Speed drying Alder wood and burls?

E

Eriksen

Joined
Sep 18, 2005
Messages
180
How can I dry wood of Alder fast without having it to crack? Can I cut it into size of knife handle scales and dry them in an oven or microwave?
 
If you go to wood turning forums you will get a lot of ideas on drying wood. I have tried a lot of them but the only fool proof way I know is to cut the wood oversize cut out the pith if you can and then seal with a wax emulsion. Then let set for a year or two depending on the humidity in your area.
I have never used alder so it could be different.
 
I have had some pieces of wood tear themselves into matchsticks even when I am letting them dry slow. My best suggestion is to cut your wood into 2-3" slabs, paint/wax the ends and let them dry for a year or two. Then turn them into blocks and stabilize.
I have a pile of wood under my porch and I toss interesting pieces onto it when I find them. I've been doing that for years now so I have a fair bit that is ready at any given time.
It seems like you can speed things up when the moisture content gets down around 14% or so, but don't quote me on that. I just see some guys around here with drying cabinets that they use, but it seems like they use them when the wood gets close.
 
Yes, speeding up the drying to get it down to stabilizing levels ( 7-10%) can be done after it has dried sufficiently for a year or two. As Randy said, it has to be below 15% to speed it up.
 
Randydb said:
I have had some pieces of wood tear themselves into matchsticks even when I am letting them dry slow. My best suggestion is to cut your wood into 2-3" slabs, paint/wax the ends and let them dry for a year or two. Then turn them into blocks and stabilize.
I have a pile of wood under my porch and I toss interesting pieces onto it when I find them. I've been doing that for years now so I have a fair bit that is ready at any given time.
It seems like you can speed things up when the moisture content gets down around 14% or so, but don't quote me on that. I just see some guys around here with drying cabinets that they use, but it seems like they use them when the wood gets close.
Click to expand...
If I have a lot tree trunks that have been split in half along the long sides, do I only have to paint the short ends and not the long sides? Is that what you mean? And should I keep the bark on, or remove it?
And will it be ok to paint them with paraffin wax?
Where will be the best place to let them dry? Outside under a roof, or inside on a dry place with 20+ degr celsius?
 
Last edited:
No idea if this would work for wood drying, but what about freeze drying? They do it with food all the time, freeze first & then pump out the moisture under a vacuum? Not sure about the wood fibers when they freeze, might blow out the wood & cause cracking, but then again...
 
noseoil said:
No idea if this would work for wood drying, but what about freeze drying? They do it with food all the time, freeze first & then pump out the moisture under a vacuum? Not sure about the wood fibers when they freeze, might blow out the wood & cause cracking, but then again...
Click to expand...
 
Eriksen said:
do I only have to paint the short ends and not the long sides?
Click to expand...
Yes, the end grain is where the majority of moisture is lost.

Eriksen said:
And should I keep the bark on, or remove it?
Click to expand...
Most folks will recommend removing the bark, bugs like bark to give them shelter, food and to burrow holes for homes. I left the bark on a lot of my maple, but the pieces were inside and bugs didn't have easy access to them.

Eriksen said:
And will it be ok to paint them with paraffin wax?
Click to expand...
That should work fine.

Eriksen said:
Where will be the best place to let them dry? Outside under a roof, or inside on a dry place with 20+ degr celsius?
Click to expand...
I'd say anywhere that's convenient, out of the elements and protected from insects (ie, not laying directly on the bare ground, unless you're trying to encourage spalting, that is) would be fine. The warmer and dryer the area, the faster they will dry.

I'm not sure how much you plan on doing of this, or how humid Norway is, but if you are going to do a lot of this (and if where you live is as humid as the foothills of Mt Rainier in Pacific NW Washington), I'd recommend experimenting a bit. I found that when I had my place in WA and was processing a bit of maple burl, it was humid enough throughout the year that I found that painting the ends was a waste of time for me. In fact it slowed the process and my unpainted pieces didn't split/check much more than the unpainted pieces.
 
weo said:
Yes, the end grain is where the majority of moisture is lost.


Most folks will recommend removing the bark, bugs like bark to give them shelter, food and to burrow holes for homes. I left the bark on a lot of my maple, but the pieces were inside and bugs didn't have easy access to them.

I'd say anywhere that's convenient, out of the elements and protected from insects (ie, not laying directly on the bare ground, unless you're trying to encourage spalting, that is) would be fine. The warmer and dryer the area, the faster they will dry.

I'm not sure how much you plan on doing of this, or how humid Norway is, but if you are going to do a lot of this (and if where you live is as humid as the foothills of Mt Rainier in Pacific NW Washington), I'd recommend experimenting a bit. I found that when I had my place in WA and was processing a bit of maple burl, it was humid enough throughout the year that I found that painting the ends was a waste of time for me. In fact it slowed the process and my unpainted pieces didn't split/check much more than the unpainted pieces.
Click to expand...

I'm on the wet coast too just north of where weo was. I find if it is a softer wood I can sometimes get away with not painting the ends. Also if it is spalted it seems to be less likely to split as it dries. But if it is a harder wood and a bigger piece it tends to split if I don't paint the ends.

Parafin wax will work fine. You just want to seal the ends so that you get even drying. Otherwise the ends dry way faster than the middle area and it tears itself apart. For years I pay the kids not to tell and then would just cut the bottom couple inches off my wife's candles in the house. That wax worked fine too. Went well until the day I forgot to put a couple candles back and my wife started questioning the kids. They gave me up in seconds!!!

I put down a couple pieces of lumber and then have stacked my keeper wood on them like a firewood pile. My pile is big enough that it wouldn't fit inside.

Weo is right that they don't dry as quickly when you seal the ends....BUT....if it is nice wood that you want to use it might be worth the extra few minutes painting the ends and the extra wait to be sure they don't crack. I have close to 100 stabilized maple burl knife handle blocks. People sell them from $25-$50. If a quarter of my burls had cracked that would be a fair bit of loss in my eyes. I would much rather make sure.
 
Will it be adviceable to cut burls into thinner pieces in order to let them dry faster, like 5 cm thick slices?
 
I am late to this discussion ... but i have wondered whether it would work to wrap a piece of wood in plastic, then place in a sunny spot. Kind of like a mini solar kiln. (In drying kilns, they heat, but close them up to keep the humidity inside the kiln at a higher level. The heat increases the drying rate, the humidity drastically reduces the splitting). I dont know if just wrapping in plastic would suitably emulate a kiln ... but think it would be interesting to try
 
Cushing H. said:
I am late to this discussion ... but i have wondered whether it would work to wrap a piece of wood in plastic, then place in a sunny spot. Kind of like a mini solar kiln. (In drying kilns, they heat, but close them up to keep the humidity inside the kiln at a higher level. The heat increases the drying rate, the humidity drastically reduces the splitting). I dont know if just wrapping in plastic would suitably emulate a kiln ... but think it would be interesting to try
Click to expand...

This is a very bad idea.

one of the most important things to do is KEEP WET WOOD OUT OF SUNLIGHT.

This is basically always cause cracking. The heat will always be uneven and least to lots of fine spiderwebbing cracks on the surface exposed to the light.
 
Greenberg Woods said:
This is a very bad idea.

one of the most important things to do is KEEP WET WOOD OUT OF SUNLIGHT.

This is basically always cause cracking. The heat will always be uneven and least to lots of fine spiderwebbing cracks on the surface exposed to the light.
Click to expand...
But solar kilns, which are widely accepted and effective, explicitly use the sun to heat them......
 
They use the sun for heat, but the light is not hitting the wood directly. Plastic wrap would allow direct sunlight
 
A solar kiln would only get the moisture content down to whatever air drying would and in a lot of the country the wood would still need further drying to be stabilized.
 
I had a big 3 inch maple slab that was around 20% moisture in the middle and about 16% towards the ends when I bought it. The guy that ran the place got me to wrap it in a tarp and stand it on end to dry. Every couple days I would take the tarp off for an hour, then rewrap it again and stand it on the other end. Not easy with a 250 pound slab. Did that for close to a year. Not sure if it the tarp and turning made a difference but the piece didn't split and made a very nice table.

All I know with wood is that it isn't super forgiving and when you screw up with a nice piece there is no fixing it. I dragged a couple pieces of redwood 850 miles all over California and Oregon on a camping trip and then back to Canada. Figured it would be fine till I could paint the ends. Couple days after I got home they were shattered. Couldn't even get a few scales out of them.
If you decide to try something I would find a tried and true method that someone had used numerous times successfully. Oherwise you are going to have a lot of heartache that cant be fixed.
 
Cushing H. said:
I am late to this discussion ... but i have wondered whether it would work to wrap a piece of wood in plastic, then place in a sunny spot. Kind of like a mini solar kiln. (In drying kilns, they heat, but close them up to keep the humidity inside the kiln at a higher level. The heat increases the drying rate, the humidity drastically reduces the splitting). I dont know if just wrapping in plastic would suitably emulate a kiln ... but think it would be interesting to try
Click to expand...
I noticed another fellow that sells slabs close to me has made a booth out of a wood frame and plastic....a bit like a greenhouse but only about 5 feet tall. He had a fan at one end and small opening at either end in the plastic. I assumed it was an effective way of drying faster, but I never talked to him about it. The guy sells hundreds of slabs a year so I'm sure he knows what he is doing.

Eriksen said:
Will it be adviceable to cut burls into thinner pieces in order to let them dry faster, like 5 cm thick slices?
Click to expand...
This is just my experience and I am not an expert...but I have found that if I cut things too thin they seem to be more likely to warp or twist as they dry. If I am planning on the piece becoming knife blocks I tend to cut into 2 1/8" thick boards so I can split them again later when they are dry. If they are becoming native american flutes I cut them into 2 5/8" boards.
Twisting or warping even seems to happen if you try to stabilize scales instead of blocks.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top