Derek Larson
06-18-2009, 7:20 PM
Hello all,
My father cut down a large maple tree and I had a local sawyer mill it into planks. To both his surprise and mine the wood had next to little rot and almost no knots, and it is beautiful high figured maple, it is absolutely gorgeous. Well I just got it yesterday and it is stacked and stickered. After doing some research I found myself having more questions. I plan on taking it to a kiln in about three months but if necessary can take it sooner. So here are my questions:
I have read that maple is very susceptible to sticker shadow (or sticker stain), and the suggestion is to get it to the kiln quickly. Well what is the definition of quickly, one week or is up to three months air drying ok? I would really hate to stain the wood but the term quickly can be subjective. Also they say it is susceptable to sticker stain but do they mean all the stickers will stain or is it more like 2-3 will stain? I live in upstate NY if that is important. Also, I when we unloaded the wood we stacked it but it has to be moved because to my dads house. So I was gonna resticker it because I do not know if the stickers the sawyer gave us were dry, so if I resticker i was gonna get surveyors spikes at lowes because I know they are dry and uniform thickness, does it have to be maple or is being dry more important? One last question, I have a lot of scrap composite decking and I thought that would be great for sticking because I know that wood stickers can cause sticker stain, has anyone used composite decking?
My father cut down a large maple tree and I had a local sawyer mill it into planks. To both his surprise and mine the wood had next to little rot and almost no knots, and it is beautiful high figured maple, it is absolutely gorgeous. Well I just got it yesterday and it is stacked and stickered. After doing some research I found myself having more questions. I plan on taking it to a kiln in about three months but if necessary can take it sooner. So here are my questions:
I have read that maple is very susceptible to sticker shadow (or sticker stain), and the suggestion is to get it to the kiln quickly. Well what is the definition of quickly, one week or is up to three months air drying ok? I would really hate to stain the wood but the term quickly can be subjective. Also they say it is susceptable to sticker stain but do they mean all the stickers will stain or is it more like 2-3 will stain? I live in upstate NY if that is important. Also, I when we unloaded the wood we stacked it but it has to be moved because to my dads house. So I was gonna resticker it because I do not know if the stickers the sawyer gave us were dry, so if I resticker i was gonna get surveyors spikes at lowes because I know they are dry and uniform thickness, does it have to be maple or is being dry more important? One last question, I have a lot of scrap composite decking and I thought that would be great for sticking because I know that wood stickers can cause sticker stain, has anyone used composite decking?