New Nyle dh4000 Help

[MikeH]

  I have 3500bdft mostly quartersawn white and red oak and  some walnut ,all fresh off saw.  Guy at nyle tells me my load will get all stained if white not on top. I have read alot about kilns but not heard of this till kiln was full (not in manual) called woodmizer guy and he pretty much said dont worry about it. So now I not so freaked out or should I be. I have had my wood dried commercially in past and they sure dont sort it.
  The directions on the  kiln manual are in need of alot of help. Nyle guy told me to start at 90 degrees and 85% rh and bake wood every day I get home from work, I dont like to work in the kitchen and that is what I thought these low temp. kilns avoided. Woodmizer guy said start at 90degree and 85% rh  run it down to 60%rh up temp. to 100degree run down to 40% up temp. to 120degree till done. Sounds much easier.
  Okay now I have started Kiln at 90degree and 85%rh. Temp. keeps climbing to 95 ,I dump air out vent and know second time in 2nd day it climbed back to 95degrees. Question...can I pull to much water out with vent open and compressor running when rh is over 85 percent? or do I need to start baking wood right away.Any advise would help, Thanks.
 P.S. the kiln is very tight all linned in rubber and good seal on doors which take alot of effort to get in.         

[scsmith42]

Mike, you didn't state your thicknesses, but with oak my experience is that you need to be careful about drying it too quickly.  The other problem is that at the lower temps mold can develop - especially if there is inadequate airflow through your stacks.  If you don't already have one, pick up an anemometer and check the airflow to make sure that it's within limits.

In my kiln the temp will vary a few degrees during the day, do you have access to a recording thermometer that will let you know what's happening while your away?  An extra 5 degrees initial temp shouldn't hurt you as long as your daily MC reduction is within limits, but the advice regarding checking your MC loss on a daily basis is sound (and yes you can dry to quickly with the vents open).  It's easy to mess up a load of oak, and with that much quartersawn you don't want to risk damaging it.  To be on the safe side, check your MC every day and adjust as needed.

I concur that the Nyle manual is not very clear or intuitive.

[MikeH]

 All the oak is 4/4 and walnut is 8/4 and looks like the 8/4 walnut will dry on a 4/4 white oak schedule of 2.5 m.c. loss per day.

[oakiemac]

Mike,

I sure wouldnt mix 4/4 white oak with 8/4 walnut, especially green. If they were at hte same MC and dried to below 20% then it might be ok. I would be real leary of mixing up the different thickness like that.
White oak is one of the slowest drying and most challenging woods to dry. I'd set the schedule for the white oak and check the other stuff frequently.

[Ga_Boy]

Okie nailed it.  Dry it on a WO schedule and adjust the other species....

[solidwoods]

First load should be something simple to dry.
No mix of thickness.  That can be done if wood is dryer than fiber saturation point (about 30%) bbbbut skip all that advanced stuff, keep it simple until you learn what you are doing.

I did weighed kiln samples for yrs. now I use the Kilmotroll.  Its whole concept takes allot of guesswork out and lets you verify spots in the kiln that dry quick and spots that dry slow.

The sweet spot in small scale kiln drying is to have a predry shed that works perfect,, then only dry 15%mc or less .

jim

[Don_Lewis]

I guess we need to work on the Manual. I thought it was pretty clear that you shouldn't mix species and thicknesses of green (over 25%) lumbre

I would let the temperature rise to about 100-105. Use the same RH settings.Check each day to be sure you are drying at the right rate. I know you were hoping to not have to do that but once you do and keep the records, you will have a lot better idea about what is going on. It is sort of like learning to make bread. Follow the recipe and then you develop a feel for it.\

[MikeH]

 I understand it is not recomended to mix species but have been having local lumber yard do it with good results in there 40mbf kiln. (red/white oak and hard maple).
 I cant wait for the day I can fill the kiln with 4000bdft. of quartered white oak.
                                                                                 Thanks for your help.
                                                                                                    Mike

[Furby]

Is the local lumber yard using the same type of kiln, and did they mix species on their first many loads or wait til they knew how the kiln worked?

[Don_Lewis]

Mqple and Oak dry so differently from green that I can't think of any type of kiln that would give a good result with a mixed load. If it is below 25%, it all can be mixed

[MikeH]

Here is some pics of wood fresh off saw all dried together at Lake Elmo Hardwoods




 





 So can a nyle do this?

[Don_Lewis]

The wood doesn't know what kind of system is making the temperature and humidity so the answer is "yes."

We have customers drying very high end figured Maple with L200's. In fact one has been doing it for years and is so successful, he is puting in 3 more larger chambers now.

Do you know what temperatures settings they use and are you certain the do not air dry the Oak?

[MikeH]

 No I dont know what temps. they used and they went out of business after 75 years, owner got sick and wife liquidated. So I was forced to buy kiln, I am sure it will work out just fine, I have not heard anything bad about nyle kilns. I am just looking for more recipes to do the cooking.

 Thanks
 Mike

[Tom]

You've been talking to "Mr. Nyle Kiln" himself.   If there are two people on this board that I would take their word for gospel, it would be Don Lewis and Den Socling.

Just because you think, or have been told, that your wood was dried in one load, doesn't mean that it was.   You may be finding out now just how technical an operation kiln operators are performing.   That's why they get the "big bucks". 

[Jeff]

You won't or can't get better advice then you will get from Don Lewis or Den Socling as mentioned and many of our other members for that matter, but Don and Den live and breath kiln drying and I would never dream of questioning thier advice.

[Gary_C]

Mike

I was going to use that business to dry some wood until I talked to some others that had been drying wood there for years and did not get a good recommendation on them. But then they had their fire and I did not get a chance to try them.

But even so, they told me that if I brought in more than one species, I may have to wait longer because they would not mix species in a kiln load. I understand they sometimes pushed those steam kilns too much and had problems drying oaks.

At any rate, I have to agree with Jeff and Tom that when Don Lewis tells you something, you can bet on it. If Lake Elmo mixed species and got away with it, it was just luck and nothing else. From what I know their kilns were ready for retirement anyway.

[MikeH]

 I am sorry if  I upset the kiln gods, I was just looking for honest advise and now the board police are all over me.  I read just about everything Don and Den wrote over the last five years under search words nyle and rh before I bought a kiln and after and respect their advise that is why I asked a question in the first place. I believe my original  question was can you take out to much water at over 85%rh at start of kiln when at low temp. I am looking for advise on kilns using rh instead of bulbs, why is everybody yelling at me for asking questions?
 

[Furby]

No one is yelling at you Mike, but you seem to have an attitude in your posts, and it's not being received very well by folks around here.
Might want to think through what you write a bit before you hit that post button.

You were given some good advice in reply to your question.
You seem to ignore it as "you know better", that being the case, why ask questions?

[MikeH]

 I am not very good at public speaking and must be worse at public typing.

[scsmith42]

<grin>  Mike - all that I can say is "GET IN LINE"!!

If I had a nickle for every time that something came across as different in writing than my intention, well I'd probably be sitting on a yacht somewhere sipping margaritas...

Don't sweat it.

Scott

[Burlkraft]

<grin>  I'd probably be sitting on a yacht somewhere sipping margaritas...
Scott

I thought that was where you just was........          

[TexasTimbers]

Mike - personally, I have never offended anyone on this forum. I never come come across other than how I intend, I never get misconstrued by anyone, and no one ever elects to take my meanings in the worst possible way.

However, I understand you mere mortals sometimes make mistakes and can be forgiven. Some folks get a little excitable late at night but don't sweat it.

Troublemakers like Smith and Burl on the other hand, there just isn't much hope for them.

[scsmith42]

Man, I'm busting a gut down here!

Steve, is that you I see sipping a brewski on the next boat over?

Kevin, you even spelled "Troublemakers" with a capital "T"!   

[Don_Lewis]

Hey calm down. I didn't get any trace of an "attitude." It is a legitimate question. If he had been told that the high end product he sent pictures of had been dried from green in a single load, then it make sense to ask why he can't do it. I really don't believe they did that, certainly not with much success.

Thanks for all the kudos about expertise but wood is wood and every tree is different and there is always someone who is doing something that doesn't makes sense until you dig into it. It almost always turns out to be explainable. I can't count how many calls we get with people reporting some neighbor doing what seems impossible and wanting to do the same. I think if I ran a kiln drying business and I had a evil heart, I would advise customers who decided to dry on their own to mix their Birdseye and Red Oak and chuckle.

[TexasTimbers]

I never detected an attitude from Mike either.

It is a good question as everyone starting out with a kiln wantds to know the answer to that almost immediately.

I would like to have a cheat sheet that showed what woods can and can't be mixed at what starting MC etc. there are too many variables for a cut-n-dry cheat sheet like that though I bet.

[Max sawdust]

First load should be something simple to dry.
The sweet spot in small scale kiln drying is to have a predry shed that works perfect,, then only dry 15%mc or less .
jim

So what is the perfect pre dry shed??

In my experience the words "fresh off the saw" and "kiln"  mean you better know what you are doing...have GREAT mentors or...be VERY lucky   Heck this time I can mess up air drying

Mike, I never got any "attitude" from you either.  Just good questions from man who spent hard earned money on a new expensive tool, that is very anxious to not destroy his first load of precious high end wood

I have been learning alot from this thread.
Max

[Jeff]

This is the first I had read this since I posted. I wanted to say I didn't post out of any sense of someone having an attitude, although I will in a heart beat. I posted to help a new member, that might not be in the know on who was giving him advice.  That's one of my jobs as the board policeman. . Actually my forum involvement goes a tad deeper then that Mike, so you may occasionally see unexpected stuff from me, but its only as part of the gig. 

Perceptions on an internet forum can be a hard read, and when you have several thousand guys with smashed fingers, blury eyes and sneezin sawdust on thier monitors, its an almost impossible thing to read. But I can tell you for the most part, here un-like many other places on the net, 99.9% of the time if you perceive towards the positive and good, you will be right on.