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+-- Thread: Drying a walnut slab (/showthread.php?tid=7337715)
Drying a walnut slab - johndi - 02-25-2018
I found a source for live edge walnut slabs. They offer them kiln dried and green.
They want about half for green slabs. They are sawn about 8/4.
Something I could air dry myself?
RE: Drying a walnut slab - MichaelMouse - 02-25-2018
(02-25-2018, 05:27 PM)johndi Wrote: I found a source for live edge walnut slabs. They offer them kiln dried and green.
They want about half for green slabs. They are sawn about 8/4.
Something I could air dry myself?
Place you won't need inside for a year? Takes time and a place, that's all.
RE: Drying a walnut slab - barryvabeach - 02-25-2018
While you can air dry them, if they kiln dry them correctly, that may be a better bargain. That assumes you get to look at them after they are kiln dried and pick ones without excessive cracking, twisting, cupping, etc. Some say the color of walnut is better air dried. I know from first hand experience that air drying does not kill powder post beetles.
RE: Drying a walnut slab - Stwood_ - 02-25-2018
2" slab, plan on a standard air drying, it will take 3 years.
The old, often heard was 1 inch per year, and anything over 2", add a year.
So, depends on how big of a hurry your are in, and how you want it too look.
If it cracks on you while air drying, it's yours.
If you buy it kiln dried, and if it cracks big time while drying, it's on them.
RE: Drying a walnut slab - Duane N - 02-25-2018
(02-25-2018, 06:01 PM)barryvabeach Wrote: I know from first hand experience that air drying does not kill powder post beetles.
This will be my issue in a year or so with the Oak I had milled up and is now air drying. What I've read is to heat the air dried lumber to 140 degrees for 24 hours and that should kill any critters in the wood. My issue is going to be heating mine up...I have nearly 800 BF of oak.
If it were me I would go kiln dried because you know what you're getting already dried...unless the green was A LOT less than the kiln dried.
RE: Drying a walnut slab - johndi - 02-25-2018
darn never thought about pests.
I have no clue where the wood comes from and don't want to take the chance.
Glad I asked.
RE: Drying a walnut slab - MichaelMouse - 02-26-2018
(02-25-2018, 07:01 PM)johndi Wrote: darn never thought about pests.
I have no clue where the wood comes from and don't want to take the chance.
Glad I asked.
Use borax for beetles. Commercial or homemade available by searching "powder post beetles." The old rule of thumb of an inch per year is for sheds not modern houses with winter warmth and summer air conditioning. Hard maple and cherry at 2 1/4" came down to EMC with my 50% RH basement in a year and a half. That's 50% summer Winter gets down around 20. That is for fresh, as in dripping from the saw. If the slabs have been somewhere, they probably have a good head start.
Air-dried is much more interestingly colored compared to KD, especially if they steam to minimize sapwood difference. Cracks? maybe some end checks, but even splits can get a Nakashima treatment.
RE: Drying a walnut slab - johndi - 02-26-2018
So you think I could treat the slab myself?
Only place I have to dry it is in my garage, which is my shop where all of my wood is stored.
Would hate to ruin all of my stash just because I'm a cheap a$$ and tried to get a deal on a walnut slab.
RE: Drying a walnut slab - MichaelMouse - 02-27-2018
[attachment=8626 Wrote:johndi pid='7595546' dateline='1519688240']So you think I could treat the slab myself?
Only place I have to dry it is in my garage, which is my shop where all of my wood is stored.
Would hate to ruin all of my stash just because I'm a cheap a$$ and tried to get a deal on a walnut slab.
Keep it off the floor by a couple inches on stickers spaced about 18" apart. Depending on heating/cooling, it may take a bit longer than if it were in a habitable area. My garage is unheated, so spring and fall it's a great place to cure turnings. But I don't go direct to furniture with lumber stored there, conditioning it in the basement shop before use.
[attachment=8626]
RE: Drying a walnut slab - ianab - 02-27-2018
If the slab is green it won't have PBB in it. They only infest dry wood. There are other bug that can infest green wood, but they tend to die off as the wood dries. A borate spray is a surface treatment that discourages bugs from laying eggs on the surface of your wood while it's drying or in storage. Boracare is a commercial preduction that has a solvent that carries the borate deeper into the wood, but you can mix up a strong solution of borax and that will work too. Also with walnut it's only the sap wood that they attack.