Drying green oak on a rack

[cusimar9]

I've recently completed a green oak log store project which has (so far) turned out quite well.

I'll update the WIP when I get round to putting the roof on!

The oak was cut by a local sawmill and was incredibly good value, compared to some kiln dried and planed oak I bought a few months ago.

The green oak was stored in my garage for about a month while I was working on the log store. The oak was obviously quite wet initially (evidenced by the steam and moisture left on drill bits while drilling) however this diminished significantly as I was working on it. 100mm square posts developed splits and appeared to be quite dry by the 4th week. Largely down to the hot weather we've had recently, no doubt.

I also bought some 20mm and 26mm stock and this also appeared very dry by the time I was done.

So my thinking is that next time I make a piece of furniture out of mostly 24mm oak, I could buy the stock green 4 weeks before I intended to start, and save myself £100's of pounds in the process. I would need to invest in a planer/thicknesser however as cleaning the stock with a belt sander was not much fun!

Does anyone have any advice on the above or any links to some useful reading?

Thanks

Rick

 

[MickCheese]

I like the log store.

I fear your theory, in practice, would result in a lot of split and cracked furniture as soon as you took it into the home.

Mick

 

[Racers]

I have some 1" green oak that I am carving into stool seats, its about a year old and has been stored in my garage in paper bags to slow the drying down.
I have just started to weigh it and it seems to have lost 25g of water in the last month, that's a lot of water from a seat sized chunk of oak that's been drying for a year.
So your green oak won't be ready to use in 4 weeks.

Pete

 

[whitty]

I was always taught that a rule of thumb for oak is 1" per year, 4" square would require 2 years to dry properly.

 

[cusimar9]

Hmm OK I'd best wait and see how the log store dries up over the coming months and years then!

Although for how cheap it is I could probably still buy some with the aim of leaving it 12 months or so

 

[cornishjoinery]

Yeah they are all right, for every inch it takes nearly a year to dry and that i just getting it down to air dried (around about 10-18%). So again no it wont take 4 weeks for it to dry, if it did and without checking then we would all be drying it out.........

 

[cusimar9]

To be fair I probably just need to source a new supplier of seasoned oak, can anyone recommend one in the South Yorkshire / Derbyshire area?

 

[marcros]

how cheap is it?

the reason that I ask is that British Hardwoods at Keighley have kiln dried (ie ready for use now) 1" sawn oak, of good grade at £36 a cubic foot including VAT. From the stuff that I have had previously from them, I know that this will be very good in quality. They state on their website that it has a narrow sap band and is selected for being straight boards. I have bought oak cheaper than there but i think that is a pretty good price- lavers wanted about £50 + VAT for a couple of boards the other day.

I would imagine green oak is probably a bit less than half that- around 12-14 a cubic foot? But you will have a reasonable amount of wastage, with end checks, and the quality is unliklely to be comparable. As it dries, it will also move, so you could have other issues resulting in wastage. By all means try and see how you get on, but i wouldn't invest your life savinsg into it.

The log store looks a fine piece of work, and being outside, it wont matter being made from green. In fact, with green oak it is an ideal project. The problems come with high moisture content and inside.

 

[cusimar9]

Have you seen British Hardwoods prices for planed seasoned oak? £21.48 for 1m of 25mm x 197mm oak!

http://www.britishhardwoods.co.uk/timbe ... imber.html

Admittedly it is very nice but that's a hell of a premium. Their 'calibrated' QF4 boards at £5.40 are much more reasonable and still great quality, I bought around 20m of it on a recent project.

If I want anything thicker than 24mm though I'm stuck. I suppose I need to set myself up to be able to cut waney edged stock myself.

 

[marcros]

it is a bit steep. I dont know what the going rate is for it though, and whether anybody buys it at that rate. perhaps they do.

Dealing with waney edged stuff difficult. I prefer the bandsaw to the table saw but a circular saw and guide would do it easily enough, if not easier than the other options. A handsaw will also do the job, although a rip saw would be far better than a hardpoint. I want to get myself a circular saw for doing this task and breaking down sheets, but have spent enough lately so it will have to wait.

You dont necessarily have to remove it though. Cut your pieces to size, allowing for planing, and the waney edge will be cut off at the same time.

 

[genghiscant]

About twenty years ago we built an extension onto a timber (oak) framed, thatched cottage in Hampshire. The oak was supplied by the owner of the cottage who inherited it from the previous owner. It was green when stacked & was separated by battens with a corrugated iron roof. It had been there for eleven years.
When we came to use it we found that anything over 6" x 6" was still quite wet in the middle.

 

[Newbie_Neil]

If you're after Oak, Scawton is the place to buy from.

The quality is excellent.

Neil