concerns about drying green maple

[Derek Larson]

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?

[Corey Wilcox]

Congrats on the excellent lumber Derek. I think it's a good idea to make sure your stickers are dry. I'm really not sure if that will reduce sticker stain, but it can't hurt and it will help prevent mold. I believe that "quickly" means within a day or so, but don't worry too much. I think you're going to have good results if your stickers are dry (they don't need to be maple) and you stack it somewhere where there's good air flow.

I have not tried using composite lumber as stickers, but I have seen that they sell composite stickers on some websites. Personally, I would be concerned that they would trap moisture against the lumber, but maybe other, more experienced folks will have more knowledge to share with you.

[Julian Nicks]

Cory, just make sure to use anything but oak for the stickers because of the tannins in it. You will want to air dry the wood to get it down to 12%-15% before putting it in the kiln.

[Lee Schierer]

I would use maple stickers to reduce the risk of staining.

[Joe Scharle]

I would use maple stickers to reduce the risk of staining.

That's what I've done with maple. Went to the lumber yard; picked up some maple scrap ends (clean) and cut up a bunch of stickers. What shadowing I had planned right off. Not deep.
I also keep a box fan blowing on my wet stacks. I think it helps.

[Scott T Smith]

PVC pipe works well for stickers in applications such as yours. Use either 1/2" or 3/4" pipe.

No stain. The composite decking should work well too. The nice thing about PVC is that the contact area is extremely small, thus less room for moisture to be trapped and the resulting stain.

If you use wood stickers - be sure that they are dry and not green.

Also be sure to put end sealer on your boards.