Pine Boards are Molding....I BEAT IT!

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

My biggest seller is a Pine board 1 x 8 x 10.
After each cant is milled to lumber, I hand brush each side of the board.
After I stack and sticker, I will take the push broom and sweep the boards again.
At the end of the day, I take the leaf blower and blow any excess dust from between the boards.

I have experimented with 2 inch stickers, now I just use 1 1/4 inch stickers.....size of stickers does not matter.
I have tried a fan blowing air between the boards over night.

The humidity is high, temp is in the 90's and up.

Very little breeze in S.C this time of year and when we do get a breeze, its hot.

MY BOARDS ARE MOLDING! 

Would it help to spray the boards with a BLEACH mix after cleaning?
Could I add bleach to my lube?

Even the dry Pine logs I saw where I do not use lube, mold a little. There is some moisture in every log.

Has anyone ever used bleach to solve this problem? Or at least tried?

  

 

[EZ]

I'm not an expert on this milling and drying but I air dry all my lumber outside with some kind of roof over it. A block wall will draw moisture.
EZ

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

I'm not an expert on this milling and drying but I air dry all my lumber outside with some kind of roof over it. A block wall will draw moisture.
EZ

The block wall is 15 feet away and the other sides of the building are open. I have stacked it outside also. It will still mold.

I think I'm gonna try a mist of bleach tomorrow. Gotta try something. Thanks EZ.

[Buck]

Rack em for a couple of weeks then go to stacks. X fashion, just lean them inward on a beam from both directions. Old timers around here would do that a couple of weeks and then go to flat stacks this time of the year.

[losttheplot]

I think the bleach would evaporate pretty quick.

[wwsjr]

I have used 50% mix of cheap bleach and water. Spray with pump-up sprayer as I stacked. I only sprayed the top side of the boards. 1" stickers were used. Worked for me.

[NMFP]

You cane use bleach however, The reason you have mold growing on the boards is because of the sugars in the wood.  The fungi eat the sugars and therefore, grow on the lumber.

I personally use sap stain control products from Kop-Coat and I believe that Baileys has a product too but I do not know the name of the product.

Bleach will work for a small amount of time but as soon as the bleach dries up and the sugars are still present, they will begine to mold again.

Try using fluted stickers with alot of air flow.  Normally if you build a pack that is 42 or 48" wide, you will notice the interior boards will most likely be molded.  Try building narrower packs with fluted stickers and make sure you have ALOT of air flow and I am positive your wold problems will go away.

If you need more help, please ask.  I have other suggestions as well.

[RMay]

bleach will work but stay bright & air  works the best  8)

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

bleach will work but stay bright & air  works the best  8)

What is STAY BRIGHT? RMAY
Thanks.

[Tree Feller]

The high relative humidity combined with the perfect temperature is why fungi are growing on your lumber. The RH just won't let it dry quickly enough. The good news is that it doesn't really hurt the lumber structurally. The bad news is that your customers probably won't buy it because it is ugly.

Bleach will definitely kill the fungi and might allow the lumber to dry below the 20% MC needed to sustain fungal growth before it becomes ineffective. It is certainly worth a try.

If the bleach doesn't work (or even if it does) you might think about using a borate product like Tim-Bor. It's an effective insecticide and a fungicide, too. I use it on my hardwood lumber to prevent powderpost beetle infestation. It's also completely safe and non-toxic.

http://www.amazon.com/Tim-bor-Professional-Insecticide-Fungicide-1-5/dp/B00282L6T2

[SandburRanch]

This product looks like a reasonable solution.

http://www.qualityborate.com/Applications/MoldPreventionApplications/BoraSolPCPlus/tabid/130/Default.aspx

[cutterboy]

I know how you feel David. I had some white birch mold badly last year. First time ever that happened to me. We don't get as much of the hot humid weather as you do down there but we do get some. I had about 120bf that looked really bad. I ended up selling it all for 50 cents a bf and I was happy to get that.

I hope you find a way to keep the mold away. After all the work of sawing and stacking it just makes you mad to see it mold. >:(

  Cutter

[cutterboy]

Welcome SandburRanch. Looks like a good product. I wonder how much it costs.

[SandburRanch]

I'm not sure of the cost.  As a matter of fact I didn't even see that it states "available soon" until after I replied.  It was just a google search that looked promising.

No wood mold where I live @ 109°F with a RH of 12 percent.  But we don't have any saw mills either. :D

And thanks for the welcome.

[bandmiller2]

This is no help, but I try not to mill the good pine in the summer months.Prehaps some sort of kiln for the freashly cut pine.I'am sure bleach will help but not a cure your problem.Blue stain in the summer is something we have to live with. Frank C.

[Magicman]

Welcome to the Forestry Forum, SandburRanch.   

[bandmiller2]

Dave,it helps if you cut in cooler weather and inventory dried pine for the warmer weather.If someone wants what you don't have explain to them about the blues, and they will just have to live with it.Most of my pine goes on rough buildings that will be stained anyways,most folks understand if you explain it. Frank C.

[NMFP]

If you are confident that you have good air flow, build narrower packs.  I always teach my students the tricks of the trade to produce the highest quality of lumber possible.  Most often, there are many free ways to deal with problems if you are willing to adjust accordingly.

[WDH]

David,

I cut some in JANUARY and some it still molded  .  I was chagrined  >:(. 

I use a 25 gallon spray tank that has a diaphram pump that runs off a battery power pack.  It pumps at 60 psi.  There is a long wand.  This is a set up that Customsawyer showed me.  He used the tank on an ATV to run off a battery, and was used to spray rows of seedlings for grass control.  This beats the DanG out of a pump-up or backpack sprayer which is way too slow and way too much work.

I lay the boards off the saw right onto a 10' long stacking table that I can unload with the forks on the tractor when I am done spraying.  The boards slide right off the back of the mill onto the table so that I do not have to "tote" boards.  Customsawyers saws that it is not acceptable to tote a board.  Lay out a 10' layer, spray, flip, and spray again.  You can then lay the next layer right on top of the already sprayed boards, so you can do as many layers as your forks can pick up at a time.  I spray for powderpost beetles in oak, ash, hickory, pecan, and other ring porous woods.  I have not sprayed pine, but I am sure that it would work just as well.

I use Solubor, a sodium borate salt.  It is a dissolvable powder that is mixed in fertilizer tanks as a boron nutrient additive.  Tim-bor is also a sodium borate salt.  These two products have the exact same amount of elemental boron, 20.5%.  The deal is that Tim-bor is labeled for pesticide use.  However, it costs 3 times as much as Solubor.  A 25 pound pail of Timbor is $83, or $3.32 per pound.  A 50 pound bag of Solubor is $50, or $1.00 per pound.  Mix at 1 to 1.5 pounds per gallon of water.  A gallon of spray will coat about 100 BF, spraying both sides and the edges.  I don't see why you could not add chlorine to the spray to inhibit the mold and mildew, with or without the borate.  I am not sure if the borate controls mold and mildew, but I think that it might.  Maybe you can do an experiment  ;D.

This pics shows the sprayer behind the mill in the background.  The spray table is behind the head of the mill, but you can't see it good in this oic.


 

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

Dave,it helps if you cut in cooler weather and inventory dried pine for the warmer weather.If someone wants what you don't have explain to them about the blues, and they will just have to live with it.Most of my pine goes on rough buildings that will be stained anyways,most folks understand if you explain it. Frank C.

You're probably right Frank. The fence builders, barn siders, etc. don't "give a mold" what it looks like as long as it is strong wood. Others are afraid of GREEN WOOD.....and most people LOVE Blue Stain. There's a big difference in the green mold on my boards and blue stain. Blue stain is kinda of nice to most of my customers.

There is country store 400 yards above me transforming the entire inside to look western. They have been putting in my board and baton for a month and it looks DanG good. They keep the temp. in the store at 73 degrees while they are installing the boards and storing them as they need them. At this temp in the store....no mold at all on the stacked lumber.
I am going to keep sawing for them and transport the boards to the store within 2 hours to get them in the cool temp. This has cut down the mold almost 98%. They palm sand the boards before they put them up and that helps a lot too. If there is mold, you have to look close to find it. And I mean close. They sprayed some TILEX on it and the mold disappears.
I will send pics of the store later as it continues to transform.
Thanks for all ya'lls input.

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

Thanks for the info Danny.....I have a 15 gallon tank I can mix a solution in with a wand sprayer and it runs on 12 volt.
I'm gonna try something.....you can bet your sweet bippy!

[NMFP]

Tilex has sodium hypochlorite which is a form of bleach.  There is also a surfactant with this that holds the bleach on the wood.  A surfactant is a detergent or soap which allows the bleach to stay on the wood and not evaporate quickly.  Knowing chemistry helps to know how everyday products can be used for other purposes.  Many times, free or low cost.

[WDH]

Having to spray is a pain in the butt log.

[NMFP]

I have sawn millions of feet of pine and never sprayed.  Build narrow packs with fluted stickers and keep constant air flow, no mold will grow as long as you have good air flow no matter the humidity level. 

[west penn]

   How wide are your stacks?  the pic shows them to be fairly wide.  Try a small stack outside with 42inch long stickers. are your boards on the outside of the stack getting moldy also?