White mold

[jim king]

We have a charge of white to cream colored light weight lumber in the kiln and it is growing a white mold on the surface.  A lot of it.   I cannot tell if it is penetrating the wood as all is very wet yet.

Any ideas on what is wrong ?¿  We have always dried red colored woods and have never seen this problem.  The wood has been sussesfully dried but down river in Brazil so we have no source of information close.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

[Tom]

Jim,
I don't have a kiln, but I have seen the white mold on flat stacked lumber that is freshly cut for 3 days.  It glues the boards together.  I believe it to be a white rot fungus and it must be treated or killed asap. Drying it's surface quickly seems to do it.  I also have mixed a 3:1 solution of 5% household bleach and applied it with a garden sprayer, misting each board to the point of wet, not runoff.

It could also be mildew and it will turn black.  The white rot will stay on top for awhile, if it's mildew it will go into the board and be difficult to kill.

I would certainly entertain a mildicide or fungicide of some sort.

[Fla._Deadheader]

I got that down here, when the help would not listen to how I wanted the stickers put in the pile.

  Here, it just peels off. Haven't had any problem with it getting INTO the wood.

  I just scrape it off, best as I can, and run it through the planer ???  Mine is all on hardwood. 

[jim king]

This afternoon I was questioning our kiln operater and I think I found the answer.  This wood is for an Italian company that is arriving again in a couple of weeks to process it and send to Italy.

We did not saw or treat the wood before it entered the kiln, it was brought in only for drying.  They did it themselves and probably bought bad fungacide from a local guy that is famous for sticking it to new people here with his bad chemicals.

It doesnt solve the problem but at least knowing that we were not responsible for the treatment was a relief.  The load is over 60,000 bf so treating this quantity of wet , slippery and moldy wood in a chlorine bath or whatever would not anymore be feasable.

[Den Socling]

I believe you can kill the mold if you can increase air flow. If you can't crank up the fans, perhaps increased baffling would help.

Again I am making an educated guess, but I have seen some mold leave a gray spot in the wood. This appears to be an enzyme stain that goes beneath the surface. I hope it isn't!

[jim king]

Den:

We did crank up the air to double hurricane levels.  I doñt think it will solve the problem and I am sure there will be blue stain.  The wood is a slipery mess.  Today I will update the progress.

[jim king]

It all turned out well.  The white slippery mold dried to a powder that needed to be brushed off.  Here is the wood after brushing with one of the latest models of power cleaners.  I have never seen this model until this mold problem but it works well , it is nothing but a series of wire wheels on a shaft.

[Hilltop366]

nice power cleaner !
I wonder if a set up like that would knock the fuzz off of a rough sawn board to use as exterior trim?
I like rough sawn for trim it holds stain really well, but some times it is just too rough.

[jim king]

Hilltop:
It does in fact take the fuzz off.  That is mostly what is on the floor.  The mold is 95% airborne and is not pleasant to walk by.  This wood is soft so I dont know what it would do with a harder wood.

[Hilltop366]

Thanks Jim

[Den Socling]

Jim,
Your plant engineer is impressive!  :D
Den

[jim king]

They all we are graduates of the "West Bank of the Amazon Machete School" .

[Den Socling]

Iquitos campus?

[jim king]

Here is the bus stop for the students entering the U and the fast food shop.  The last is the metal working and saftey  class .

[Gary_C]

Nice pictures, Jim. Bet those workers have never heard of OSHA.  ;D

Do you suppose the guy about to tip that molten pot of metal has some splatter burns on his legs and arms?

[jim king]

Gary: 

I left Balsam Lake and the Metro area many years ago and OSHA was part of the reason as I could not keep up with all the rules they were putting in.  This is a bit different here, there are things happen every day you just cant stand to watch but most of them escape alive and well.

[barbender]

I love that power cleaner, I was thinking of putting something like that together to clean up my lumber before I run it through the planer. I live in sand country and it gets blown into my stickered piles by the wind. tough on planer blades :(