Drying Lumber

They are fine. Make sure that the stickers are absolutely dry.

I dried a bunch of elm last winter using white oak stickers and had no problem. I would assume you’ll be fine with pine stickers. Check out my blogs to see the material that I got out of a nice American elm.

-- Julian, Park Forest, IL

I use pine and douglas fir and have never had a stain problem.

-- Doug, Cass City, Michigan

I rip 2×10’s into 3/4 sq they have worked well for Cherry, Maple, Hickory, Locust, Walnut, Red and White Oak.

Make sure that they are stacked neatly to stabilize your stack (I stack up to 6ft) and prevent warpage.

-- Dane, Fairview Pk, OH. The large print giveth and the small print taketh away...

The pine should work fine as long as they are reasonably dry, space them out evenly at about 18”
With elm, you may want to consider putting some additinal weight on top of them to help keep
them flat and true.

-- Phil

Available pine, fir, no problem but if you find ‘em or buy ‘em, they must be aged, true dry.

Thanks to all for the prompt and helpful responses. I’m pretty sure the 2×4s I used a dry. I may go out and buy some hardwood stickers from a local sawmill just to save some space. Then all I need to do is sit back and wait 2 years for it to dry.

Julian, the computer desk you made from elm looked very nice. Are there any pictures of the finished product?

-- Dave, Colonie, NY

Life has thrown me for a loop this year and I haven’t been able to finish the desk yet. I will post more on it when I do get around to it though.

-- Julian, Park Forest, IL

Okay, thanks. You had offered me some advice earlier on this wood and suggested that I have it cut to 1 1/4”, but the sawyer said I would have less warpage at 2” and that is what he cut the stuff he kept at. Do you think this will pose any problems (other than taking forever to dry)?

-- Dave, Colonie, NY

The only problem with 2” lumber is you’ll find it hard to get two 3/4” thick pieces out of it after it’s dry. The pieces I had milled at 1 1/8” work out to 3/4”-13/16” thick after plaining it down due to the fact that it shrank so much during drying. As far as warping goes, I had virtually none in any of the boards I have and they are all around 16”-20” wide. I attribute this to the fact that the lumber dried slowly over the winter in my solar kiln.

-- Julian, Park Forest, IL