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Wes Ramsey
02-13-2016, 12:27 PM
Monday I'm headed back to our family mill to stack and sticker a pile of walnut and pine boards. While the saw was running I got to wondering how much it matters what wood you use for the stickers. Can a different type of wood affect the color on the lumber while it is stacked and drying? I've noticed shallow discoloration on boards (sometimes deep) from the sticker, but never thought much about it. I don't know that it matters much, but I'm curious what other folks do...

Cody Colston
02-13-2016, 3:28 PM
Wood species doesn't matter but the stickers need to be dry to prevent sticker stain.

Scott T Smith
02-13-2016, 11:51 PM
Wood species doesn't matter but the stickers need to be dry to prevent sticker stain.

What Cody said. I've used both hard and softwood stickers and have not noticed a difference as long as they are dry.

Sticker stain usually develops from either using green stickers on green lumber, or when green lumber with dry stickers is allowed to get rained on, thus saturating the stickers.

Charles Randal Smith
02-14-2016, 8:20 PM
While the species of wood used for stickers shouldn’t matter much, there is a simple test you can use to see if the sticker’s wood might cause staining. Take a sticker of the wood type you want to use, and put it in boiling water for a few minutes. If it discolours the water, you might want to avoid it.
Charles

Charlie Fox
02-15-2016, 1:24 PM
i like Charles' idea! i have also taken some leftover pex from my house re-pipe job, cut into 12" lengths, and they work perfect. slightly curved from coming off the spool so they dont roll. i wouldn't buy it just for that but if you happen across some its worth a try

Wes Ramsey
02-17-2016, 10:04 AM
Interesting. I guess green walnut stickers are probably a bad idea :) My father-in-law has taught me everything I know about milling wood, but as I get into the sport more on my own I'm learning that there are some better ways to do things. He grew up in the Ozarks, poor like everyone else, and they only had equipment that was worn out enough that they could afford to buy it. However, with a working blacksmith shop and sawmill they could build or repair just about anything. Our mill is a testament to that - the carriage and works are well over 100 years old, and my FIL used various car and farm implement parts to rebuild it to work off the PTO on his big tractor. He's a country genius of sorts and I have great respect for that, but as this is more a hobby for me than necessity I'm realizing that there may be better or different ways to accomplish some things. Walnut stickers is what I have for now, but I'll save them for the walnut boards and hope they don't stain too bad.

Jim Andrew
02-21-2016, 9:03 PM
I have had no trouble with staining with walnut, but did have some trouble with ash staining. And I used dry stickers. My stickers I cut 3/4 x 3/4. Wider seems to stain wider.

Charles Randal Smith
02-22-2016, 8:42 PM
I have had no trouble with staining with walnut, but did have some trouble with ash staining.

Jim, your experience underscores one of the principles of sticker stain, being that it affects lighter-coloured woods.

Many summers ago, I had a problem with sticker stain on both maple and ash that I had felled and milled; some of my light Red Oak was also affected. I turned to the guru of wood processing and drying named Gene Wengert who was, at that time at least, a prof in the Forestry Department at the University of Wisconsin. His books on the subject are the bible on wood drying.

The cause appears to be an oxidation reaction in the wood, presumably catalyzed by an enzyme in the wood in a temperature-dependent reaction. (Right or wrong, I think of it as similar to sugar which turns to caramel when heated; my sticker stain was a caramel colour.) Often it is not seen on the rough-sawn surface of lighter-coloured woods but is clearly apparent when running it through a planer.

Some of the risk factors include:
1) lumber sawn from old logs, Mill a log within two weeks of it being felled if the weather is warm, and especially so if it is hot.
2) slow drying at warm or hot temperatures when the wood is above 40% moisture content. Don’t store lumber more than 12 hours in warm weather before stickering/stacking.
3) use dry stickers (i.e., 10% MC if possible)
4) if the weather is warm, keep rain off your stack

Dr Wengert has also written on ways to reduce sticker stain during kiln drying, but I know little of this subject so it’s best I not quote him on it as I might make a mistake.

And in the industry, it is often not called ‘sticker stain’ but sticker shadow’. Stain, according to hardwood graders, refers to discolouration of wood by rot.

In my case, I used stickers that I had milled from the same wet wood which I was trying to dry. And I put it in the hot loft of my barn which had little airflow and therefore remained wet.

Since buying my mill a couple years ago, I use commercial stickers called ‘Breeze Dried’ which have a groove milled into their surfaces, enabling increased air flow to the wood and reducing sticker stain. I think they are made from Red Maple. I reuse them, such that they are quite dry. I have found a couple local lumber mills which are shrinking and are willing to sell their used stickers are a good price. If you are not familiar with the appearance of these stickers, I can post a picture.

Charles

Reason for editing this post: I misspelled Dr Wengert's name. I confused it with my prof from medical school named Dr Wenger without a 't'.

Wes Ramsey
02-23-2016, 2:07 AM
Good info. Thanks Charles. I forgot that we sawed 1 maple log and all I took home was the walnut stickers. I got my walnut stacked over the weekend, but need to get back to the mill soon for some pine stickers to restack the maple. I also need to stack the pine at the mill. I know it is best to stack it immediately after sawing, but I do it when I have time. I've lost a little wood to mold over the years, but nothing I haven't been able to clean up. I guess when its just a hobby you let some things slide.

Benjimin Young
04-10-2016, 6:49 PM
Salvaged pine wainscoting for stickers?
I have a bunch of salvaged pine wainscoting finished on one side with Varathan and just under 1/2 inch thick. If I cut this into 1 1/2 inch strips and double it up for thickness 7/8" would it be suitable for stickering green silver maple? If so, would you put the finished Varathan side against the maple or the unfinished side against the maple; Note the unfinished side has the usual shallow contours from its original milling so it would allow a tiny bit or air through.

Cody Colston
04-10-2016, 9:07 PM
I may be missing something but wouldn't both sides be against the Maple - top and bottom? FWIW, i don't think it matters as the wainscoting should be very dry by now.

Benjimin Young
04-14-2016, 11:16 PM
thanks Cody. my thought was to double up two pieces to make a 1" thick sticker. But it sounds like it does nto matter which side of the wood would face out (finished or unfinished ) I finally have a good use for all this old material

Danny Hamsley
04-19-2016, 8:10 AM
With silver maple, once stickered, put a couple of box fans blowing on the stack. With maple, poor air flow and higher temps will cause the gray stain that Charles described. The wood can gray stain, and not only under the stickers. With maple, you need lots of air flow. It won't hurt it at all, and it will help the maple dry whiter. You could not do this with oak, though, as oak has to dry slow, and this enzymatic oxidation reaction with the sugars in the wood does not happen very often in oak. In maple, it is a sure thing if the wet maple does not have good air flow. Here is gray stain in red maple used for a drawer side. You can see that this stain was not associated with stickers. However, this wood did have sticker stain as well.

Get the fresh sawn maple stickered immediately and start the fans just as quick.

336001

Cody Colston
04-19-2016, 12:36 PM
Guys and gals, I just want to say that when it comes to processing lumber, Danny and Scott are my go-to guys here on the forum. If they tell you a chicken dips snuff, you can look under it's wing for the box. :D