how to saw up some maple logs

[Nelson Howe]

We just took down a large sugar maple off the farm. The tree was almost completely dead (around here it's seven years bad luck to cut down a live one), with all but one of the branches bare and punky, and rot in the crotch. There is, however, no rot in the logs. I have three twelve foot logs, the thickest 30" in diameter, to saw up. I don't have a specific project in mind (though the wife mentioned kitchen cabinets), and I'd like to arrive at the sawyer's with a plan when we start to mill the logs. The heart wood on the butt log has a ring around it where it is loose from the rest of the tree.

My inclination at this point is to flitch saw the log until we get close to the loose heart wood, and then quarter saw out the center sections on either side of the heartwood, and then go back to flitch sawing.

What would you folks recommend?

I'm inclined to do mostly 4/4 on the flitch sawing and 8/4 on the quarter sawing.

What would you folks recommend?

I'm assuming that if the stars lined up and some of the wood was figured, flitch sawing would be the best way to deal with that.

My plan is to air dry all of this wood.

As far as drying, I have a dirt floored garage that will be empty. I plan to put down plastic, build a crib out of cement blocks and 4x4s and stack and sticker the wood in the garage. I am in southern New Hampshire. Does anyone see any problem with that arrangement?

Thanks for the input,

Nelson

[Frank Drew]

Sounds like you've got a pretty good plan, Nelson; I might cut the boards a bit thicker, say a good 5/4 from the largest logs, to allow for flattening once the boards moved a bit with drying, and maybe even some 12- or even 16/4 somewhere in there, for leg stock. You could use shorter logs for that.

If you could encourage a bit of air movement through your garage, maybe by opening a back door or some windows, the wood might dry a bit better. If you do stack them in the garage I don't know if you have to put plastic down first unless you know that the dirt floor gets really wet at times. In any case, getting the wood up off the ground with blocks and timbers is right on the money. Have a LOT of stickering material ready to go; it takes more than you'd think. You could put some of the thickest stuff on top for weight.

If you have a shaded site outdoors that gets some air circulation,that would also work well; if you do go the outdoor route, you could lay some weighted down sheet metal or exterior plywood on top of your pile to keep the worst of the weather off.

[Nelson Howe]

Thanks. No the floor doesn't really get wet. I was just thinking about transpiration. But I would be happier not bothering. I'll open a window, and maybe put a fan in it to keep the air moving. I'm really not in a hurry, but wondered how long it would take to air dry 16/4.

Would you have much concern about fungus in the garage, or just slower drying do to less air movement?

Nelson

[Frank Drew]

I think a little bit of both, at least in the early months.

As for the 16/4, that would take a long, long time to dry, but then you'd have some nice stuff that's hard to come by most places. I don't know, maybe up there in maple country you can readily find really thick stock and so it wouldn't be worth bothering with yourself; years ago I brought some 4x4s back from doing a bit of work in Vermont.

Another thing to consider is your stickering material; I'm sure you know this already, but don't use something like oak with all that tannin -- it can stain your maple deep enough to create a permanent blemish.

And one other thing -- it's never too late to end coat the logs, as a bit of insurance against checking.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

rot in the crotch.

In all the various ways that expression might be used it seems there is not one single example of where that might be anything but bad.



My inclination at this point is to flitch saw the log Hmm well, it would appear that you don't need to be told anything at all about cutting up lumber.

Unless you want some rift sawn for the stability. George Nakashim's favorite cut (flitch/through) while pretty, isn't as stable as rift, but it does make for powerful big pieces. So it's really all about what you want.

[Mike Cruz]

Hehe, if it stays wet enough in there, you might get some spalting.

I have to agree that you should cut them at least 5/4 to allow for flattening out the boards. I had a swamp maple (that's what the local lumber mill guy around here called it...I just would have said soft maple) that was about 20-22" in diameter come down from a storm. I brought 2 five foot sections to my local mill (literally 5 minutes from my house) to get cut in half for fire pit benches. He reccommended taking two 6/4 slabs from the center of each of the two 5 foot logs because each bench (1/2 of a 5 foot log) would be too heavy. I took his advice. Thank goodness. Those things were HEAVY.

The point (sorry for the long story) is that the four middle slabs I got did cup significantly (about 3/4 - 1 inch) over the width of the board...even with kiln drying. Not sure what I'm gonna do with them yet. Right now, they're just taking up space.

[David Keller NC]

Nelson - I'd strongly consider what your primary interest is when woodworking before flitch-sawing all of these into 5/4. That's highly appropriate if you like to make large case pieces where wide panels of 4/4 are needed.

However, if you like to make chairs, boxes, or tables, I think you will find that having lots of 5/4 (dries to 4/4) stock will be a bit of a liability, even though you'll have some 16/4 from the center of the log.

What I'd do is saw the top and bottom 1/3 of the log as 10/4, the next couple of inches as 5/4 to get the widest possible thin panels, and the rest of it as 12/4 for legs. This is just about an ideal mix for building tables, when one usually wants 8/4 for aprons, 12/4 for legs, and 5/4 wide pieces for the top.

Finally, if one or more of the logs shows heavy figure, then I'd consider having the sawyer "saw for grade" - this procedure means flipping the cants after every cut or so to get the highest grade boards from the log.

[Nelson Howe]

That sounds like a very good idea. I'd like to have as many options for the wood as possible, as well as making the most of the wide logs. 16/4 is going take maybe as much as four years to air dry?

Anyone else think the garage would be a mistake for a drying location?

Nelson

[Frank Drew]

16/4 is going take maybe as much as four years to air dry?

A rule of thumb is a year per inch, plus a year; I'd add more because in my experience longer air drying is better than shorter. Also, if you do cut some 12- or 16/4 material, don't have it sawn into 3x3s or 4x4s right away because in drying the wood will likely lose its right angle corners, turning into parallelograms. Strong 3x4 or 4x5 would be safer unless you're leaving the thick stuff in wide slabs.


Anyone else think the garage would be a mistake for a drying location? Mistake? No. Perhaps not ideal, though, if you can't get some air circulation in there.

I agree with David to get a variety of thicknesses out of your logs, 5/4 through whatever; I initially recommended 5/4 to dissuade you from cutting all your wide boards into 4/4.

[David Keller NC]

That sounds like a very good idea. I'd like to have as many options for the wood as possible, as well as making the most of the wide logs. 16/4 is going take maybe as much as four years to air dry?

Anyone else think the garage would be a mistake for a drying location?

Nelson

Nelson - I've milled and dried a fair amount of wood from the tree, though I did it the very hard way - with a hand-pushed chainsaw lumber mill.

I would not recommend putting the freshly-sawn wood in your garage. When the tree is first felled and slabbed up, the wood has as much as 30% MC. That MC is distributed between "free water" and "bound water". The free water is like what a sponge holds before you wring it out, the bound water is like what a sponge has in it after you wring it out and before it shrinks and hardens.

The free water will evaporate relatively quickly, and you actually want to slow this down a bit. Stashing a big stack of freshly cut wood in your garage may do two undesirable things - put a lot of humidity in your garage to rust things, and if it's air conditioned or just hot, it may evaporate too much of the water in the wood too quickly.

This can lead to case-hardening and honeycombing of the wood. The outside dries way too quickly, and shrinks around the still-wet interior. The differential hydraulic force extensively checks the exterior, and can force a bunch of internal checks (called "honey combing").

Instead, you will be far better off by building a flat, straight foundation out of cement blocks and treated 4X4's, stacking a stickering the wood, and putting a piece of roofing tin, or outdoor plywood over the top to keep the sun and rain off. Weight down the roofing tin or plywood to minimize warping of the top boards on the stack, and use upholsterer's scrim, visqueen, or other guaze-type material as a curtain around the stack to keep the wind from blowing through it and the sun off of it.

Generally speaking, I find that wood dries a heck of a lot faster than 1 year per inch of thickness, but I also live in NC where the sun is very hot in the summer. Generally, I find that 1 year outside in a stack is more than sufficient to dry the wood down to about 12% no matter how thick it is, and at that point I move it into my shop for another 6 months or so, which brings it down to a workable 8%MC.

One final comment about the sawing of your logs. Leg stock generally looks considerably better if its rift-sawn rather than quartersawn. The reason is that with rift-sawn wood, all 4 sides of the leg will have nearly identical grain patterns. With quartersawn wood, 2 faces will have flat grain, and 2 faces will have quartersawn grain. In maple, these two grain orientations look really different, and can be distracting in a finished leg.

[Al Weber]

First of all, get the ends sealed with either AnchorSeal or latex paint. Basically any good sawyer is going to saw 1/8" over what you ultimately want in thickness. That is, if you want 4/4, he will saw at 1 1/8", for 8/4 he will saw at 2 1/4".

I'd recommend you buy a moisture meter to monitor things. Here in southwestern NH, my cherry lumber dries in about 6 months when started in the fall. However, maple seems to take a lot longer, especially sugar maple. If the tree has been dead for a number of years, it won't have been taking up much moisture recently so it may be fairly dry to start. However, you need to know where you are starting. I've never sawn maple thicker than 5/4 so I don't have any experience with thicker material however. My 8/4 to 12/4 cherry has been drying for about 2 years and is still not dry.

Where ever you plan to dry, make sure you have a lot of air movement, especially to start. I dry in the lower part of a barn with stairwells that lead to an attic with an open cupola. I get huge amounts of air flow summer and winter. If you don't have enough air movement you will likely get some blue stain, especially this year. Make sure you use 1" stickers, dry and clean. Sticker about every 24" or less and weight the stack with cinder blocks or something heavy. In my experience, maple tends to move a lot, especially flitch saw that is near the bark.

Good luck. It is well worth it.

[Heather Thompson]

Nelson,

There was an article in the April 2009 (No. 204) FWW that addresses drying your own lumber, most of the information you have been getting here has been sound, but it may be worth your time to do the read.

David Spacht wrote the article, he ownes and operates Spacht Sawmill in Fairview Village PA, so I would venture that he knows a thing or two abought the nature of the beast.

Heather

[Frank Drew]

Stashing a big stack of freshly cut wood in your garage may do two undesirable things - put a lot of humidity in your garage to rust things, and if it's air conditioned or just hot, it may evaporate too much of the water in the wood too quickly.

This can lead to case-hardening and honeycombing of the wood. The outside dries way too quickly, and shrinks around the still-wet interior. The differential hydraulic force extensively checks the exterior, and can force a bunch of internal checks (called "honey combing"). You must have very aggressive weather down there, David; I don't think I've ever seen honeycombing in air dried lumber, certainly not in lumber that's been dried out of the sun.


... use upholsterer's scrim, visqueen, or other guaze-type material as a curtain around the stack to keep the wind from blowing through it and the sun off of it.The gauze-type material I guess I can see, it might work as a sun-screen, but isn't visqueen just plastic sheeting, and why stack out of doors if you want to keep the wind from blowing through your wood?

[David Keller NC]

"You must have very aggressive weather down there, David; I don't think I've ever seen honeycombing in air dried lumber, certainly not in lumber that's been dried out of the sun."

It depends on the species. I've never seen it in red oak or softwood species, but definitely in maple and beech.

I may not have the name of the material correct (VisQueen) - I'm think of the kind of stuff that gets put up on the fencing surrounding tennis courts. The primary reason I advise against moving freshly-sawn wood indoors is the low humidity, which can dry the outside way too fast.

[David Keller NC]

Addendum - A local sawyer and SMC member sent me a PM noting that my dead-green MC numbers were wrong for maple - it's about 90% MC when it's freshly cut, not 30%. My number was based on measurement by the oven-drying method, but the wood had been cut for about a week before I got around to measuring it.

Given the correct number, I think I'd be more worried about rusting the crap out of everything in a shop if I stacked a bunch of freshly-sawn wood in a shop more so than damaging the wood (the tools are worth more money!).

[Frank Drew]

Absolutely; I'd never bring green wood into a shop or house -- that's asking for trouble. In Nelson's case, however, his thought is to bring it into a dirt floored garage, which shouldn't be too problematic for anything else that's stored in there.

[Nelson Howe]

Thanks again for all the input. I've been vacationing the last few days, so I haven't been able to check back in.

As far as rift sawing now for legs, I wonder if I wouldn't do as well to quarter saw the center parts, and then resaw out the legs as rift cuts when I need them. I realize that wastes a bit of material later on, but I'm unclear as to the tradeoff of not having quartersawn stuff to use for aprons, stiles, and rails. Or is it just as easy to take the edges off a cupped flitch cut board for the quarter sawn?

While I was on vacation, I found the Woodcraft store, and picked up a gallon of Anchorseal. That goes on tomorrow.

I'm still trying to figure out the best place to dry. I did see that article in FW about how to dry lumber, and I will definitely follow that advice if I go outdoors. Hoadley's "Understanding Wood" (vacation reading) describes a similar setup, but also notes that an unheated garage is a suitable location for air drying wood. This garage is single car sized, under a barn with a dirt floor and rickety stairs to upper floor. No cupola. There is nothing in there that should suffer from moisture from the wood. One corner of the stone fondation gets wet when it rains. Air flow is probably not optimal. It seems like a secure, out of the way place that would stay out of the weather. It stays fairly cool even on a hot day (of which we are having none this summer), so I'm sure it won't dry the wood too fast. But it might encourage fungus. My other concern has to do with the red oak that came down. I think I'll get this sawed up too. It is straight, and should be pretty clear. (I'm sure I want that quarter sawn.) But if I put that in with the maple it might start to get a little crowded.

Having finally chatted with the sawyer about the logs (he wasn't there when we dropped them off), I'm finding one of my suspicions confirmed, i.e., even though I have 12' logs, I'm going to end up with shorter boards because there were a lot of branches, and there will be a lot of knots in the wood. He said I'd still get some boards out of it, but probably a lot less than I'd hoped. I've told him this is the first time I've done this, and he said this would be a good learning experience for me. I don't think he was trying to tell me I'm wasting my time, but who knows?

I've got to learn somewhere.

Let's see: I do have a moisture meter; will definitely be using that. I also have a metal detector. I don't think there's any barbed wire in the tree. It was over 100 years old, and we've been tapping it for at least 50 years, so I wouldn't be surprised to find an old spigot buried in there somewhere.

The wood near the butt end does have an interesting array of stains through it from years of tap wounds that have healed up. I don't know if I can find a way to make that attractive or not, but it is pretty cool, since the tree has been working for us all these years, and it still has the scars to prove it.

As far as stickers, I understand dry and not oak. If I get sticker material from the sawyer, I'm concerned it might be the green pine, hemlock or ash scraps that he's sawing up for the house he's going to build. Would that be too wet? Should I buy framing lumber and rip it down? What do people normally do?

Thanks again,

Nelson Howe

[David Keller NC]

Nelson - I really can't answer the question about quarter-sawing the center of the maple logs other than to comment that maple has a very different look when quarter-sawn than it does when rift or flat-sawn. It's pretty much up to you as to whether you'd prefer to have quartersawn aprons on a table or case piece in combination with flat-sawn drawer fronts and rift-sawn legs.

If your'e not familiar with the different look, you might want to resaw a small scrap to get an idea before you have the logs sawn.

As for stickers, most anything can be used. In my case, I found it convenient to saw up plywood scraps for the stickers I used.

[Nelson Howe]

I'm glad you mentioned that. I was thinking in terms of stability, but I do find the look of the quarter sawn maple less appealing for aprons.

Nelson