Quartersawn process and drying a Beech Log

[Jim Stewart]

I am getting ready to log my woods for Ash trees and that will be done commercially by the local Amish Mill. When walking the woods I noticed a Beech Tree that is somewhere between 24-28 inches in diameter. I am wondering about having them cut this tree and saw it for wood plane stock. I won't know about the log until I get it down but it looks like a solid log. Most of the Beech in the woods are bigger and hollow. My question is; does anyone have experience with quartersawing and drying Beech? I assume that I would have them saw a 6" wide block out of the center and then have them rip that at the center (heart) of the slab. I am thinking about just leaving the bark on to slow the drying process. I have heard that Beech is moisture laden initially and is hard to dry without getting checking. Any thoughts about that? I would treat the ends with a sealer. The initial slab then will yield four 6" x 12"X 10' because the log is about 22'. I could then have them cut another 6" wide slab from the first two off slabs. That could yield four 6" x 8" x 10' slabs. The remainder I can keep for firewood. I have air dried quite a bit of Walnut and Cherry successfully in the past. If I can pull this off I could make some planes and sell quite a bit of quartersawn Beech. Any thoughts are appreciated. What about drying this large of a slab as opposed to having them cut this into smaller boards? Any experience to share with that on drying. Most of the wood that I have logged myself I took to this mill and they filch saw it for me, so they are very accommodating. I dry wood in an open air barn and I have noticed that wood tends to dry faster than I have read about. For instance 5/4 wood does not take a year to get to 10-12% moisture. Once it gets to that I tend to take project wood in the house for a few weeks until it gets down to about 6 %. Thanks for your comments.

[Scott T Smith]

Jim, I am well versed in quartersawing and drying lumber and will be happy to advise you, but I need to know the desired finished thickness of your plane bodies.

Beech dries about 30% slower than black walnut. 4/4 beech has a targeted daily MC% reduction of 5%, versus 7% for black walnut. For every increased inch of thickness, multiply the targeted daily MC% reduction by .4. Said differently, if 4/4 beech target is 5% per day, 8/4 is 2%, 12/4 is .8%, 16/4 is .32, 20/4 is .13, and 24/4 is .05%. Basically you are looking at several years of drying time, unless you ship your blanks off to someone with a vacuum kiln.

In a DH kiln, I would start these at 95 - 97% RH for the first couple of months, then gradually lower.

I would suggest milling (but in a different manner than what you mentioned above), cutting to rough length and end coating only the ends with Anchorseal Classic. Gather up the shavings that came from the milling process, and stuff the blanks surrounded by shavings in an old feed bag (similar to how the bowl turners do). Stick it up on the shelf for a few years and then come back to them.

After I know your targeted finished thickness, I will make a sketch of a suggested milling pattern and post it.

Regards,

Scott

[Richard Coers]

Bark won't slow the drying process. Water leaves the end grain first. What the bark will do is invite bugs to burrow under and lay eggs. I also prefer to box out the pith, never really getting any closer than at least 1" on any one side. Walnut is the exception to that.

[Jim Stewart]

Scott, I was thinking hollows and rounds but I am going to have much more wood than I need for those. The thickness would be from 5/4 to maybe 8/4 but for my use the 5/4 and 6/4 would be a good one. I do have a friend that has a solar kiln. I have never used it and I am not sure how they would be classified. Is a Solar kiln a de-humidification kiln? I would not know where a vacuum kiln would be located but maybe I can figure it out. Your comments on using the Solar Kiln would be appreciated.

[Ryan Baker]

I'd recommend that you keep some thicker stock. 4/4 and 8/4 will cover your hollows and rounds, but once you start building those you will soon be thinking about building more planes, and you will quickly be wanting some 12/4 (finished) QS blanks. With all the movement in beech, that means starting with probably 16/4 at least. Thick QS beech is hard enough to find that you could easily sell the blanks off to others of us here on the Creek too if you wanted to get rid of some. Quarter saw every bit of it that you can. Even with more waste, the resulting QS stock will be a lot more useful than rift or flat sawn beech boards.

[Danny Hamsley]

I agree with Scott that you should cut the wood as thin as you can because it will dry much better and with less defect. You could cut some 4/4, 6/7, and 8/4. Quartersawn wood dries slower than flat sawn wood I believe (is this true, Scott?).

[Scott T Smith]

Quartersawn wood dries slower than flat sawn wood I believe (is this true, Scott?).

Danny, that is correct. Typically you add around 15% - 20% to the drying times for QS.

[Scott T Smith]

Jim, the attached document outlines how I would advise that you have the log milled for maximizing vertical grain lumber (quartersawn) with a band mill.

As Richard suggests, go ahead and have the bark edged off of the lumber; it is indeed a bug magnet.

If you're only planning to produce 4/4 to 8/4 lumber, then I would advise you to end seal, stack and sticker it as is normal for boards. For the first 3 - 6 months it is best to do so outside, especially during this time of the year and in your climate, as that will dry the lumber at a rate that will minimize checking or other drying related damage. If you have any 16/4 milled, then I would suggest that you use the bag and shavings method to slow down the drying rate even further.

Your observations about the drying rate of your lumber are accurate; the "1 year per inch" is not an accurate measure assumption.

251784

[Jim Stewart]

Thanks to all. Good help. We will see what happens.

[David Weaver]

Jim - did this beech get milled, and if so, did you do some standard dimensional lumber and some large slabs? How did the tree come out, can you tell if the grain runs straight up the tree, or does it twist?

I say this with some passing interest, I don't know if I need any, but I live close to a guy who used to cut a lot of it up until recently (he retired) and I know the two moulding plane makers (matt and larry) at least used some of his wood. I've got a pile of 8/4, 6/4 and 5/4 beech from him but no long blanks. I haven't seen anyone KD-ing beech who has come up with nice clean straight long blanks of wood suitable for something like a large jointer plane (blanks would need to be something like 4x4x36), and it's likely the price to do something like that make it hard to justify making a plane when there are gloms of good older jointers available for about 50 bucks or so.

But I am curious nonetheless! I'm sure if you wanted to market whatever your excess is for moulding planes, and took the trouble to saw them into 4x12 blanks, you could dump a lot of them to folks looking to make their own planes.