Got my sawmill up and running!!! TIME TO MILL!!!

[HawkinsHollow]

Load of 1x ash trim, oak and black walnut going in the kiln! Lucky to have a kiln 7 minutes away from my work. Prices aren't that bad. $0.75/ bdft for 1st week, $0.50 each additional week.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

Load of 1x ash trim, oak and black walnut going in the kiln! Lucky to have a kiln 7 minutes away from my work. Prices aren't that bad. $0.75/ bdft for 1st week, $0.50 each additional week.
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Those prices don't seem like a good deal to me, especially since in my 40+ years of woodworking I've never got one stick of lumber kiln dried, and I owned a custom furniture shop for many of those years.

Then there's the fact that different species and especially different thickness' of lumber need different drying schedules in the kiln, you can't just lump everything together and expect a good outcome.

Lastly, using Anchorseal and learning how to do a bit better job of stickering will do more to get you a better grade of lumber, in the end.

SR

 

[HawkinsHollow]

Those prices don't seem like a good deal to me, especially since in my 40+ years of woodworking I've never got one stick of lumber kiln dried, and I owned a custom furniture shop for many of those years.

Then there's the fact that different species and especially different thickness' of lumber need different drying schedules in the kiln, you can't just lump everything together and expect a good outcome.

Lastly, using Anchorseal and learning how to do a bit better job of stickering will do more to get you a better grade of lumber, in the end.

SR

Someday I hope to be just like you, maybe a little less surly!

 

[ponytug]

I think that pricing can be pretty local. In the initial period of starting up a wood business, I also can see how there is a time cost to waiting for the initial lumber to be dry enough for the desired uses as well.

@Sawyer Rob With respect to the kiln loading photo above and given what @HawkinsHollow posted about the young business, I might rationalize the mixed loading as expediency, and getting some 1 by lumber fully dry while starting the drying process on the thicker slabs. Not ideal, I know, but not the end of the world either, in my opinion. Personally, I'm a big Anchorseal fan personally as I think it solves many issues and improves the yield of usable lumber.

All the best,

Peter

 

[HawkinsHollow]

Those prices don't seem like a good deal to me, especially since in my 40+ years of woodworking I've never got one stick of lumber kiln dried, and I owned a custom furniture shop for many of those years.

Then there's the fact that different species and especially different thickness' of lumber need different drying schedules in the kiln, you can't just lump everything together and expect a good outcome.

Lastly, using Anchorseal and learning how to do a bit better job of stickering will do more to get you a better grade of lumber, in the end.

SR

I use latex paint to paint the ends of my logs. Look at my trailer pic. If you could offer some advice on how I could have stickered it better I am all ears.

So you are telling me that every one of these $80,000 4000 bdft. vacuum kilns spread throughout the USA are full of the exact same thickness and species of wood. You crazy!

 

[plowhog]

So you are telling me that every one of these $80,000 4000 bdft. vacuum kilns spread throughout the USA are full of the exact same thickness and species of wood. You crazy!

It is considered poor practice to mix species or even mix varied wood moisture content in a kiln ...

 

[plowhog]

in my 40+ years of woodworking I've never got one stick of lumber kiln dried, and I owned a custom furniture shop for many of those years.

In Northern CA I've been battling bugs in the wood.

Milled up a bunch of beautiful sugar pine a while ago. Typical 1" thick and up to 24" wide. Giant tree. It came off the mill looking fantastic, beautiful, and no bug holes.

After drying, I went to use it. I wound up burning at least 50% of it to get rid of bugs. Probably more like 70%. Extremely frustrating to say the least.

4 of my sugar pine slabs survived with no bug damage. I don't need them so I tried to sell them. First question: Have they been sterilized or fumigated?

One vendor offered to buy the slabs if I would fumigate them first. He can't take a risk bringing them in the shop and possibly infecting other wood. He said a local entity does "low cost" fumigation.

I checked the price-- the cost to fumigate was almost exactly what the vendor would purchase the slabs for.

Not to be a downer but a good high quality high temp kiln can overcome this. If you don't damage or destroy your wood by using it improperly. I'm looking at a Virginia Tech solar kiln, or a Nyle kiln for next summer.

Good luck!

 

[plowhog]

If you could offer some advice on how I could have stickered it better I am all ears.

I am a novice only slightly ahead of you in years with a sawmill. Hobby only.

To me, your stickers look "pretty good" and similar to mine. But careful readjustment to make sure they are perfectly in line is recommended. You have the pile up off the floor for airflow which is good.

What might be missing are new things I am doing. I am planing the pallet bolsters to exactly 3 1/2 inches. Exactly. No variation from board to board. And I am planing the wood on top of the pallet to a consistent thickness-- no variation. Custom made pallets, maybe overkill, but they are flat!!

Somewhere I have a long document about Drying Hardwood Lumber. Over 100 pages. If I find it I will post it here. One recommendation is to put 150#'s of weight per square foot on top of the pile. For me, that is impossible.

I just bought 8 flat tractor counterweights and am using them for lumber I recently milled. So at least I have 800# although I should likely have double that. I was using bags of concrete earlier but some of them started leaking a bit ...

 

[Jstpssng]

I subscribed to Sawmill Magazine for a while. One article talked about sticking lumber, and described having a rack to the rear of the pile, with channel steel every 2 feet to line up the ends of the stickers so that they'd be perfectly in line.

A few years back on a tour of a hardwood mill, the owner said that to reduce staining, their stickers are of the same species as the lumber.

For my own use I don't need anything that fancy; although I may be bringing in some red pine logs to saw for flooring, and will be a little more diligent about how I handle it.

 

[plowhog]

to reduce staining, their stickers are of the same species as the lumber.

I was told wood boring beetles are either the "soft wood" or "hard wood" type. So he uses softwood pallets for hardwood stacking, and the reverse. It would contain the beetles to one pallet only.

Using the same stickers makes sense. I didn't realize that after kiln drying you have to wait a while for the stickers to regain some moisture.