drying slab lumber

[addysdaddy]

I'm in the process of building a new sawmill shed and looking at different options... It will only be 20 x 24 due to space limits and i was looking at building a "drying room" to air dry slabs aproximately 8 x 8 in one corner... My main question is can 2" plus slabs be dried standing vertically or do they have to be laid down and stickered. What about 2" x 18" x 8' boards. I'm thinking vertical would be easier to place and get to later on without having to re-stack every time i wanted a slab off the bottom? Planning on putting numerous vents in the sides of the room to allow for lots of air flow... Looking for opinions from the folks who have already tried all the ideas i'm just starting to think of so i don't waste my time...

[hacknchop]

 :DMy suggestion would be to stack and sticker well, allowing the slabs to dry nice and straidht, then once dry stand them on end and they should stay nice and straight and easy to get at,I have had nothing but  warp standing green lumber of any sort on end.That just my opinion worth every cent you paid for it.. :D.

[WDH]

I have had poor luck drying slabs standing vertically.  They warp and crack.  Too much air and too fast drying.  Stickering them slows down the drying and yields a better slab for me.  Cover the top layer of slabs with another layer of stickered lumber to protect the slabs from drying too fast. 

[logboy]

If you stand slabs up against a wall to dry you will end up with prime grade rocking chair stock. Everything I cut gets stickered and stacked in an open sided barn with decent airflow. It also gets weight put on top or the top slabs curl up like bananas.  Slabs are not lumber.

[WDH]

Those are some fine slabs, logboy.  Very professionally done. 

[logboy]

Those are some fine slabs, logboy.  Very professionally done.

Thanks. I just finished cutting up this big maple last night. It surprised me.

It cut quite well and only took two chains for the whole log.  A lot of it was figured and spalted. Compare this to the last hard maple where I only got two slabs per chain.


I've made a few mistakes over the years and created some very expensive firewood. It took a while to get a method to the madness and develop some techniques that work. Part of that was to stop treating slabs like lumber, and realize they have their own special needs that must be attended to in order to get a quality salable product. Slabs are unforgiving, and if you screw them up you just set yourself back months or even years. If I stain or warp some lumber I still might be able to get barn boards or something out of it. Nobody wants a 4' wide maple slab that is cracked apart and curved like a banana.

[addysdaddy]

 8)That's a nice pile of slabs there... Looks like i'll have to re-think timing and not rush this process... Looks like a shed for the mill and another one for slabs... and a small PINEY kiln for the small stuff... Good thing I haven't retired yet :D