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View Full Version : Wanted Lumber Dry Kiln operator



Jeff Mills
12-03-2007, 11:02 PM
I own a sawmill and am looking for someone to kiln dry my lumber - I'm in North Central North Carolina about an hour and a half north east of Raleigh / Durham, NC and about an hour south east of South Boston, VA. I would be interesting in having 1000 ~ 2000 BF of one hardwood species and one thickness custom kiln dried at time. I'll deliver the lumber, help sticker and stack and pickup once dry. Since I mainly sell to local custom furniture makers and cabinet shops, I'll need a final stress relief moisture content of 6 ~ 10%. Lumber species mainly will be soft maple, black walnut, quarter sawn sycamore, quarter sawn and plain sawn red and white oak, occasionally wild black cherry, sugar berry and beech. I cut in standard hardwood thickness of 4/4, 5/4, 8/4 and 9/4.

Please no solar kiln replies - I've had some awful experiences with those, talking about pretzels :mad:. I'm looking for someone who knows what they are doing, takes pride in a job well done, takes the time needed to produce a quality product and is priced by the board foot.

Thanks

Joseph N. Myers
12-03-2007, 11:29 PM
Jeff,

Try www.woodfinder.com (http://www.woodfinder.com). Put in your zip code, distance willing to travel, check "kiln drying" and hit search. I'm in Phila and got 2 hits within 10 miles, 10 hits within 87 miles. To be listed, vendors have to pay a fee so not all vendors will be listed but who knows. Give it a try and good luck with it.

Regards, Joe

Jeff Mills
12-04-2007, 2:56 PM
Joseph, I really appreciate your response but I tried that already, closest is 85 miles... With the price of fuel it does not seem economical to go to the next closest 105 miles away, I would just have to pass that cost on to the buyers. I already talked to him anyways and he runs a stack and pray solar kiln, I've had some very bad luck with those. it's near impossible to maintain the maximum safe moisture content loss per day with a solar kiln, unless you want to baby sit it the whole time. I took about 1500 board foot of 8/4 quarter sawn red oak to one last year about this time, 15 weeks later the guy said it's dry. Went to go pick it up and each and every board looked like it exploded, 100% junk unless you wanted to make tooth picks out of it. Needless to say I was pretty upset, spent all that time sawing up perfectly good lumber, had people waiting on it to dry. Solar kiln operator to me 6 to 7 weeks it'll be ready, took 15 weeks to have it become junk in a solar kiln. I sure would like to find someone close by who runs a dehumidification kiln...

Thanks