worried about damage on green oak in my Nyle 200 kiln

[Kelvin]

Howdy all,
Well last time i ran some oak in my kiln i followed the rules to be safe as i had need to dry some soaking wet oak, though last time it was 2" thick quarter sawn white oak, and this time its 1" thick quarter sawn red oak.   needless to say i honeycombed it.  pretty bad, and i was thinking that my kiln chamber is probably too leaky to control the moisture loss in the begining, though i was weighing samples and i didn't think it was going too fast. 

Well Nyle manual says red oak is safer than white for drying, and i think 4/4 is easier than 8/4 do you guys think i should be worried this time and slow up schedule or assume it was due to the thick white?  I started on 90 degrees with 20% compressor which is the recommendation for Group 4 lumber above 35% MC, i assume mine is somewhere around 50% MC as i just sawed it today, though the samples are in the oven right now to determine exactly.  Would you think i was safe, or lower compressor, or temp?  Thoughts?
Thanks
kelvin

[red oaks lumber]

keep your temp down, turn your comp. up to atleast 40%. heat is what releases the water ,running your comp. to little wont remove what water is being released, your load will mold big time, which wont hurt the wood unless your selling it r. sawn.
 on the 7th day keep the temp down but turn your comp. to 100% and slowly start bringing the temp up by day 14  let er rip you should be at 125 deg. with 100%. this info only applies if you are running a full kiln load 4-5,000 b.f green oak drying schedule is 28 days but you can push it to 21 days without to much worries. based on 4/4 wood

[OneWithWood]

Old saying I just made up...

Better to take a bit longer and end up with useable material than to rush it and end up with junk.

[red oaks lumber]

going to slow can also be bad, cupping can occur if the moisture isn't removed fast enough

[oakiemac]

In my experience, 4/4 is much easier then 8/4. I think you can pretty much be safe with what red oaks said. if you are drying 8/4 you have to keep that temp down until the mc is under 25%. It can be frustrating trying to dry that thicker white oak.

[Kelvin]

Yeah, that quarter sawn white oak was in the kiln for 3 months just about, but i guess i wrecked it in the begining.  Now i see on the schedule charts from Nyle that the numbers are only for 4/4 and you are suppose to mulitiply by .4 for 8/4.  That is what i didn't do and what wrecked my lumber.  Guess all that schooling didn't teach me to read instructions too well.  Thanks for input.  I figured the 4/4 red oak would be easier to dry without trouble than the 8/4 white, i just didn't know by what factor.  Now i found the info in the manual, about 2x's as fast, or slow depending on which way you look at it.  Oh, and i'm Group 3 not group 4 as i mentioned above in case anyone is actually interested in the details.  I think group 4 is 8/4 oak.
Thanks all again,
Kelvin

[treedragger]

I sometimes have good results when I paint the ends of my 8/4 and even the 4/4 white oak red oak and hickory and air dry it on sticks for a few months.  If I can keep enough of this going then there will be more predictable results on the kiln.  I'm about to receive a load of persimmon from the sawmill.  That should be interesting!

[LorenB]

Kelvin,

I don’t remember where I read this (I think Gene Wengert wrote it in Sawmill & Woodlot magazine) but recently saw that if you plane oak before drying you will reduce degrade by something like 75%.  I can’t give you the exact numbers, but it was quite a lot. 

If you’re concerned about degrade, consider planing it before drying. 

Good luck,
– Loren