Hi Cube Reefer Kiln Build

YellowHammer · June 11, 2015, 06:46:48 PM

Quote from: OneWithWood on June 11, 2015, 12:14:25 PM
Excellent job, YH.
If you have quick attach forks on that tractor it may be easier to detach the forks and just use the FEL carriage to push the load in. That is what I do and I find I have more control and it is easier. But, then again, my JD4520 is considerably smaller than your tractor.

I have a QA system on the loader, I'll try it with the forks removed.

Quote from: ljohnsaw on June 11, 2015, 02:47:42 PM
Just curious. Did you even try to push it in by hand? Wondering how much force it takes to move that stack with all those wheels on your cart. I suppose it will be a bit easier to pull them out with all the water gone!

We pushed the carts by hand (by shoulder really) just to see how they felt on the track, and once they got rolling, it wasn't too bad, but I'd estimate it took about 300 lbs force to get it moving, which isn't much relatively speaking, but is a lot more than I'd want to do routinely.

Ljohnsaw · June 11, 2015, 07:33:59 PM

Quote from: YellowHammer on June 11, 2015, 06:46:48 PM
<<snip>>
I even threatened my donkey that I might use her if she wouldn't stop using my new gravel pad as a litter box.
YH

:D :D
I'd opt for the UTV with a solid connection push bar so you could stop it if need be and be able to pull them out as well. Did you happen to make a coupler to attach your train cars together?

YellowHammer · June 12, 2015, 12:20:02 AM

Quote from: ljohnsaw on June 11, 2015, 07:33:59 PM
Did you happen to make a coupler to attach your train cars together?

Well, that's one of the things I mostly didn't get done ;D

GeneWengert-WoodDoc · June 12, 2015, 01:38:36 PM

Moisture probes driven 1/4 of the thickness of the lumber will give an answer within 5% MC of the true value for very dry lumber. As the lumber gets wetter, errors commonly exceed 20% MC. The reason is that the relationship between electrical resistance and MC becomes very uncertain or imprecise.

Peter Drouin · June 12, 2015, 10:21:06 PM

Looks good YH 8)

YellowHammer · June 16, 2015, 10:38:34 PM

It's been about a week, and I took the dried and sterilized load out yesterday with no issues, other than getting a feel for how the kiln oprates and behaves.

Ljohnsaw · June 16, 2015, 11:08:59 PM

8) (just imagine he is saying "choo-chooooo")

WDH · June 17, 2015, 07:21:15 AM

Sweet success. Now you will need to get an Engineer's cap.

canadianwoodworks · June 17, 2015, 09:01:28 AM

Congrats.

Hard work pays off!

beenthere · June 17, 2015, 10:21:47 AM

He be laying more track soon, and some switches for dead-heading, and maybe a round-table for turning around...
just sayin.. ;D

YellowHammer · June 17, 2015, 11:29:15 PM

I may get the engineer's hat, but I'm about kilned out for awhile. ;D.

Now I need to figure out how to quickly unstack and unsticker lumber. Not saying it's difficult, but it's very time consuming, and it's now becoming my choke point. I've spent two afternoons this week, and another tomorrow just unstickering lumber and dead stacking, getting it ready to go to the planer. Unstickering and dead stacking is about as enjoyable as washing gravel, and about as tedious, especially for hours at a time.
Anybody got any ideas on how to make this faster? I've been looking at machines, but they are very expensive.

Thanks to the folks who watched and helped me along in this journey, it was a lot of fun, 8) and I hope you all enjoyed following my project as it progresses. I have to admit, I'm glad it's over because it's time for the contraption to start earning it's keep.

Ljohnsaw · June 17, 2015, 11:35:31 PM

Why handle it twice? If you have enough stickers, why not leave it on the pallets stickered and then when you pass it through the planner, you un-sticker it then?

YellowHammer · June 17, 2015, 11:46:11 PM

Quote from: ljohnsaw on June 17, 2015, 11:35:31 PM
Why handle it twice? If you have enough stickers, why not leave it on the pallets stickered and then when you pass it through the planner, you un-sticker it then?

I have to transport the kiln dried rough sawn by goosneck flatbed, and space is at a premium because I'm carrying full loads like this. So I unsticker to get more road worthy packs, and don't have to worry about a sticker coming loose on the highway and taking out another vehicle .

Ljohnsaw · June 17, 2015, 11:59:53 PM

OK, got it. Well, you are pretty handy with a welder...

Make a set of rails, maybe three or four of them making a bed about 12 feet wide and about 10-15 long with the near end about 6 or 8 feet up, far end close to the ground. Approach from the high side, dump your pallet of lumber, tilting it slowly on to the rails. Maybe pushing a row or two at a time off the pallet. The stickers will fall down, the lumber slides down to the end (with vertical stops?). From there, either hand pick the boards or fork them with your tractor.

Kind of like a rock/dirt separator you see on big construction sites. I could whip up something in SketchUp, if you like.

YellowHammer · June 18, 2015, 10:39:18 PM

Quote from: ljohnsaw on June 17, 2015, 11:59:53 PM
OK, got it. Well, you are pretty handy with a welder...

Kind of like a rock/dirt separator you see on big construction sites. I could whip up something in SketchUp, if you like.

Good description, I can visualize it, no problem. It would be like grizzly bars on a static rock screen. I built a small one several years ago for our farm gravel pit to classify aggregate and separate big rocks.

Thanks
YH

scleigh · June 18, 2015, 11:24:24 PM

Maybe a couple of high school kids to work a few hours a week stacking the lumber?

okmulch · June 19, 2015, 08:11:03 AM

You did an excellent job! I enjoyed the journey with you,just glad I got to watch. :D

Me and Cedarman will have to come visit again and tour the new expansion.

YellowHammer · June 30, 2015, 10:55:59 PM

I thought I'd give a status report, a little follow up on how things are progressing with the new kiln, now that I've got a little experience with it.

Things are going very good, with a few hiccups along the way.

The controller works pretty well, easy to get a feel for, and pretty nice. It would be a little confusing at first, but since I had decent experience with my other kiln, this was an easy switch.

Peter Drouin · June 30, 2015, 11:23:31 PM

Glenn1 · July 01, 2015, 08:31:57 PM

Glad to hear that things are doing well.

WoodenHead · July 20, 2015, 08:05:14 PM

Well done YellowHammer! 8) You do very careful and neat work. And that gives a good impression of quality of your wood too. ;)

I like your setup/process and would like to implement something similar with my own kiln (also an L200M - but not reefer). I hope to begin with the kiln cart and then progress into using pallets (300-400bdft is about all I can lift with existing equipment). If all works well with that process, I would like to switch my air drying shed over to carts and pallets also. That will take some coin though :-\

cjderosa · October 07, 2015, 11:06:40 AM

Hello All-

I can't tell you how helpful this thread has been as we build our kiln in Los Angeles. Wonderful pictures, great descriptions and insightful ideas - thank you!

I do have a question - however. We're building our kiln cart and the Nyle instructions call for the crosspieces, on which the stacks of lumber will sit, to be made of 3x3 hardwood.

I know that YellowHammer decided to use steel to work with his pallet system - but do folks really think these crosspieces need to be hardwood? I would think 3x3's of soft would work as well.

Any advice is appreciated.
Thanks
Charles

OneWithWood · October 07, 2015, 01:57:40 PM

By the time you drill all the holes to bolt the wood to the beams you could have welded up 3x3 box steel many times over. Properly coated the steel will outlast the wood and does not react to kiln conditions. Caveat: Be sure to totally encase the steel with a good paint or similar. Oak reacts to ferrous metal.

cjderosa · October 07, 2015, 10:52:05 PM

Thanks One with Wood - good advice, steel it is.
The guys at Nyle said they thought the softwood would probably end up crushed over time, but 105' of 3x3 hardwood is expensive here in Los Angeles - so steel makes some good economic sense from where I'm standing.

YellowHammer · October 07, 2015, 11:31:48 PM

Steel, with the proper tools, is actually very easy and precise to work with, and will stay accurate over the long haul. I wanted this kiln to be a hands off, no fiddling, long service life system. It's critical that the stacks of lumber be placed on a dead flat surface and once the metal carts are built and welded they are "done" and will never have to be adjusted, shimmed, tightened, etc.

Notice that even though the carts are painted, steel may discolor wood when in contact. That's where the pallets come in, because among all their other benefits, they protect the wood in the stacks from any contact with the steel carts.

Cjderosa,
Thanks for reading about my project, and I would be very interested in seeing your kiln progress.