sticker experiment

[longtime lurker]

In my frame the sticks sit back in the groove about 6/4. They're firm on the sticks left to right, stickers slip in easily but cant move about too much. The front of the stick can't move more then a few degrees left and right. As with manual placement once you got a couple of boards on them they don't move, and when we go to tie off a pack it's simple to straighten the front anyway because the back is firm inside the groove. Unlike Dave's we have a sheet of ply across to give one solid end.... Once a board is down in each row we can slide the next board along it until it hits the ply and then flip it onto the sticks, the far end of the pack is always even without walking to check it that way.

The other picture is the sticker guide I mentioned... Piece of steel with them things on it that sits on one row of stickers and allows you to position the next couple of rows. Then you lift it further up the pack and go again. Totally unrelated to the racking frame, its a handy thing to have if you're portable.

[YellowHammer]

  if you need some more detail let me know and I'll grab some pictures of mine.

Yes, would you post a picture of an unloaded one?  The other picture is very pixelated and I can't make out the detail of the slots in the uprights.  Are they channel or machined out?
Thanks

[longtime lurker]

  if you need some more detail let me know and I'll grab some pictures of mine.

Yes, would you post a picture of an unloaded one?  The other picture is very pixelated and I can't make out the detail of the slots in the uprights.  Are they channel or machined out?
Thanks

Ill grab some pictures of one of ours Monday, that picture was one I found on the net to illustrate when you asked how I did it.

Mine has 1½" x ¾" unequal angle iron welded onto some 2" flat bar.

[mesquite buckeye]

Also liking the sticker rigs.

[hackberry jake]

I had to make some stickers today. Air dry sycamore and elm through the table saw with a power feeder. One pass through the planer tomorrow and they'll be ready.


 

[dean herring]

Hackberry , is the planer just to make them smooth or to make sure they are all the same thickness?

[hackberry jake]

Hackberry , is the planer just to make them smooth or to make sure they are all the same thickness?

It's to make sure they are all the same thickness. It probably wasn't necessary since the table saw and feeder made a pretty accurate cut, but I did it to be on the safe side. I also made them in the "H" style like yellow hammer does. It was rainy so I just used the dewalt since the powermatic is pointing outside.

Here is the planing process.
https://youtu.be/b4tfev59SVY

Here I am running them through the shaper to make the "H". I have a 1/2" cutter I was planning on using but the 5/16" cutter was already in the Oliver, so that's what I went with.
https://youtu.be/mcJKx5RTtcQ

Finished product


 


 

[mesquite buckeye]

Slick. ;D 8) 8) 8) 8)

[Darrel]

I learned a very important lesson rather quickly, namely this. One can't have to many stickers or keep them too straight.  On California's north coast, we'ed put redwood and spruce on sticks. Spruce was 36" on center and redwood was 48".  When I got my mill some forty years later, I stacked black oak with stickers every 36 inch just to be on the safe side. Big mistake!  I now stack my black oak with stickers every 16". 

[YellowHammer]

The stickers look great.  As much money as a high grade stack of boards will bring, and as many times as stickers can be reused, its a good idea to make sure the profiled stickers are dead on.  Its time well spent.   

[Dodgy Loner]

The stickers look great.  As much money as a high grade stack of boards will bring, and as many times as stickers can be reused, its a good idea to make sure the profiled stickers are dead on.  Its time well spent.

Like.

[Dough_baker]

I used aluminum stickers for nearly one year, they work well, but a little expensive, about 4 USD per metre...

So far, it costs me thousands of dollars.   :-[  but no more stain, mold, and bugs from stickers, also very durable.

[hackberry jake]

I wonder what the crush strength is on aluminum extrusion like that. I can see how it would last a while if stacks were kept short.

[Woodhauler]

I seen a sticker experiment go horribly wrong 10 years ago or so! It was at morgan lumber in bingham maine. They was sawing hemlock for a Canadian outfit and had 50 or so tractor trailer loads all ready to go and they refused them because they wanted 2 more stickers per layer! They had to unbundle everyone and redo! These was loads on a trailer truck grossing 100,000pounds! They fought them but had to do it!

[beenthere]

Trucking lumber on stickers?? Must be air drying in transit.  ;)

Can't quite picture the height of stickered lumber stacks to get 100,000 pounds (but then if green weight starting out, might get it all on).

Keeping those stacks strapped down tight as they were shrinking while being trucked must have been a steady job for the trucker.

[Woodhauler]

Trucking lumber on stickers?? Must be air drying in transit.  ;)

Can't quite picture the height of stickered lumber stacks to get 100,000 pounds (but then if green weight starting out, might get it all on).

Keeping those stacks strapped down tight as they were shrinking while being trucked must have been a steady job for the trucker.

Its done all the time! I have never seen a trailer load leave a mill not stickered. This was green hemlock and its not a issue to gross 100,000 with lumber. I would guess its not a problem strapping cause everyone is hauling it .

[GeneWengert-WoodDoc]

A stack of freshly sawn eastern hemlock, 8/4 with 3/4" stickers (2.4" per layer total) that is 8-1/2' wide and 40' long on a flatbed trailer would be 47 cubic feet of wood.  This is about 2400 pounds per 2.4" layer (adding a bit for stickers).  With a maximum freight weight of 48,000 pounds on a flatbed, that would be 20 layers of 340 be for a total of 6800 be.  Some states would have higher loads, but not in spring when raids are soft.  A tandem trailer would have more of course. A 100,000 pound payload would be 8' high stack.

I have not seen stickered lumber on a flat bed very often.  Usually the purchaser wants to grade it before purchasing.

[Woodhauler]

A stack of freshly sawn eastern hemlock, 8/4 with 3/4" stickers (2.4" per layer total) that is 8-1/2' wide and 40' long on a flatbed trailer would be 47 cubic feet of wood.  This is about 2400 pounds per 2.4" layer (adding a bit for stickers).  With a maximum freight weight of 48,000 pounds on a flatbed, that would be 20 layers of 340 be for a total of 6800 be.  Some states would have higher loads, but not in spring when raids are soft.  A tandem trailer would have more of course. A 100,000 pound payload would be 8' high stack.

I have not seen stickered lumber on a flat bed very often.  Usually the purchaser wants to grade it before purchasing.

All the mills in maine send their lumber on flatbeds and the loads are pregraded and stickered.

[GeneWengert-WoodDoc]

In my previous posting, it should have been BF and not be.  "With a maximum freight weight of 48,000 pounds on a flatbed, that would be 20 layers of 340 BF for each layer or a total of 6800 BF." 

I know that a flatbed trailer has a maximum legal limit on federal highways of 48,000 basically, is designed to hold this weight (when empty it is curved upward, but it is flat when at this peak load) and that the trailer would likely break, or bend permanently, with a 100,000 payload.

Grading before stacking, drying and planing is interesting indeed.  I do not understand how it works, so can you help with further explanation?  I seem to be missing something about this system.

Any idea why they would sticker at the mill rather than at the drying facility...in other words, what is the advantage?  Is it possible that the lumber drying operation also owns the logs, so the sawmill is just custom sawing?

What is this pre-grade based on...just knots?  It would seem that warp, checks, splits and wane would be determined after shrinkage in drying and planing.  For dimension lumber, warp and wane are the big grading factors, but they cannot be determined prior to drying and planing...this is why I am confused how this system works.

Are these loads sold based on the pregrade or is payment based on the final grade?  How about footage?  I would think that the mills with kilns that buy such lumber must remeasure, edge and trim, plane and regrade after drying in order to provide a grading stamp on the lumber.

Do they return the stickers to the sawmills after drying for free or do they charge for them?  How do they handle sticker breakage?  Who owns the stickers?  I would guess that with this system, all stickers need to be identical in species and size as it would be hard to keep each mill's separated.  True?

Is there a standard load height for these stickers piles...how many layers on a flat bed trailer?

Thanks.

[Darrel]

In my previous posting, it should have been BF and not be.  "With a maximum freight weight of 48,000 pounds on a flatbed, that would be 20 layers of 340 BF for each layer or a total of 6800 BF."

Grading before stacking, drying and planing is interesting indeed.  I do not understand how it works, so can you help with further explanation?  I seem to be missing something about this system.


Any idea why they would sticker at the mill rather than at the drying facility...in other words, what is the advantage?  Is it possible that the lumber drying operation also owns the logs, so the sawmill is just custom sawing?

What is this pre-grade based on...just knots?  It would seem that warp, checks, splits and wane would be determined after shrinkage in drying and planing.  For dimension lumber, warp and wane are the big grading factors, but they cannot be determined prior to drying and planing...this is why I am confused how this system works.

Are these loads sold based on the pregrade or is payment based on the final grade?  How about footage?  I would think that the mills with kilns that buy such lumber must remeasure, edge and trim, plane and regrade after drying in order to provide a grading stamp on the lumber.

Do they return the stickers to the sawmills after drying for free or do they charge for them?  How do they handle sticker breakage?  Who owns the stickers?  I would guess that with this system, all stickers need to be identical in species and size as it would be hard to keep each mill's separated.  True?

Is there a standard load height for these stickers piles...how many layers on a flat bed trailer?

Thanks.

Gene, years ago when I worked in the big mills on the west coast, we did the same thing.  I don't ever remember rough green wood getting a grade stamp though.  Grades were things like "mill run" which was any and everything that came out of the mill that met the size demands of the buyer.  Shop grade, 1, 2, & 3 which would have knots and other defects as long as it had parts on the board that could be cut out for furniture and the like. With # 1 being the better grade.  It was very often sent out on sticks and the sticks were owned by the mill and often would come back on a return truck. 

The advantage of doing it this way is that the lumber is handled once at the mill and is stickered right off the green chain.  Then air dried or kiln dried by the purchaser then used in their facility as they see fit.  The end result is that the lumber is handled one less time, saving $$.  When I worked in a redwood furniture factory, we would return the stickers and if we lost or broke more than about 4% we had to pay for the shortfall.

[Ianab]

I can see where transporting it on stickers might take some time constraints off the wood. If you dead stack pine here in summer you have a couple of days before bad things happen. If it's on stickers and has to sit for a week before it gets into a kiln, not so bad.

Between that and the double handling I can see why a mill and a processing plant might agree to do the stickering right off the mill. The boards have to be handled to be flat stacked anyway, so stickering at that point isn't a lot more work. Then at the destination, it's just a forklift job to unload and into the kiln, and if it's a week before that happens, it doesn't become a mushroom farm inside the stack.

But most mills locally run kilns on site, that way you aren't paying to truck 1/2 a load of water all over the countryside. Once it's dry, it can be flat stacked and wrapped in plastic to keep it dry, AND it's lighter to carry.

[GeneWengert-WoodDoc]

Darrel, I have seen a few loads of mill run Douglas fir stickered, with this wood being very low MC.  But the original comment about this technique involved pre-grading of eastern hemlock, which is somewhat different with a heavier green weight.

Darrel and Ianab,  The single handling is indeed an advantage at first, but would the mill base its payment on this "pregrade" and "pre volume" calculation?  Experience shows that many mills that do not use the official grading rules, do not accurately determine value.  How can you accurately value softwood lumber that has not been dried or planed?  Do we have an official, or even semi official, grading system for rough, green lumber?  So, "mill run" seems to be the only option.  But eastern hemlock has wetwood (also called sinker or wet pockets) with shake.  It also has compression wood.

Note that handling and shipping kiln stickers back to the sawmill after every load will offset some of the double handling savings.  Also, can I count on every mill doing the high quality stacking job?  Plus, won't some of the kiln sticks in a stickered load move during loading on to the truck and during transport and then during unloading?  The loss due to warp when the sticks move could also potentially offset the double handling.

In Maine, the weather is fairly cold much of the year, so tight stacks are not so critical when being stored as in the Warm South.

With an automatic sticker machine at the drying site (they can afford this due to their large volume...even though such a machine is expensive, the large volume would mean lower cost per BF), the double handling extra cost would just be at the sawmill and would be for tight stacking, which I would think is very small.  Plus the advantages of more lumber on a truck, potentially better stacking at the drying site, no cost for bundling and shipping stickers (and keeping them dry when shipping), more consistent, potentially more precise and uniform grading and volume measurement, and automatic stacking would seem to favor stacking at the drying site.

If I was sawing, it will cost me quite a bit to sticker my lumber ($15 per MBF?) and ship it on sticks versus tight stacking.  Yes?  To do stickering at the mill would take at least two employees, plus a longer green chain, expense for sticker handling, and more care when loading stickered bundles onto trucks.  Plus I would need a pretty good grader to do the presorting.  So, with these extra expenses at the mill site, I would have to get more money ($ per MBF) for my stickered lumber compared to shipping tight stacks (without or with pre-grading).  Why would a drying operation pay more for a process that they might be able to do more cheaply?

So, I must be missing something about this, as it seems with what I envision that it is not cost effective.  From what I know about eastern hemlock and the reliability of some mills to be able to grade accurately, the only way it would seem to be able to work is if I paid less than the true vale to cover the quality loss.  If I paid less, then this would offset double handling also, and not be favorable for the sawmill.

[west penn]

 I have sold many thousands of feet of hardwood lumber to a local larger mill in my area. It was always graded----- fas ,1face,select, 1--2--and3 common and if wouldn't make grade it was an"out".  Warp, crook and cup didn't really come into play because of being fresh cut there really wasnt any to speak of. It was graded by cutting units. I believe fas had to be 92% clear with 1 sawcut.   1 face was 1 side clear with a 1 common back etc.  so you could have alittle wane without being docked.  Cherry sometimes had spec. like no more than 10% sap on 1 face  usually depending on demand. I believe the lumber was primarily going to end users and most likely wasn't graded after drying.  I've seen lifts of lumber leaving in trucks never on stickers, no grade stamps but marked" select and better" or "face and better" etc.

[longtime lurker]

So heres what I can add to this:

Working "bush" I've stickered lumber coming off the mill and trucked it home when we had a load before a couple of times. It worked and worked well... I didnt grade it and there wasnt too much fault docking done, rather I just put each board directly into a pack, strapped the packs off, and when we had our 10t we came home. I had concerns about the top layer of the packs (sun induced drying faults so we were piling sawdust on top of them as we went, and tried to put basicly dunnage/ pallet grade material into the top layer of each).
End result was that I eventually had to grade and dock the material at a later point, post drying.
Next end result was that we lost the top layers to a large degree but I kind of expected that.
Most interesting end result was that there was little drying degrade in the packs whatsoever, and we had them at 15% moisture inside a week of the tree being felled. Do not discount the drying effect of a five hour truck ride - its a low temp kiln process with 60mph airflow, and the drying was even and consistant, with no sticker stain whatsoever.

In Australia its pretty common for the smaller mills to sell to a wholesaler green. (Most of the the wholesalers are a long way south of here so out of this area timber tends to be sent south green flat packed, but for mills closer to them being sent in stripped out isnt uncommon.) It enables smaller mills to operate without kilns and the staff to run the kiln while maintaining cash turnover. It also means that you as a sawmiller dont have to build a customer base - you only need 1, the wholesaler. The wholesaler typically has numerous kilns, large drymill capabilities, and dedicated sales operations to onsell at the trade and commercial level. The wholesaler buys timber both domestically and internationally and itsw not uncommon to see a container load of flitches from South east Asia or Africa or South America in their yard.

From point of view of selling to the them, you would be expected to put timber into packs based on the grade that it would be reasonably expected to go... no pallet boards, no big shakes, free of sap etc. Its a market for higher grade timber - flooring, panneling, cabinet and joinery timbers etc. You negotiate your price and stick it on a truck and wave goodbye.
When negotiating your price both sides are aware that the risks of drying degrade belong to the wholesaler. He pays less because of that. Issues like excessive wane, sapwood, misgrading etc arent really issues because these relationships are developed over time... occasionally you'll get a cheque back thats been discounted due to excessive fault but for the most part if you screw up regularly they ditch you and find another supplier.
Money wise its not particularly profitable to the sawmill but when you factor in the whole equation - no kilns, no drymill, no need to build a customer base for value added product - its not that unprofitable either. It leaves you hungry, but not starving. Last numbers I seen that I'd consider reliable the wholesaler was paying about 50 cents on the (retail) dollar landed in their yard... so the mill pays for freight etc out of their 50 cents.

I've never met a broke timber agent yet. :D

[GeneWengert-WoodDoc]

The grading rules for hardwood lumber are designed for green and air dried. So, West Penn's explanation indeed reflects the common practice with hardwoods.

Eastern hemlock is generally lower priced compared to white pine and spf from Canada.  Wholesalers would not like this species as profits are low and markets weak. Do we have softwood lumber wholesalers for green softwood?