sawing a log: what thickness and how to sticker

[Robert Reece]

In about a week I am going to have someone cut up a red oak log for me. It will produce about 1000 bd ft. Here are pictures of it http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=124451

I had the tree guys cut the trunk into three pieces - 13', 8.5' and 8.5'. That seemed to work out the best as the tree had a slight bend at 13' and then the top was somewhat bowed. So cutting that into two sections at 8.5' reduced that bow.

Now the question comes up about what thickness I should have this cut into and how I should sticker it. The 13' log is rather wide, almost 30". The 8.5' logs are about 23" at the small end.

First, what thicknesses should I have cut into -
I believe I am going to make a dining room table out some of this wood. I typically like less adorned furniture styles - so just tapered square legs and stuff like that. No turned legs, etc. Basically shaker / arts & crafts type stuff. Since the 13' log is almost 30" wide, I was thinking about making the top of the dining room table from two bookmatched slabs from the middle or close to the middle. That would give me mostly quartersawn lumber, which I like the look of. I plan on making a table that is probably around 4'x9'. I have never worked with slabs that big so it would certainly be an adventure. Without further input, I would probably cut these logs into 5/4 slabs. I figure that would give me some play to surface these things and end up with a reasonable finished thickness.

Do I want any 8/4 or 12/4 or 16/4 boards? I can envision using 16/4 for dining table legs, but it seems I could easily glue up 4/4 board to make a square leg.

Second - any advice on stacking this wood to try? I have the basics down from the Fine Woodworking article in issue #204. But I have slabs that are 13' long and 8.5' long. So the stack is going to have a step in it somehow, but I have to cover the whole thing. I just haven't figured out how that would work best.


Sorry for the long post and as always, thanks for the words of wisdom from this great group.

[James Boster]

Will try to answer some of your questions:
As for the thickness I would not cut any of it over 8/4" thick. Too hard to dry and it WILL check/split as it dries. If you need thicker than 2" then glue up for your leg stock or use 4/4 and miter the corners.
On stickering there is lots of info on the net. Start your stack with the long stuff and sticker at least every two feet. Use 3/4" or 1" thick stickers and they MUST be dry. do not use the edgings from the milling prcesss or you wil get staining.
On two slabs from the center for a bookmatch table. Agreed the slabs will be quartersawn but the pith (center) of them will split wide open. Guaranteed!. Its best to remove the pith from these as you are having the lumber cut. Anyway with a 30" log by the time its squared some the widest "slab" you will get is 24" (maximum on most band mills also). If you remove the pith from these then you are down to a couple of 10" wide truly quartersawn boards. Hope this helps.

[Robert Reece]

Thanks for the reply James.

Good idea about removing the pith in those wide slabs. I can just rip down and edge glue the best quartersawn boards to get the table top. I am sure I can end up with some nice wide boards that way.

[Scott T Smith]

Robert, James had some great advice in his post. I just loaded up some 8/4 RO slabs in my kiln last week (they have been air drying for a year), and those things still weighed over 300 lbs each. If it were me, I'd shoot for milling everything at 5/4.

A few comments. First, as it dries your quartersawn wood will shrink more in thickness than flatsawn wood. Thus, a 5/4 rough cut QS board will probably provide you with a 7/8" - 3/4" finished board.

Personally, I find that a closer sticker spacing is better for oak, and I use 16" centers.

If you flatsaw the logs, you will yield around 15% quartersawn lumber. If you choose to quartersaw them, the yield will be closer to 60%. There are significant differences in the milling style, it would be wise to make sure that your sawyer is familiar with quartersawing techniques before proceeding. You may want to consider a hybrid approach - quartersaw the largest log(s) and flatsaw the other, yielding a nice mix of grain.

Any defects in the boards - such as knots, will cause the boards to distort quite a bit adjacent to the defect.

One thing to consider - after you have your lumber stacked and stickered nicely, is to put some weight on top of the piles (on sickers of course). The targeted weight for oak is 150PSF.

Unless your big log is 30" on the small end, you will not produce 1000 bd ft from those logs. More like 700 - 800, and less if you quartersaw (due to the increased waste).

Re stacking and stickering, start with your longest boards on the bottom, and go up from there. I like to keep one end of my stacks even. Make sure that your bottom supports are dead flat from end to end, and that your boards are milled a consistent thickness (or at least make sure that each board in each row is the same thickness).

Most folks cover their stacks with some surplus tin roofing - the more that it overhangs the better (such as a foot or so all the way around). Don't cover the sides, unless you are using a product manufactured exactly for that purpose such as shade dry.

I presume that you have already applied end sealer to the ends of your logs? If not, cut them back several inches in order to remove the checking that may have started, and apply anchor seal or equivalent.

Regards,

Scott

[Roger Bullock]

Get the best saw mill operator that you can find. Sawing up a log for a farmer or a pallet company is different than cutting a log into furniture grade lumber. When you start asking them about quarter sawn, flat sawn, pith, and yields you will be able to weed out the ones that don't know what you are talking about.

A true book match set of boards is actually two boards that have been cut one on top of another not a single board that is cut through the middle of a log, regardless of if the pith is removed. Think of it like this, put your hands together flat, open your hands but keep your little fingers together (you know, like opening a book). Your little fingers are touching each other and mirror each other (same look, same grain) and each finger out mirrors its corresponding finger (grain).

To end up with two boards that will book match each other, you will have to keep these two boards together or they will become lost in the pile of other boards. You will also have to keep the correct face to face marked or you will lose track of where they are. You will have to almost be present when the logs are being cut to mark them. I mark two book matched boards with the same number ( 1-1,2-2.3-3)and put an X across the book matched direction. As mentioned above, QS can dry differently than flat sawn, so try to keep all QS together and on the same layers if possible.

I know this is a lot of work but it will pay off big time in the end. I made 95% of all my home's furniture from QS RO.

[Scott T Smith]

Get the best saw mill operator that you can find. Sawing up a log for a farmer or a pallet company is different than cutting a log into furniture grade lumber. When you start asking them about quarter sawn, flat sawn, pith, and yields you will be able to weed out the ones that don't know what you are talking about.




Great comments Roger. You had a good explanation about bookmatched too.

Robert - one other thing... a miller experienced with producing quartersawn wood will "center the pith" when they place the log on their band mill. This needs to be done both directions in order to provide the best quartersawn patterns. Otherwise you will end up with some boards that have good ray flake one one end of the board but not the other.

If your largest log is 30" on the small end (inside the bark), by the time that you subtract sapwood and pithwood, you should be able to create some 12" quartersawn boards, or thereabouts. This is based upon leaving a 6 x 6 in the center of the log (pith) and 1" on each side for sapwood.

[Roger Bullock]

Robert, I see you are from NC, lots of millers and kilns in your state. 800 to 1000 BF of RO can be a lot for a hobby woodworker not only in the amount but also in the proper storage once it is dried. The cost to saw and dry can also be costly. If the overall cost or quantity of finished lumber is a factor, ask either or both the miller and kiln operator if they would take a portion of the wood as payment. Has worked in the past for me.

[Frank Drew]

I don't agree that 12/4 or 16/4 will necessarily split as it dries -- I've bought and used plenty of it that was in fine shape -- but it's certainly true that thicker stuff is more work and more time consuming to dry, and will probably need to go to a kiln as some point if you want to use it anytime in the next several years.

But.... legs look better, IMO, out of the solid than glued up. And don't forget that there are other uses for dimension lumber than square furniture legs.

Scott's advice to end-coat the logs is very important and is of proven benefit.

[John Coloccia]

All I can add is if you don't make your sticks perfectly square, make them very obviously rectangular. Last thing you need is to rip a bunch of 2" sticks from a 9/4 board. Ask me how I know this is a bad idea :D

[Richard M. Wolfe]

As far as cutting the wood, the thicker the slabs the longer they take to dry and the more chance of checking and cracking away from the ends. The guy I work with made a 3'x5' oak table not long ago and made turned legs, each from three laminated pieces. Judicious choice of lumber and you have a hard time telling where the joints are. Oak is good for that with all the grain, fleck, etc it has.

After cutting, stack using stickers no more than 16" apart; with wood prone to warping like oak or pecan we typically go to 12". I've never been able to tell any lag in drying due to close sticking. As far as the total stack it doesn't matter if you have a shorter stack on top of a longer one as long as the ends are supported and the stickers are dirctly under each other. Put stickers as close to the ends as possible and weight on each portion of the stack.

If you want to make a bookmatched top you probably would not want to use the heart (pith) of the log anyway as the look of the center would likely be different than that several inches away from the heart. You could bookmatch in two ways. For example, for a four foot table you could have two sets of bookmatched 12" boards side by side or one set in the middle and the boards from another set on the outside of each board of the interior set. Just wait to see what the boards you get look like to see what you think looks best. Breadboarding ends, being sure to allow for wood movement, would probably be a good look with straight or tapered legs.

[Mark Bosse]

I woud go to WOODWEB and look at Gene's posts. He is today's grandmaster in this field (and a really good guy).

http://www.woodweb.com/cgi-bin/forums/sawdry.pl

I don't cut for a particular project. Things never look the same in the 2 years it will take to reasonably air dry 8/4 material. I always cut to get the greatest subjective value from a bole.

Personally, to me, the subjective value of a bole was best described by Krenov (many times over). I would flitch cut 12/4 slabs and live with them for a few years. I think the old man had the right idea.

[Robert Reece]

Thanks everybody for the great responses.

Scott - I see you recommend 150 PSF on the oak! That is quite some weight, what do you do to get that kind of weight on a stack of wood?

In regard to stickers - any reason I can't use plywood? Or can I just cut up framing lumber? I'd rather not have to buy poplar or oak or whatever, just to rip it up into stickers.

In order to cover the sides the stack, I was thinking maybe I could use landscape fabric. I have quite a bit of that left over from various landscaping projects. I think it will be good for protecting the edges of the stack.

It will be fun, I will post pictures once it is done.

[Danny Hamsley]

You should not cover the sides in most cases. That will restrict air flow, and you need that air to carry away the moisture as the wood dries. Otherwise, if air flow is not adequate, your wood might mold and stain. There is a gray oxidation stain that occurs in many woods like maple, pecan, hackberry,elm, etc. that occurs when the humidity is too high in fresh cut wood. Better to cover the top well and leave the sides open.

[Rich Aldrich]

I would consider kiln drying the lumber. You do have to have someone you trust because in my case, I got back less lumber when I picked it up. Make sure you number the boards.

I bought some oak logs from my dad and had the wood kiln dried. I like kiln dried.

A year later, he thinned my property which is mostly hard maple. I took 7 longs and had them cut into 1 3/4" x 3 1/8" and 1 1/16" thick lumber for my work bench. I let the wood air dry for two years. The lumber was stickered and kept inside in cold storage.

These are two different types of wood, but I prefer kiln dried. The moisture content is lower and stays lower. I find more movement in air dried and think it is due to the higher moisture content.

[Scott T Smith]

Thanks everybody for the great responses.

Scott - I see you recommend 150 PSF on the oak! That is quite some weight, what do you do to get that kind of weight on a stack of wood?

In regard to stickers - any reason I can't use plywood? Or can I just cut up framing lumber? I'd rather not have to buy poplar or oak or whatever, just to rip it up into stickers.

In order to cover the sides the stack, I was thinking maybe I could use landscape fabric. I have quite a bit of that left over from various landscaping projects. I think it will be good for protecting the edges of the stack.

It will be fun, I will post pictures once it is done.


Robert, there are several ways to weight the pile - stacks of bricks/blocks on top of some 2X framing lumber on top, concrete sidewalk slabs, steel i-beam, etc. The nice thing about using weight is that you don't have to adjust it.

Many home dryers use ratchet straps, and every week or so tighten them up by a click or so. Ratchet straps are a lot more practical for the average woodworker than weight. For this system to work though, you have to check it weekly or so.

Straps and weight are not necessary, but can be beneficial in helping to produce flat long boards.

Plywood or framing lumber would be ok for the stickers - the key thing is to use a material that is already dry. Your targeted sticker diimension is 3/4" x 1-1/4", or 1" thick will also work. Don't go thinner than 3/4", or you risk not having adequate air flow.

The key thing when drying oak is to not dry it too quickly from green down to 35% MC. The lower temps here in NC will work well for air drying lumber during the winter and spring (prevents mold and stain for occuring), so this is a good time to mill.

In a kiln, we target around 300fpm air flow for oak, give or take. As Danny recommended, not using the fabric on the side of the stacks is beneficial, as you may block out too much of the air flow. If it were me, I would use a larger overhang on top to try to keep weather and UV off of the side of your stack.

[Robert Reece]

Thank you very much for the help. Band clamps are a great idea. I have quite a few of them and they are readily available.

For the stickers, I just plan on cutting up birch plywood which I would expect to be reasonably dry.

[Jim Becker]

I would do two stacks....one for the 13' stock and one for the 8' stock. That makes it far easier for you to cover them. These should be outside and in an area that has good exposure to the normal wind patterns for your area. I usually build the top layer out of some of the "lesser quality boards" that will likely be chucked and block that layer up at an angle so rain will run off, etc. I'll wrap that top layer with a piece of cheap tarp to keep water from flowing down into the stack...a hammer stapler makes for easy work on this. You can add your weight on top of that if you like...just do it in such a way that the water can still run down the slope.

BTW, even if you ultimately decide to get the lumber kiln dried, it's best to let it air dry for awhile to get rid of the highest part of the moisture content. Personally, however, I'm perfectly fine with air-dried lumber and in many respects, prefer it. Properly done, it's just as stable and with some species, it's much better looking. I currently have 1500 bd ft of tulip poplar drying and have been working of a stock of poplar and walnut that I had cut back in 2000 for a long time.