Milling lumber

I've been drying several hundred board feet of oak, maple and cherry for several years. It's stacked and stickered in my driveway, and at one year per inch, it's been ready for a long time. I've found that the last planks I stickered faired the worst for two reasons that I can think of. First is that I did not treat the ends of the boards when I got them back, and at least with the cherry, I lost about 8" off each board to checking. Second, the lengths of the boards were not consistent, and stacking them left some ends hanging out the ends of the pile. I used corrugated fiberglass to cover the pile, but there were places (for instance at the ends) where I couldn't get complete coverage. On the longer board water and snow could collect an run back into the stack. These longer ends also were not really supported with stickers and were subject to bowing under their own weight.

As I got deeper into the pile, I also found that the amount of weather that penetrated was noticeably reduced. Not only was there no greying of the boards, but the boards themselves were in all around better shape.

I did go through the white oak I had (flat and quarter sawn) and found that one or two passes on each side, skip planing, got the boards cleaned up - h
the grain exposed and the wood ready for selection. The cherry is almost all flat sawn, and even with the weight of the stacks, there is still enough cupping that I can use 4-6 passes through the planer on each side. I had all the wood cut at 5/4, and I try not to go below 1".

Among the wood were a number of maple boards. I was hoping for some clear maple for drawer sides and such, but most of the maple in our area has the ambrosia in it. where the map,e was left with inadequate protection, it got pretty nasty looking and when I started I figure that was all headed to the burn pile. Funny thing about maple, when left in moisture... it spalts. I really lucked out with a dozen or so nice 4 foot boards with a really nice pattern. These are all set aside for cabinet door panels. At least two are going into the tool cabinet I will be building into the hand school semester 1 project (www.handtoolschool.net).

I have the next batch of cherry back from the sawyer, and will be sealing the ends for sure. I did work at trimming the new wood to a consistent length to reduce the issues with weathering that the older stacking ran into. I guess we will see how that worked this time next year!


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