on-site lumber

[cbc58]

I have a question on taking trees down and milling them onsite for lumber.  After you cut the trees down, how long do you need to wait before bringing in a portable sawmill to make boards?  And then after they are cut and stacked to dry (outside)... how long before they can be used for flooring? I would assume you move them indoors for abit to dry them further and acclimate(sp) to the house humidity.  Looking at hickory or maple and making 1" thick flooring.  I did some pine years ago but no hardwood.  Anyone been through the process?

[Geraldsh]

Most sawyers will say saw them as soon as you cut them down. If you are in a hot humid climate it is very important to get at them before the bugs and fungi do. Check out The Forestry Forum for lots more info. You can even find a sawyer nearby if you don't already know one.

[MushCreek]

I believe they go a year after rough milling for natural aging. You can speed it up considerably with a solar kiln, which is basically a light frame with plastic stapled over it, and vents at the top and bottom to keep the air moving. Some use fans as well. If you google it, you'll find lots of stuff. Regardless of how you dry it, you will want it to acclimate for a while in the structure it's going to be used in. Make sure you seal the ends of your boards before drying them, or they'll split like crazy. I second the Forestry Forum for advice- great bunch of guys there.

[cbc58]

Tks... i'll check out that forum.

[Don_P]

I brought home another load from the job today, mostly locust. The client called a few minutes ago to say that this evening's storm took out a huge hickory. It will come home tomorrow, and since the hickory was the horses' shade tree I'll be using the locust to build a run in shed for them.
It is a shame to drive into work past a pile of fine timber pushed into a burn pile and then later go to lowes for crap trim. The heavy equipment guy gave me a big double take today when I had him load a scrawny little tree. Red heart elm. It'll make some small turnings and nice accents in a piece of sassafrass furniture for the house.

This was a sanitation cut in an area of the property overrun with non native invasives and overmature early succession trees. The stack in the back is a pile of Ailanthus, tree of heaven. We are into dog days and it was being attacked by insects and bluestain. I dipped it in a borate solution and have a fan on it to dry it quickly. Shed drying is far better than outdoors if you have good airflow. You aren't fighting either of those problems in winter. The pile on the left is some of the cull locust timbers, to the right some white pine. The shop is built with white pine off our place.


This shot is looking a little more to the right, what I'm making using the white pine timbers from the pic above.


Saw it as soon as possible after felling. The best way to know when the wood is ready is to use a moisture meter, many woodworkers have one that you might be able to borrow. Normally for most 1" material if your spouse can handle a stack of stickered lumber in the living room through a heating season the wood will be at equilibrium with the surroundings. If there is a local kiln, so much the better.

Edit; found some more pics.
The hickory that fell today was the 2 remaining stems of a 3 trunked monster. The stem that fell a couple of years ago became panelling in a downstairs bedroom;


This is red maple that was attacked in life by ambrosia beetles, makes for neat colors and patterns in the wood. This is the floor of the winecellar, I used their sauna to finish drying this;


Y'all don't know it but you know this lady. When she couldn't physically handle the rigors of a composting toilet anymore we added a small bathroom onto her little backwoods cabin, more hickory and maple;


I've distributed the firewood from our recent cut and have even made some charcoal for the grill... that stuff we cut down while clearing is good wood. Always try to put it to the best and highest use.

[glenn kangiser]

Cool stuff, Don P.   Thx for posting it.

[Dallas2build]

Most sawyers will say saw them as soon as you cut them down. If you are in a hot humid climate it is very important to get at them before the bugs and fungi do. Check out The Forestry Forum for lots more info. You can even find a sawyer nearby if you don't already know one.

Can't get to the forum.  Is anyone else able to make the link work?

[MushCreek]

That's not an actual link. Try this:  http://www.forestryforum.com/board/index.php

[JavaMan]

Don, got any info on making charcol?  I've been a bit fascinated with the process, but don' know enough to figure out a way to do it here at home.

[Don_P]

I'm working in a small bit of private land surrounded by the Nat'l Forest. I was bonfiring the tops and small stuff and then putting it out at dusk before leaving. It is an inefficient way of producing charcoal but by the next day it was sun dried and easy to screen and bag.

If you have a truly airtight woodstove you can close it off when the smoke is totally clean and starve the charcoal of oxygen, putting it out and preserving it. Our stove is not airtight but I've made small quantities in a cookie tin with a hole punched in the lid. Set it on the fire and when it heats up the volatiles are gassified. The pinhole shoots out a small jet of flame, the wood is being gassified and the jet is those gasses being burned. Wen the flame goes out I remove it from the stove and put a quarter over the hole to prevent oxygen from burning the hot charcoal. When cool the charcoal can be removed and saved for later.

I've just described direct and indirect methods of charcoal production.

The local state foresters have a fairly large direct charcoal kiln and are experimenting with a 55 gallon drum indirect kiln. The drum has a removeable band type lid. They fill the drum with fairly evenly sized chunks, put the lid on and place it horizontally over 3 walled brick firepit. A 2" pipe exits the top rear of the drum and with 90 degree fittings is ducted under the drum. In thae lower  leg of that pipe, under the drum, the pipe is endcapped and bored with a series of holes. As the wood is gassified by the fire in the pit under the drum the gasses from within the drum are routed through the pipe, light, and sustain the heating fire. That method makes good charcoal. The holes did plug on a batch and blew the lid off. I think a flapper over a 4" hole in the back of the drum would make a fine safety valve.

Rant warning;
Alot is now being talked about with regards to trees capturing and sequestering carbon. I can sell that aspect of my forest on the cap and trade market. Trying to offset the carbon released by burning million year old coal by saying a tree is sequestering that carbon is incorrect. When my tree turns to coal that is not burned... then we can say the carbon is sequestered. If I burn a tree, chop it down and leave it to rot, or build a house with it the carbon released into the atmosphere in the geologic short term is identical. However if I make charcoal the carbon is sequesterd if left unburned. I'm not speaking of the other pollutants released during decompostion or fire, just the carbon. If that notion is correct and if we are trying to sequester carbon by growing trees then the gas flare is the portion of the tree we can use and the charcoal is the part we rebury back within the earth. Biochar is being studied as a soil ammendment. The foresters are incoportaing their charcoal screen fines into a plot they are planting for further study. I believe the thought is that it will alter the cation exchange of the soil, that is getting over my head. Anyway just some thoughts while watching the bonfire burn the other night.

A few hundred yards inside the forest from where I'm working is an old charcoal hearth, where a collier 100 years ago burned wood to fire the iron furnace at the end of the road. He would watch his pile 24/7 controlling the O2 to his direct fired pile with a layer of dirt and leaves and careful attention, getting it to heat and gassify without letting the charcoal burn. A moment's inattention and oxygen would turn his labors into a mound of ash in short order. For history buffs, Stonewall Jackson set up his cannons on a charcoal pit on the side of Massanutten Mt in the Shenandoahs. The level cleared bench gave him commanding fire at the Battle of the Coalings.

The short answer to it, charcoal is wood burned in the absence of oxygen leaving pure carbon. Don't use a sealed container though, it must be able to vent the gasses produced.

You can run an engine or generator on those gasses... the sustainable growing and use of those trees I think is our legitimate birthright. We've in the past consumed the forest, and we've drilled and dug through the buried sunshine. I think this is the amount we are allowed to use rightfully.

I had recovered the sawlogs from the lot I'm clearing, burned the slash to get it out of the way and have about two good sized loads of excellent firewood leftover. Our mason let the church know, my client just called to say they are loading. That wood will go to the needy this winter. Makes me feel much better than driving in past a pile of rotting logs  .

[glenn kangiser]

Good info, Don.  I have studied wood gasification quite a bit - even started to build a gasifier.

[Don_P]

The next experimental charcoal kiln in the brainstorming phase would consist of 3 barrels horizontal, in a merry go round setup. One under fire, one loading and one unloading. The gas could be stored beside the kiln and the kiln would be fired by the gas from the previous batch...there should actually be excess gas that could be cleaned, cracked, and used for other purposes. If you remember Ram Bux Singh's gobar methane plant's back in TMEN days they used a nice simple water sealed pair of nesting drums to store that gas. Bio-oil has also been condensed out of the gas and used in deisels but apparently has a short shelf life. Wood alcohol interests me also. This is all getting beyond my meager chemistry knowledge. One of the foresters is signed up for college chemistry this fall.

As long as we are way off topic, the iron smelting was pretty neat. Iron ore is basically rust, FeO. When the charcoal is blended with the crushed ore and burned in a furnace the carbon monoxide, CO, steals the O from the FeO. CO2 exits the stack and Fe, pure iron, drips down through the molten slag, which seals it from the air and forms a pure iron puddle in the base of the furnace. The slag and cast iron are tapped off as they accumulate.

One of the primary goals of my recent clearing activity was to eradicate a very happy grove of Ailanthus, a non native invasive tree. It also goes by the name of tree of heaven and another name is copal tree...resin tree. I've had to scrape the residue off the big saw to keep from heating up. I noticed a bleeding deer rub on a sapling this week and of course had to stick my finger in the goo. Good heavy resin and quite clear. I tried to girdle one of the trees a few years ago and it didn't kill it. Invasives are excellent survivors as a rule. I think the tree could be somehow tapped heavily, might be a good natural varnish. The mechanics of it's resin production are beyond me right now. I know how softwoods do it but am not sure it translates. It would also be a hydrocarbon of some sort.

The red elm opened up nice today, also got a couple of nice locust 6x8x12' beams a few posts and a little more ailanthus lumber. Wood is good 

[PEG688]

 Charcoal didn't Henry Ford sort of start Kingsford charcoal, some thing about scrapes from the model A? He was a conservationist in ways. He didn't want to waste any thing , and he made a buck , maybe two doing it.

       

[Don_P]

My recollection of the story might not be perfect. I think Mt Kingsford was a purchasing agent for Ford. Ford was known for ordering parts on specifically designed pallets that could be used for floorboards and battery boxes, etc. Even so Kingsford noticed the piles of wood scrap and launched his enterprise turning those piles into a marketable product.

The US Forest Products Labs has all their old publications online. I was reading one from about 1920. They were becoming concerned that they would run out of ash for car frames and were experimenting with other woods. Maple was the second choice. Notice what big league baseball has recently begun using for bats... maple. They are also finding that it doesn't take impact as well as an ash bat.

[OlJarhead]

I've registered over on that forum (thanks!) and am seriously considering a Granberg Alaskan Small Log Chainsaw Mill to go with my new Husky 455 Rancher. 

I'm mostly curious about milling, drying and using and am wondering if it's unreasonable to think that I could mill 1x6x12's in the next few weeks, stack it for drying and then begin processing and installing by September?

That only gives about 6 weeks of drying time but it IS the Okanogan so it's very dry and warm with breezes fairly frequent.  Also, there is no heat in the cabin and won't be until the fall (because it's summer) but the wood could be stacked inside if it makes a difference (once it's air dried outside that is).

I'm thinking that if I could mill enough wood to pay for the setup ($150 - which translates into about 25 boards or less at the local supplier) then I could begin the learning process and eventually mill my own lumber thereby saving money and doing it all from trees I need to drop anyway on the property.

Thoughts?

[Don_P]

You'll have a hard time competing with commodity lumber if you value your time at all. I stick to odd dimensions and species...specialty wood, if at all possible. Doesn't mean you can't do it just don't look to save money that way.

6 weeks to dry, highly doubtful. That stack has had a fan on it for 6 weeks, I'll try to stick a meter in it and see where it is. Wood is basically ready when its ready, it doesn't adhere to our schedule. A very dry environment can check wood initially, below about 28% that calms down but then we are waiting for moisture to diffuse through the wood to the surface. Then the dry environment can sweep the moisture off the surface.

All in all I'd say no for this plan but it doesn't mean the mill is a bad idea.

[OlJarhead]

You'll have a hard time competing with commodity lumber if you value your time at all. I stick to odd dimensions and species...specialty wood, if at all possible. Doesn't mean you can't do it just don't look to save money that way.

6 weeks to dry, highly doubtful. That stack has had a fan on it for 6 weeks, I'll try to stick a meter in it and see where it is. Wood is basically ready when its ready, it doesn't adhere to our schedule. A very dry environment can check wood initially, below about 28% that calms down but then we are waiting for moisture to diffuse through the wood to the surface. Then the dry environment can sweep the moisture off the surface.

All in all I'd say no for this plan but it doesn't mean the mill is a bad idea.

The Foresty Forum guys tell me that the low humidity will dry the wood too fast in my area and it will warp -- or most likely will.  Average humidity though is reportedly 40% in July so maybe not?

Time is cheap in my world (that might take explaining but suffice to say I'm willing to work hard to save cash money -- our cabin is costing us roughly half what the same size addition cost on our home because of labor costs (I think anyway)).

But my initial plan was only to make enough lumber to both learn how to and to pay for the set up (about 30 1x6's would do that)....then it's whatever I can make with it is fine

[glenn kangiser]

Charcoal didn't Henry Ford sort of start Kingsford charcoal, some thing about scrapes from the model A? He was a conservationist in ways. He didn't want to waste any thing , and he made a buck , maybe two doing it.

       

I heard that too, PEG and found this.

http://www.kingsford.com/about/index.htm

Credit is given to Ford but apparently from another article, Ford and his BIL, Kingsford worked together on it.

In my opinion, Fords are still a good source of raw materials for making charcoal.  I owned 1 new one.  Never again....

[poppy]

Jarhead, that 55cc chainsaw is not very big to use with a chainsaw mill.  I have an Echo 67cc that barely gets the job done for making timbers, the largest of which is 8"x8".  If I had to do it over, I would probably go with about a 90cc saw.

If I want lumber, I take logs to the local Amish bandsaw mill.

[OlJarhead]

Jarhead, that 55cc chainsaw is not very big to use with a chainsaw mill.  I have an Echo 67cc that barely gets the job done for making timbers, the largest of which is 8"x8".  If I had to do it over, I would probably go with about a 90cc saw.

If I want lumber, I take logs to the local Amish bandsaw mill.

I was hoping it would work for smaller logs though?  Stuff in the under 18" category.  Thoughts?

I've got 8"-10" logs as well as stuff in the 12" to 18" range.

[Don_P]

It might work but keep a ripping chain sharp and watch the heat, I smoked my old farm boss trying to mill with it.
I checked the 6 week old stack this morning, we have been in high humidity/warm temps. The wood is running ~25% so I'm at about fiber saturation point, the cell lumens are dry, the free water within the cell, the easy stuff. The cell walls are still saturated, the bound water. Shrinkage will now begin as the cell walls lose the chemically bound water and the fibers can move closer together. Air drying under shelter I hit equilibrium moisture content here at about 12%. In MT we hit ambient outdoor EMC at around 10%. My indoor winter EMC is around 8%. The drying curve is a long shallow curve, the last few % takes time or a kiln. Our living room with wood heat works well... but I've been kicked out of there. I have the guts to a dehumidifier kiln but still need to build a chamber. I've used a sauna with good results. Side note, above 130*F to the core kills everything, phytosanitation. In conifers higher temps help "set" the pitch, kilns usually run it up to 160-180. I've had pitch bead on freshly sawn 160 year old heart pine beams in the sun, never would have thunk it.

I liken drying to driving down the road and trying to stay out of the ditches. If you dry too slow you get stain, or mold, or rot. Dry too fast and you get checking, excessive warp or a pile of toothpicks.

One of my experiences was a stack of white oak that I stickered onto the trailer and then drove 10 miles or so to deliver. It was early June,warm, humidity was low and the sun was bright. When I got there the wood was checked. I had dried the surface rapidly and it shrank around the still wet and swollen core, causing it to split. As we unloaded the core moisture diffused to the surface, swelled those surface fibers and the checks closed... the wood was torn though. Much like a rip in cloth it can be somewhat difficult to start but once it is started it is easy to rip it through.

A local portable bandmill is another way to convert trees to lumber.

[OlJarhead]

Perhaps it might be one of those things where you make a pass or two and then leave it for a while to allow the saw to cool down?  Maybe while sharpening the chain and getting some hydration?

I'm just curious at this point but did order the mill and parts to go with it.

If the Husky is too weak then I'll have to borrow a friends Stihl.  He has 3 of them and one drives a 36" bar so I'm sure that with an 18 or 20 it will have lots of power for small log milling.  I think it was a 390 or something like that.

[Don_P]

Going back to the off topic portion of the thread
The chicken feed hopper charcoal kiln;
http://www.frec.vt.edu/charcoal/documents/Downing%20et%20al%202009.pdf

Biochar in soil;
http://www.frec.vt.edu/charcoal/documents/Marriss%202006.pdf

Biochar carbon sequestration;
http://www.frec.vt.edu/charcoal/documents/Lehmann%202007b.pdf

For Glenn, a gassifying turbine power production biochar machine;
http://www.frec.vt.edu/charcoal/documents/Syred%20et%20al%202006.pdf

An old forest kiln I stumbled upon while walking through the woods with shovel and TP in hand;

[Don_P]

This is an excellent article on charcoal making, I especially like rule #6 
http://www.puffergas.com/terra/rules/rules.html

[glenn kangiser]

Thanks for the good stuff, Don.

I have been working out of town so don't get to most of the forum but Sassy called my attention to this

I downloaded all of the info for future reference including the puffergas kiln.