year to harvest stock wood.

I don't know; all the wood I've dried has already been cut. Give your AgExtension agent a call (his number will be in the phone book; he or she works for the State University forestry department. Our agent is really helpful, and his knowledge of trees is encyclopedic.

Do you do anything to test the grains before drying begins. Like stain a spot wet to look for curl.

You will probably see what curl is there when you get the log opened up. I did. I don't think it's necessary, but your mileage may vary.

I

got a nice 10" maple on the north face of a catskill mountain in a dry spot.

I also plan on harvesting 2 lengths of cherry.

sounds like there's great potential here. I don't know if the north facing part is significant, but it might be ... the Ag agent might know

How do you know your wood is dry. Do you weigh and measure it before and after.

there are all manner of gadgets and doo- hickeys which will tell you the moisture content of the wood. problem (to my mind) is that they only tell you the moisture of the wood right there. whether you can tell if the board is dry all the way through might well be another story. I figure about an inch of board thickness for every year of waiting. Again, your mileage may vary.

What if your blank is a little bit bowed when done?

'a little bit bowed' might be correctable with some clever layout and cutting. I have heard of a steam bender, but have never tried it. Don't know what sort of internal stresses this would introduce into the board. To avoid this in the first place, you should use scrap or el- cheap- o 2x6 lumber as the top layer of the pile, weighted down with cinder blocks or something similar.

I got 2 chainsaw. One plain jane stock to crosscut. I also got a saw with a milling guide attachment with a rip saw blade. I used it to make rough lumber for hiking trail maintenance like small foot bridges.

I've never tried this, but it sounds as though it would work.

as an aside, I had no idea what sort of *&%#ing hard work was involved in this deal when I first started out ... now I understand why a stock blank in a store looks so expensive to those unaware of the 'back story.'

Good luck with your project!

 

[kaintuck]

Cut at Christmas time. Get them cut right away, into
3" planks, seal the ends where end grain is showing. Old latex paint, or fancy expensive sealer~ Get ALL bark off!!!
Stack outside, with even spacing, and rotate stack once a year. Keep the spacers even, and use same size spacers, unless you WANT warps!
Tarp cover with space between tarp and top planks.
Moister meter, or 1" per year drying....moister around 6-8.
Once they dry, you can store inside, space them again,you can dust with seven dust if you see bugs...don't use oil bug sprays...
My Amish buddies have been doing it this for decades....and they make beautiful furniture and wagons etc....and this how I do my planks....then into blanks....
It fun to make a rifle that was grown outta your property trees!

I did cut one blank the same day I cut the planks....I hung it in the corner of the shop for 3yrs. I put a fence staple in the small end, hung it with a heavy wire. We couldn't tell any warp difference than from the blanks.......it dried at the same rate.
So to save space, you could do them that way. :wink:
Marc

 

[Rifleman1776]

You asked a lot of questions there. Almost a full lessons worth on the subject.
First, split the log at least 2' longer than your planned need. Seal the ends with Anchorseal. Mill the halves to about 2 1/2" thick. Stack flat with sticks for good air circulation and forget it is there for about two years or more. When you get ready to use, bring in shop and allow to adjust to new environment for a couple days. Then cut ends off, they will be split, to the length you need. Only then start shaping to make it look like a rifle.

 

[Col. Batguano]

A 10" Maple will not give you 10" of creamy white planks. The middle 1/4-1/3 will be dark heartwood, which is usually punkier and weaker, right where the wrist is. If you want white wood, and all quarter sawn lumber, you'll need to find a maple closer to 30" in diameter, and if you want the grain at the wrist to bend, you'll need to cut the tree down below ground level. But let's say you decide to do it, and you find the right tree, and want to do it anyway. You dig and dig and dig, and fell the tree. Cut your log to a 6' length. It's still going to weigh over 1000 pounds green, and you have no idea until it's milled how much curl is going to be in there. Only 5-10% of maples have curl.

 

[Rifleman1776]

Agree.
His best way to obtain nice wood is to go to the Pecatonica tree and fertilize with green paper.
Works every time. :grin:

 

[Billnpatti]

"
What do you do to get it seasoned. Do you cut it down as small as possible to get it to dry quicker.
You need to allow for shrinkage and you want enough wood so that you can mill off all of the saw marks that your chain saw makes and enough extra length to allow for cutting off the painted ends

What do you do to prevent splitting on the ends. I know commonly wax or something like it is applied to the ends.
You can use plain old paint but it is best to buy a sealer that is specifically made for that purpose

Whats an ideal drying area comprised of.
For open air drying, you need an open area that is covered and protected from the weather. As a general rule, it takes about a year per inch of thickness. Of course kiln drying speeds this process up considerably. But, if you speed it too much, you stand a chance of increasing the cracking and checking. Some folks will take a piece of freshly cut wood and air dry it for six months or so and then put in the attic to finish drying it. The hot attic acts as a kiln.

IS there an ideal time of year to harvest stock wood.
I am not a professional wood cutter but I would think that cutting a tree in the winter when the sap is down would be best. Better check with someone else to make sure.

Do you do anything to test the grains before drying begins. Like stain a spot wet to look for curl.
Some folks can just know where the wood comes from on a tree and have a good idea of what it will look like. But, if you are not one of these people, you can sand a smooth spot on the wood and put water on it to see the grain better. I have even seen folks put mineral spirits on wood to see the grain.

I got a nice 10" maple on the north face of a catskill mountain in a dry spot.
If the tree is not straight, that is, leaning, it can likely have "stress wood" in it. Stress wood is very bad about cupping, curling and warping. You do not want lumber from any tree that is not growing straight.

I also plan on harvesting 2 lengths of cherry.

How do you know your wood is dry. Do you weigh and measure it before and after.
The best way is to use a moisture meter. They are not very expensive and if you plan to do any woodworking with wood that you cut yourself, you really need one.

What if your blank is a little bit bowed when done?"
Be careful. Be very careful about using bowed wood. Bowing can mean that the wood is stress wood and the bowing could increase as it continues to dry. However, if the bowing is slight and the wood is good and dry (less than 5% moisture) you can plane off the slight bow and use it.

 

[glw]

This is indeed a very broad subject. I'd recommend a book called "Understanding Wood" by Bruce Hoadley. It's been in print for a long time so your local public library is likely to have it (or access to it). It is very informative about how you get from a tree to useable lumber.

 

[Rifleman1776]

What if your blank is a little bit bowed when done?"
Be careful. Be very careful about using bowed wood. Bowing can mean that the wood is stress wood and the bowing could increase as it continues to dry. However, if the bowing is slight and the wood is good and dry (less than 5% moisture) you can plane off the slight bow and use it.

Don't risk. :shake: Find another tree and start over. BTW, a jointer is preferable for flattening bowed wood over a planer.
BTW Pedersoli hangs their rough and shaped blanks by the ends for at least two years to make sure they don't bow. That is after a couple years of both kiln and air drying.

 

[Billnpatti]

I was thinking more in terms of hand planing. But, you are right if you have a joiner that is large enough.

 

[tenngun]

enjoied this post, but was a thinking,as i have used a lot of my own cut for small projects only, Was not stock wood often water cured in the old days?, I know that can be a might slow.
I did have a a friend who had cut a walnut for fire wood some years ago. I was just walking buy his wood pile when I noticed it. Mind if I take a piece I asked, he told me to help myself. I got a good hunk I was able to make a pistol stock out of

 

[zimmerstutzen]

I located some very naturally colorful wild damson wood. I cut it in length and sprayed the ends with pruning sealer. I left the bark on and stacked it in a basement to keep it from drying too fast. None was big enough for planks but lots of uses for crafts, horn plugs, knife scales et

 

[glw]

I've gone through the process before and it can be pretty fun. If you’ve gone through all the sweat to create boards from a section of tree trunk, then it isn’t that much more work to flatten it with a hand plane. In fact, that’s child’s play compared to the lumberjack work.

I’ve used firewood as well. You can never tell until you get into it whether the wood is worth using but you should try it anyway. You can find some beautiful figure in firewood. About half the time, I find that there are some small checks (cracks) inside the wood or perhaps a hole left by insects/worms. If you plane one face of a chunk of firewood and wipe on some mineral spirits or some such (almost anything will work) you will immediately see what the figure will look like and it’s pretty fun to see what comes out.

It is also true that the wood will occasionally warp pretty badly when you plane and/or cut it to size but that can happen with wood from the lumber yard too. It’s relatively rare in my experience. I have dried wet wood before too and I just painted the ends with some leftover latex paint which was NOT the proper thing to use. My friend had some wood from the same tree and he actually bought the right stuff which resulted in less cracking at the ends.

 

[Billnpatti]

I was once given a chunk of beautifully figured Maple by a friend. It was left over from a project of his. It measured about 10 inches wide by 18 inches long and was a full 2 inches thick. I decided that it would make a great pistol stock so I put it in my lumber stack in the garage and forgot about it for a few months while I worked on other projects. One day I saw it and decided to start making a pistol stock. I sawed out a blank but then ran into other projects so it lingered in my lumber pile again for a couple months. When I went to start work on it again, the butt had cracked lengthwise as if it was trying to split into two halves. It was only a tiny crack in width but was pretty deep. I was determined to save it if it was possible. I put some thin slow setting Super Glue into the crack and used a thin sheet of paper to work it all the way to the bottom of the crack. I then put a couple very large C clamps on it to force the crack shut. I left the clamps on for about a month...I was in no hurry. When I removed the clamps, the crack was gone....disappeared. I wanted to make sure that the crack wouldn't open up again and ruin my work so I have let it sit for about 4 years to see if the crack would open up again. So far, it looks perfect. Now, if I could only get my butt into gear and turn it into a finished stock........

 

[GunnyGene]

Everything you need to know about it:
http://www.woodweb.com/cgi-bin/forums/sawdry.pl