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View Full Version : Harvesting a few trees at a time



Mike Holbrook
07-12-2015, 7:09 AM
I missed the thread about starting this forum but just found the actual forum. I am interested in the topic and thought I would get started with a few low tech. questions.

I have 12 acres in north Metro Atlanta and have played with the idea of making lumber or trying to get someone with a sawmill out. The issue for me has been figuring out where I would store drying lumber. I actually have a dog training building, built on stilts which could provide a roof over drying lumber but I have yet to design something to store boards in. Would lumber be better off in an open air area that was covered? I also have a closed room, with large sliding door, currently with a dirt floor, that I have been thinking about building a floor for?

I have rough cut a few logs with my chain saw and I have come close to buying an "alaskan sawmill" several times. I bought a large Husky chain saw about a year ago with a 20" blade that can handle a 24" blade easily. I have a good deal of wood on the flood plain of a creek and the hill along the creek valley. Trees are constantly falling down and taking other trees down in the process. I hate letting all the wood just waste away. I have tons of sycamore and poplar, ash, maple, red & white oak, hickory, a good deal of black walnut, beech, birch... Trees end up in the creek regularly. I harvest a few logs for green wood projects but I have been trying to come up with a way to harvest a few boards too. Would some sort of chain saw attachment allow me to harvest rough boards from a small but constant supply of trees?

Mike Holbrook
07-12-2015, 7:39 AM
I decided it would be more appropriate to ask about kiln drying in a separate thread.

I have been planing to build a small kiln for drying small pieces of green wood, mostly for windsor chair projects. Peter Galbert and Drew Langsner offer some ideas on designing small kilns in their books and or Blogs. These designs are simple insulated boxes, usually warmed with a simple light heat chamber, with or without some kind of thermostat. Most of these chair kilns are designed to dry relatively small chair parts, spindles, legs, rungs, slats, arm rests... The "home" kiln designs I have seen for drying actual boards are usually simple solar based systems, often with simple glass, window sections to let in the sun. I am wondering if there might be some sort of kiln design that could both dry boards and small chair parts? Is there a place for a kiln that can only dry boards 4-6' long? I suspect that most people would have a small kiln in the shop for the chair parts and some larger contraption outside that can be used in sunny weather to dry boards? I just wonder if an outside solar kiln might have to wide a temperature range here in Hotlanta?

Cody Colston
07-12-2015, 8:24 AM
Hello, Mike.

The lumber can be dried in an open-air, covered area or inside a closed building but if inside, you will need to provide sufficient air flow via fans to prevent mold, mildew and staining of the lumber. Open-air drying usually has enough natural air flow to prevent those issues if the stickered stacks are kept to 4 ft. widths or narrower. The issue with open-air drying can be too much air flow combined with warm temperatures that can dry the lumber too quickly, especially hardwoods like Oak that have a very low safe drying rate.

My ideal air-drying arrangement would be a shed with the sides covered with shade cloth. The shade cloth would keep out any blowing rain, moderate the air flow a bit and even help to keep out flying critters although the lumber should be treated with a borate when milled to prevent infestation while drying.

Cody Colston
07-12-2015, 8:37 AM
The link http://www.scribd.com/doc/23271563/American-Woodworker-094-06-2002#scribd is to the American Woodworker issue #94, June 2002. It features a small dehumidification kiln build and the process for monitoring the drying rate and conditioning the lumber at the end of the drying cycle. At the time it was published, the kiln could be built for <$600. It's sized for 5' long boards but can easily be modified for longer stock.

I'm almost positive that AW consulted with Dr. Gene Wengert on this kiln as well as the solar kiln build they featured a few years later.

If you wanted to go with a solar kiln, you can control the temperature somewhat by partially covering the solar panels to block the light energy.

Tom Hogard
07-12-2015, 8:42 AM
Mike,

Cody's information was dead on, air movement is the most important factor but you can have too much too soon. Later in the drying cycle it is less critical. I would be cautious of precutting small parts before drying them. Wood shrinks as it dries, some species shrink more than others and identical pieces from the same log will shrink differently, depending on the grain orientation within the piece, and even where it was in the log.

There are quite a few people operating solar kilns in your part of the country, a properly insulated kiln won't experience the wide temperature variations that you might expect. In fact, the temperature variations (cooling at night) will condition the wood more effectively and lessen degrade. There are several good solar kiln designs available on the net, and there is a guy in Illinois, I think his name is Darrin, that sells plans for a very popular, low-cost design.

Glenn Clabo
07-12-2015, 8:55 AM
I decided it would be more appropriate to ask about kiln drying in a separate thread.

I have been planing to build a small kiln for drying small pieces of green wood, mostly for windsor chair projects. Peter Galbert and Drew Langsner offer some ideas on designing small kilns in their books and or Blogs. These designs are simple insulated boxes, usually warmed with a simple light heat chamber, with or without some kind of thermostat. Most of these chair kilns are designed to dry relatively small chair parts, spindles, legs, rungs, slats, arme "home" kiln designs I have seen for drying actual boards are usually simple solar based systems, often with simple glass, window sections to let in the sun. I am wondering if there might be some sort of kiln design that could both dry boards and small chair parts? Is there a place for a kiln that can only dry boards 4-6' long? I suspect that most people would have a small kiln in the shop for the chair parts and some larger contraption outside that can be used in sunny weather to dry boards? I just wonder if an outside solar kiln might have to wide a temperature range here in Hotlanta?

Hi Mike...great questions. I'm going to do some clean up and create a new thread with this question. You just posted two different question in one thread.
EDIT: Seems I need to do some research to figure out how to do that. :o

Cody Colston
07-12-2015, 11:42 AM
Would some sort of chain saw attachment allow me to harvest rough boards from a small but constant supply of trees?

Yes, you can successfully mill lumber with a chainsaw mill but it is highly labor intensive. Although you can use a smaller saw, IMHO at least an 80 cc saw is necessary for milling logs. I don't know how large your Husky is but 80 cc saws are around $1000 if purchased new. Add to that the cost of a sawing attachment, like an Alaskan Mill and you are approaching the cost of an entry-level band sawmill.

With a steady supply of trees/logs, I believe I would look for a used manual band sawmill. They are very simple machines and other than the engine, most wear parts can be sourced locally. I found my mill on Craigslist and The Sawmill Exchange is another source for locating used mills.

Mike Holbrook
07-12-2015, 12:38 PM
Wow good speedy responses!
In regard to the kiln question, I was wondering if there was one kiln design that might do at least most of the work of the two kilns I have been considering building. My guess is that as in most compromises I might end up with a kiln that would not do either job very well but I thought I would ask. Sorry about asking multiple questions in the same thread, I'm bad about that. Maybe I need to break this down into three questions 1)( below) kilns for green wood 2) Kilns/sheds for drying and storing lumber 3) milling lumber from a tree or two at a time. I will try to stick to topic # 1 here, although...

In his new book "Chairmaker's Notebook" Peter Galbert illustrates his design for a drying kiln for chair makers which is what got me thinking. I took a chair making class with Drew Langsner at Country Workshops and the kiln we used in Drew's class was larger than I expected too. Peter's design is 48" long x 42" tall x 26" wide. Pete's box is plywood with 1" thick Celotex panels. The box is a two chamber design. The bottom heat chamber is largely sheet metal housing changeable light fixtures that can take different watt bulbs for different times of the year. The top drying chamber uses a chicken incubator thermostat to control the temperature at about 140 degrees. Both chambers have access doors. The top chamber has a section with holes in it that do double duty, holding drying tenons and regulating moisture and air flow.

The box Drew designed for his classes is illustrated in his book "The Chairmaker's Workshop". There is also information on making a simple kiln out of an oil drum & blankets in Drew's book. Drew's design predates Pete's and is very similar in size and construction materials. Drew used a radiant heating element in his box's heating chamber. Both of these kilns are large enough to hold a few forms for bending chair backs which is usually the largest object a chair builder will put in their "kiln".

During the class I took with Peter Galbert at Highland Woodworking the Highland kiln was not big enough to hold the bending forms for the full class of 10 students all building continuous arm Windsors. Pete solved this dilemma by placing a heat lamp fixture in a small tightly enclosed storage area under some steps. He draped blankets over the open end. Not the most controlled environment but it did dry all 10 long continuous arm backs with no further cracking of the long thin, bent white oak pieces. All of which just makes me wonder if a little larger similar drying kiln might actually be able to dry small quantities of boards for a single woodworking project or from a single log?

Mike Holbrook
07-12-2015, 2:51 PM
Yes, this new forum has tapped into my pent up questions having to do with processing green wood, which in my warped mind is the reason to have sawmills and kilns.

It seems to me that the over all goal is to take a tree and make: sized for processing logs or lumber. In my case, for green wood work, I would typically make splits from a log. If I am making cabinets or furniture though I would want some sort of dimensioned lumber that has been dried. Both end products start as sized logs. I believed logs could be stored for fairly long periods before processing? Most of the work I do whether it be with green wood or boards could be processed from 4+ foot logs. Sure there may be more waste working with 4 foot lumber but if I plan projects around four foot lumber I may not waste too much. Scraps of hard wood are great for burning which would be better than letting the whole tree/log rot as frequently happens on my property and countless other properties. I could, of course, save logs in 2', 4', 6' and 8' sizes. The issue with the larger logs is they may require multiple people and expensive machinery to handle. Four foot logs may be more than most single people can work with. I was thinking that I might be able to deal with a roughly square blank cut from a log using an alaskan mill or bandsaw mill. A four foot blank might fit on a decent size band saw used for ripping in many woodworking shops.

Four foot logs will fit in the bucket of the 5' loader on my tractor. Forks, of course, could pick up larger logs but the weight becomes a problem with a small (30 hp) tractor. Larger logs can be drug with a logging chain but the grit in the logs dulls saws fast. Four foot logs or even a little larger might be leveraged into the bed of a standard pickup truck too. If I can move logs around my lot and get them into one of the storage areas I have, I may be able to acquire and store the raw materials to make green wood splits or lumber. Then I will have need of a kiln/drying shed and some way to mill those logs I want to make lumber from.

Cody Colston
07-12-2015, 5:37 PM
I have never steam-bent wood but I read that air-dried wood bends much easier than kiln-dried. So, I expect you will want to air-dry your Windsor chair wood first and the kiln is for drying it after it is bent. that makes sense to me.

However, milling your own lumber is similar to the turning vortex. You may start out with a minimal goal in mind but before you know it, you have much bigger ideas. So. I think you should go with a kiln that is large enough to dry at least 8 ft. long boards and at least 300 bf at a time. Having excess space in the kiln isn't a big deal and you will be assured of having plenty of space for your chair backs/components.

A CSM is a viable way to start sawing. If you want to upgrade to a band mill later, the chainsaw is still necessary and the milling attachment is a nice-to-have for logs that can't be accessed with your tractor. BTW, a couple of chain hooks welded on the loader bucket, a 10' chain, a couple of shackles and a couple of log tongs work well for transporting logs if you don't have forks. I have forks for my 30 hp tractor but use the bucket and log tongs most of the time.

The easiest, cheapest kiln to build and operate is a solar kiln. The sun provides the drying energy and can even charge batteries to run the fan(s) although I use 120 VAC for mine. The drying rate is controlled by upper and lower vents and at night the high RH conditions the lumber, relieving the drying stresses introduced during the day. It is very similar to open-air drying with more control. The biggest downside to a solar kiln is that it generally won't get the lumber hot enough for long enough to sterilize it.

Hopefully some of these guys here with commercially built/sold kilns or the self-built dehumidification kilns will chime in, also.

Mike Holbrook
07-14-2015, 12:37 AM
Cody,
The wood used to make windsor chair backs, especially the wood to be bent, is worked, bent and dried while it is green. White or red oak are the favorite woods for spindles and chair backs. I also understand dry wood can actually bend easier than wet wood. The issue is spindles and chair backs/arms are shaved down to small diameters or thicknesses while green, which makes the work, especially peeling off layers of grain, much easier with the typical hand tools used. The thin pieces are typically steam bent or put in a kiln right after they get close to finished shape. Wood that is bent is usually put in the kiln soon after, while it is still in the bending form. Pieces that thin are easy to dry in a kiln without problems in short time frames, but left to dry on their own they may have issues. This might seem a little strange until you watch someone like Curtis Buchanan or Peter Galbert "pulling" large hunks of wood off a green split creating a tapered spindle in just a few minuets. These techniques allow even beginners to go from split pieces of a log to a windsor chair with all dried parts ready for finishing in a week or less.

Seats for these chairs are typically glued up 2X boards of a relatively soft wood like pine or poplar. The seats being glued up boards are often less "green". Using the softer wood for the seats serves several purposes, but for one thing the softer wood can still be worked with a drawknife, spokeshave, scorp... The legs and rungs of windsors are often hard maple. The legs have to support a persons weight, but in the case of windsors still be as light as possible. Dry maple can be turned to fairly small diameters and still support the required weight. The grain in hard maple has less issues when turned. The hard woods used to make spindles, legs and backs tend to lock into the softer wood in the seat when driven into their holes.

At this stage of it's existence my tractor runs on turf tires and gets used mostly to move wood chips, dirt and gravel. I have a skid attachable set of forks but they were made for a heavier tractor. I bought the CSM because I saw up some big trees. I did not buy one big enough to serve for sawing boards because a saw that size is just too big to carry around for most of the work I do.

I have a 16x8' wood shed with tin roof and partial board sides and a 12x8' enclosed shed I built to house chickens, not to mention a tin tractor barn and 30x60' two story building. I want to use up the existing space before building something else. I expect I will try air drying of some sort first. Will an attic fan with temperature control help?

Bill Rhodus
07-19-2015, 10:06 AM
The info Tom provided on air flow is spot on. Generally, hardwoods benefit from air drying in an open shed before placing it in a kiln. Allow natural air movement to dry the lumber at a slow pace. Hardwood lumber dried quickly via powered fans or a kiln will increase checking in the lumber as the ends will dry significantly faster than the middle. To reduce checking, seal the ends, stack the wood to allow uniform airflow, and allow the moisture level to drop as far as your ambient air will allow. Now place in kiln to complete drying.