Reply To: seasoned stock
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Hi David,
Seasoning, at least from green/mostly green, can be a complex process. There are a couple of really good books that go into it in more detail than you’d care to read. Understanding Wood by R. Bruce Hoadley, and With The Grain by Christian Becksvoort. The latter is much easier to read.
Studs, or softwoods available from builders merchants, are usually kiln dried so will be pretty dry you pick them up. They’ll still lose or gain (but mostly lose, as they’d have been in an outside yard) moisture when you bring them home as they balance with the ambient humidity in your shop, so leaving them for a while before working with them is a good practice to get into, as well as the steps @richardleon mentioned. A moisture meter is handy but you can just weigh the boards on a set of bathroom scales every day and only start using them once their weight stops changing.
I use a moisture meter when picking out timber to check how wet they are, and how much moisture they’ll have to lose to balance in my shop. If they’re anything over 15% or so I won’t bother taking them because there’s a risk they’ll check as they get to the 7-10% equilibrium moisture content (when the moisture content in the wood is balanced with the humidity of the shop), plus it can take a good while to balance out, and I’m impatient!
There’s a ton of information on the web about seasoning but one of the most commonly stated facts is wrong. The ‘one year per inch of thickness’ guideline that so many people mention is incorrect. Drying time is a function of the square of the thickness (both books I listed state this). So, a 1″ thick board could take a year to dry out to it’s EMC (equilibrium moisture content) but a 2″ thick board can take four years. 3″, nine years, etc. Thankfully, if you’re buying kiln-dried timber, you won’t have to wait quite that long!
Hope this helps. I’ve been reading about and experimenting with seasoning lately and come to the conclusion that seasoning (in terms of air drying from 30% or so) is not something I want to try again quite yet because of all the complexities. Plus, if I make a mistake or the wood is super wet when I get it, I can end up with a whole lot of unusable timber, which I can’t really afford (only happened once but that’s enough)!
George.