iDRY Vacuum Kilns

Sponsors:

Drying live oak

Started by sixteenacrewood, May 27, 2011, 04:21:56 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

sixteenacrewood

Hi everyone
any one have experience drying live oak?
I plan to use 4 inch live edge slabs for a commissioned project, there will be some 2 inch stock as well. Most of the logs are 24-30 in in diamiter.
My thoughts were to air dry for a few months the put fans on it for a few months the in the solar kiln

Thanks in advance

scsmith42

The maximum safe drying rate for 4" oak is about 2/10% per day.  If you follow your plan it will surface check tremendously.

Your 8/4 oak planks can safely be dried at around 1% per day.
Peterson 10" WPF with 65' of track
Smith - Gallagher dedicated slabber
Tom's 3638D Baker band mill
and a mix of log handling heavy equipment.

Tom

I found Live Oak to have a greater propensity for surface checking than any of the other oaks I dried, with the exception perhaps of Swamp Chestnut Oak.  Drying it slowly and keeping the surface dry enough to not grow mold is the ticket.   Something you might consider testing is rubbing the surfaces down with Johnson's Paste Wax to try to slow down the drying there.  Definitely seal the ends and keep it out of the sun.  You will still need a flow of air, so don't close it up somewhere and let the air stagnate.

sixteenacrewood

I might try the paste wax idea.
so is using the solar kiln out of the question?, even if I air dry and/or fan dry down to 25% first?

The tough part of this project is that the trees are being cut this summer, any idea what the starting MC may be?

Tom

Solar Kilns are known to be one of the most reasonable ways to dry any wood that tends to be difficult to dry.  It is relatively slow, goes through de-stressing periods naturally as the sun comes up and goes down and is reliant on only the movement of air as an outside control.  They enclose the wood in a controlled environment where insects can be deterred and the wood can be protected from the direct rays of the sun which can "cook" upper surfaces.   How quickly you remove the wet air from the container and how thoroughly you aerate the stack has a lot to do with how fast the lumber dries.  All of these things make it worthwhile to consider a solar kiln for drying hard-to-dry or expensive/rare lumber.

Air drying may take some of the load off of a heavily worked kiln, but is unnecessary for producing a good product.  I think you should consider the solar kiln as the better way to dry over just (open)-air drying. 

A drying shed works too, but you lose some of the control that a solar kiln provides.

There is no need to measure MC when the water will be running out of the end of the log.

scsmith42

Quote from: sixteenacrewood on May 30, 2011, 10:33:03 AM
I might try the paste wax idea.
so is using the solar kiln out of the question?, even if I air dry and/or fan dry down to 25% first?

The tough part of this project is that the trees are being cut this summer, any idea what the starting MC may be?

Your starting MC will be around 60%.
Peterson 10" WPF with 65' of track
Smith - Gallagher dedicated slabber
Tom's 3638D Baker band mill
and a mix of log handling heavy equipment.

sixteenacrewood

Thanks for the input guys, I will probably mill everything and sticker under a pole shed, no walls. I might take a few planks and put them in the solar kiln as an experement to see what happens, and then make plans from there. I have about 15 months from hauling the logs to delivery of finished product. With it being live oak I may be pushed once I am in the building phase

sixteenacrewood

one thought is to load the kiln to capacity, shut the vents and monitor the internal air humidity to control the drying rate. I had planned to insert probes into a few planks so I could check the MC on a daily basis for a while.

Thank You Sponsors!