What Material for Stickers

[Warren E. Johnson]

I have the good fortune of having some 1000 board feet of red and white oak at the mill ready to be sawed. It has occurred to me that seasoning this lumber will require quite a pile of stickers. In the past I have ripped 3/4 inch strips from 2X? materiall I have had around but I do not have nearly enough for this amount of lumber.

What is an economical (read cheap) way to get sticker material? I have considered using ¾ inch OSB ripped 2 inches wide. Will this work? Other suggests are welcomed.

By the way, this is not a stealth gloat. I will publish my lumber gloat with pics when I get it back from the mill.

[Sam Yerardi]

Typically you see 1x stock used. I've seen everything from pine to black locust. Instead of 2" across, you want to make that a smaller dimension to expose more wood to its environment, and to give less area for moisture congregate. I've seen commercial sticks that were U-shaped and H-shaped.

[Richard M. Wolfe]

I scratched my head and didn't come up with anything real good. You might call a lumberyard and see how much bundles of stakes are going for. I can't even recall how long they are and if they would work for stickers.

When you come across some old lumber from a demolition site where a building is being torn down you might look into getting some old lumber and ripping it for stickers. Do that and you'll be guaranteed of never needing stickers again.

[Mike Spanbauer]

I use 3/4" plygoods. It's straight, dry, and capable of great weight support.

Ripped into 3/4" widths, so I don't have to worry which direction it faces when I put them on the pile. Works well for me.

mike

[Bruce Gray]

I use OSB, ripped to 1" wide. I keep my (drying) lumber outside, but very well protected from the rain. I'm not so sure that I would use OSB if there was chance that the ends could get wet occasionally.

Bruce

[Dan McCallum]

I have done the same as Mike with good results, use 3/4" ply ripped to 3/4" wide. I have read that others don't recommend using ply though.

But I only did that because I had some ply around that was too warped to be used for much else. I have also used pretty much anything else that happens to be within reach when I am in need of new stickers. I've tried to avoid woods with tannin in them (oak), but otherwise have not had any real problems.

I might also point out that in addition to needing a whole pile of stickers, you will also need a whole pile of something to weigh down the pile and prevent the boards from warping and twisting. I use concrete cinder blocks (AKA building blocks), and put them on stickers so they don't rest on the top pieces in the pile.

There's tons of info available about drying wood on this and other forums, if you haven't done it before. How to keep the stack far enough off the ground, covered, enough air going through, sealing the ends, etc.

Good luck! I have a much more modest amount of oak drying right now that I am impatient for.

Dan

[Joe Chritz]

I was researching air drying wood and found some posts from woodweb where there is a commerical drying and sawing area.

Lots of people used survey stakes for starters. People who run a sawmill usually cut some scrap up into stickers and dry them for the next run. My limited research indicated almost anything that was dry would work fine.

I have a stack of pieces of 3/4 ply scrap cut about 1 inch wide or so for when I stack rough lumber in the shop before milling. Mostly cut since it was convenient at a time I needed some.

Joe

[Russ Filtz]

For some "U" shaped stickers, how about some PVC pipe ripped into semi-circles and then cut to length? May not be the cheapest, but would be re-usable, and wouldn't retain moisture, minimum contact area. Any downsides to this? Or to eliminate cutting, just use some small diameter full pipe! No sharp, cut edges to gouge the wood. Just make sure you brace it from rolling off!

[harry strasil]

remember all that scrap in the junk bin you thru away? pallets, they are usually free, cut out the good thin stuff on the top, then split (rive) it into smaller pieces, its fast and cheap.

[Scott Banbury]

When I saw for other folks I usually recommend that they get bundles of 8' 1x2 (3/4"x1 1/2") and cut them in half.

[Warren E. Johnson]

Thanks for the many responses.

[Andy Pratt]

I can't bring myself to cut up decent wood to use as stickers, and haven't heard a compelling argument against plywood yet. Thickness is perfect, it's cheap and readily available as scrap so it seems like a no-brainer to me. I use 1/2" plywood cut into 1" wide strips. 1/2 has always been large enough to allow adequate room between boards, in my experience, and wastes that much less of whatever storage height you have available. I've used OSB too with no issues, none of my piles ever get wet, however.