I’m going to be starting on my new house in the next few weeks. There are some very large longleaf pines on the lot. I’m thinking about having them taken to a small custom mill up the road and having them cut into 4×8’s for my beams. I can do this for less than new ones and I like the idea of saving the trees which would otherwise go to the paper mill.
How long would it take these beams to air cure in my garage in Pensacola?
Are there other problems I haven’t considered?
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A standard rule for simple air drying is approx. 1 year per inch of thickness. Of course this can all be varied by local climates ; location of stack ; exposure (wind -sun). So u can see that alot of timber frame house beams are still relatively "green". Now theres a place near here that has developed a form of microwave drying that can dry a 12"x12" in a day! Increased price somewhat but one of added benefits is reduced wieght for shipping and handling.
Pine would be one of faster drying species but theres still alot of water in those beams that has to evaporate especially in spring and summer (tho in tropical enviorments theres a lot less variation in take up of sap cause the tree is slowly plugging along all year as opposed to decidous trees up north here).
Hi Tree - I guess I'll have to let it go unless I can find a kiln of some kind. I can't wait 4 years for beams. I HATE wasteing trees!!
It depends on what type of product you want in the end. I milled some smallish firs into 8X8 beams for supporting my deck. The trees had been laying on the ground for less than a month, I had them milled and we installed the beams the next day. Likewise with some hand-pealed log posts (cedar). Sure, they've checked and probably shrunk a bit since then, but there are no structural problems.
My exposed 3X12 rafters were also milled from green fir. In fact my whole log and timber package was all green wood. No issues. Pics attached.
Scott.
Always remember those first immortal words that Adam said to Eve, “You’d better stand back, I don’t know how big this thing’s going to get.”
thetigger,
This is where a little bit of knowledge is trouble..
You know for example that wood right from the tree is green and that can't be good.. what you don't know is that most wood comes right from the tree with almost no time at all in the kiln.
Wood that is used to build a house is stamped either KD19 or SD 19
that means kiln dried to 19% moisture. (plus or minus 2%) or SD 19% moisture..
So the wood used to build houses all over the nation is about 19% moisture content.. (to start with)
Now here's the gimmick.. Wood sawn during much of the year can easily be only 22% moisture or less Only briefly during the spring after a wet spring will wood ever be as high as 25% moisture.. Thus for most trees to dry the wood a few percent all that needs to happen is the wood sits in the holding yard for a few weeks.. In Fact in some places wood is sawn in say Oregon or Washington by the time it reaches the Calfornia border it's near the SD19% rate and definately will be at the SD19% rate if it goes to southern Calfornia.
If you intend to make furniture out of the wood you'll want to go ahead and dry the wood all the way down to around 7% moisture.* Trust me there is much more to this but I'm trying to keep it simple and not confuse you.
The ultimate gimmick is the KD stamp.. Often the bunker of wood is rolled into the kiln stamped and then rolled out very seldom does it stay in the kiln for any real time at all. It's not quite that simple in that they do have to have the kiln at a tempurature high enough to kill insect larva in order to properly have the KD stamp on it..
Now someone spoke about one inch per year.. Well again a little bit of knowledge is a terrible thing.. Assuming we are seeking furniture grade of moisture The aforementioned 7% moisture rating. It really depends on where we are talking ABOUT.. In the humid areas of the country it won't achieve full "dryness even at that rate and the thicker the timbers is the length of time it takes to dry wood to that mythical 7% goes up almost by the square..
Now grab your moisture meter (you do own one don't you? If you live near here come on over and borrow mine) You're gonna get really confused because there is a differance between bonded moisture and simple moisture content. Basically what that's all about is wood that is still green but dry to the touch and wood that is dried but still wet..
I'm sorry I'm starting to have a little fun with you and showing off my knowledge, if you really want the full skinny go over to knots and ask the same question..
Short and sweet, use the wood as it comes from the sawmill and don't worry.. it will dry to well below 19% during the summer and during the first heating season it will get well below any point of trouble..
There are some real reasons to use it nowand a little advisory information you might like if you want to obsess.
They can't shrink very much - at least in the length direction - they are going to hold up the second floor
( 14' 4x8's on 48" centers covered by 2x6 T&G ).
Do you really have a moisture meter? Where does one buy one of these little devils? Or is it like a left handed screwdriver?
thetigger.
Really! Mine is a mini Lingo something. I paid about $99.00 for it.. Most fine wood working stores sell them Mini Lingo is kinda the standard unless you want to really spend money for one.. Seven Corners.com will sell you one..
Don't waste your money.. unless you plan on buying a lot of wood and making furnature out of it..
Frenchy, thanks for that post. Very enlightening.
Allen
Frenchy - At the risk of sounding like a complete idiot - does lumber shrink equally in all 3 dimensions?
thetigger,
No it shrinks the most across grain the least length wise and some minor amounts of thickness.. If you'll give me the species involved I'll be glad to look up the exact amounts of shrinkage.
Try this to calculate the drying effects.http://www.woodbin.com/calcs/shrinkulator.htm
Frenchy - It was described by the enviromental guy as "LONGLEAF PINE" which I assume is ####variety of SYP.
another option to help speed things up a bit, is to put the beams up on some saw horses in the garage and then run a fan or two to circulate the air and if you have one, run a dehumidifer in there as well - that will take them down to usable beams in a couple of weeks.1 - measure the board twice, 2 - cut it once, 3 - measure the space where it is supposed to go 4 - get a new board and go back to step 1
Darn it Frenchy, it was just getting good and you stopped it.
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
Frenchy: how many board feet in a bunker ?
Here i buy by the lift (500 bd ft )
dude,
A bunker is whatever the mill owner says it is. There it may be 500 bd. ft. here it's around 1000 bd. ft. When I say around 1000 it could be 1132 or 961 or whatever it winds up being.
Often it's a matter of how many bd.ft. of a given grade/type of wood are sawn that day.. for example it could be 888 bd.ft. of #2b 5/4 black ash and 675 bd.ft. of #1 5/4 black ash and 917 bd. ft. of well,... you get the idea!
"Wow, a little bit of knowledge is a really dangerous thing.."It certianly is.As several other have pointed out S-DRY means surfaced dry, not shipped dry.Now I am looking at Hoadley, which I trust much more than you."Wood seldom gets much above 22%-23% moisture when it's growing!"He only gives a few example for fiber saturation point but they range from 22-24% in redwood and mahogany to 35% for birch.But there is also free water."Wood is intrees is wet. VERY WET. The cell structure contains excessivce water (asp) is fully swollen."And he has chart giving the average green poisture content a number of speices.The first is the heartwood and the 2nd the sawp wood.cottonwood 162%/146%
Norther red oak 80/69
white oak 64/78
walnut 90/73western red cedar 58/249
d fir 37/115
ponderosa pine 40/148
So I understand that cottonwood has one of the highest amounts of moisture?
be a frenchmen poked in the azz with a sharp toothpick
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
I just grable a few of those that Hoadley list. But went back and looked and of those listed cottom wood is the highest for heartwood and WRC for sap wood.
Bill,
SD19 is not Sdry, not even close! It means shipped dry 19% moisture. As you point out SDRY means sufaced when dry
KD19 means Kiln dried to 19% moisture..
Saturation is the maximum moisture fibers can absorb, not the amount of moisture in the wood..
Go buy yourself a moisture meter and test a few trees before you take things out of context.. It's spring now and don't make the classic mistake of measuring new growth . bore into the tree a bit and then measure.. I'll wait... Your reading now will be as high as that wood gets..
http://forums.prospero.com/tp-breaktime/messages?msg=72161.38
There's no such thing as sd19.
"There's no such thing as sd19."Of course there is.It is a grading system used on Pluto.
I thought it was used by pluto.
The only curing lumber I know of is lignum vitae
http://www.factbites.com/topics/Lignum-vitae
Europeans perceived lignum vitae as a miracle cure for syphilis
(Sorry, couldn't resist)
Adventures in Home Building
An online journal covering the preparation and construction of our new home.
Willow cures headaches.
she didn't have a headache - that's why I now need the LV
;-)
http://jhausch.blogspot.comAdventures in Home BuildingAn online journal covering the preparation and construction of our new home.
Ok, gotcha.
Good luck with that.
hickory is good for curing.Cures hams.
Hasn't cured razzman.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
maple.
be a maple Maypole
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity