Drying Holly?

[Andrew Gibson]

I have been talking with a local company here in Tampa called viable lumber, they set up milling days and mill trees and such that are being cut down in urban areas. basically keeping the trees out of the landfill.

I have put my name in as a volunteer and said I was interested in some Holly Lumber for inlay work and such... the guys said they have some holly trees that they will be getting cut and milled coming up, they said that the local holly is not quite as pure White as the stuff up north, but is still nice. the guy said you have to be careful with it because it will spalt very quickly. He also said that you need to debark it and get it inside to help keep it from spalting...

My question is, what souled I do with the Holly if I get my hands on some? I figure it will end up being held to dry for quite a while and used on special projects.
Also I would not mind dying some black, as I believe would be traditional. I believe this needs to be done when green... any tips on doing this would be helpful as well. what type of die? how to make sure to get the die to penetrate, and so on...

Ooh here is a link to the website if you are interested. http://www.viablelumber.com/

[Scott T Smith]

Andrew, to keep the holly white, it is best that it be dried in a very cool location - preferably below 50 degrees. Some of the whitest holley will be logged and milled in the north in the early winter, and then air dried down below 25% during the winter. Once it's below 25%, it can be placed in a kiln to finish it off.

In Florida, that may be tough, but it's the right time of the year. If it were me, I'd stack and sticker it out of the weather in as cool a place as you can find for several months.

[Andrew Gibson]

Thanks scot, I may I should see if I can find a Chest Freezer that I can sticker the Holly in... :)

Is it sad that I am actually considering this?

I am thinking that somewhere in the house would be better then outside, as the highs here are already in the mid 70s

[Andrae Covington]

I have some 4/4 holly I bought from a local guy who mills and kiln dries urban trees. Since he did the drying I can't really tell you much about that, except that the board I have is noticeably sprung along the length. It happens to be quartersawn and one edge appears to be along where the pith was, so that may explain it. Still, I suspect that holly moves somewhat in the drying process, so you may want to oversize your pieces. Of course, if you're just going to slice it up into teeny bits for inlay, that may not matter. Inlay was the reason I bought it, but I have yet to try the wood out. Mine is a light cream color.

As far as ebonizing it, I haven't heard of doing that while the wood is green, but I don't see any reason why you couldn't after it is dry. When building my workbench I ebonized some small pieces (the vise screw garters and the tenon tusk keys) which were poplar and red oak. I didn't have much luck with the vinegar and steel wool method, so I used india ink and that was a piece of cake. A black dye stain would probably be similar.