Drying eucalyptus

davidwyby

davidwyby

Desert Beaver
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Location
El Centro, CA (East of Sandy Eggo)
To avoid crowding up the work pics thread @SeanKroll and I were discussing in:

Bunch of ideas/thoughts:

Euc from the bottom of a pile is less checked. Maybe bury the logs in the rest of the tree or dirt.

Harvest during the dry season.

Mill green to release tension

Shorter logs have less tension in them.

Core is most crack prone. Smaller boards crack less.

Walnut logger buddy sold green walnut to Arabs and they buried it in the sand for a year to dry. Euc is mold resistant👍🏻

Just ordered some pentacryl.

Keep sun and wind off milled lumber.
 
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I don't know anything about the process but Ecalyptus board is sold commercially here in great quantities. They call it Tassie oak in our state, ash or mountain ash in others.
 
A plastic hoop tunnel to start.

Scope out solar kilns.




A greenhouse design--- materials taken in trade from friends, I have the plan with framed end walls and doors, fwiw. 14' wide. 20230408_182449.jpg

Just something in the works...
Greenhouse film
Black plastic pipe,
Galvanized fence posts pounced into the ground.
Tarp on the ground.
Manually vented.

A temp/ humidity gauge for a structure would help.
 
I wonder how deeply they go in from the end.

Consider a couple of immediately applied coats of paint, and some plastic over the ends and all limbing cuts (maybe leave stubs from limbs) and damaged bark.
 
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  • #11
SeanKroll said:
I wonder how deeply they go in from the end.

Consider a couple of immediately applied coats of paint, and some plastic over the ends and all limbing cuts (maybe leave stubs from limbs) and damaged bark.
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At this point, not deep. Later they will crack longitudinally. The plastic tent is a good idea but wouldn’t last very long here.
 
With milling Aus timbers you want to do it in the cooler months. In relation to the checking its fairly normally for some trees to do that. I normally use a water based paint to seal the ends and at times where branches have been cut off. With Aus timbers the slower you can dry the timber the better, this is why some people cover with shade cloth or the likes also placing in a shaded spot helps. Just from my experience milling timber for furniture and construction use
 
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  • #14
Some of my buddy’s. I guess paint doesn’t help much.

IMG_1516.jpeg


Cut this down for him today…I should have taken progress pics of the moisture coming out, evaporating, and changing colors and patterns.

IMG_1517.jpeg
 
Some leaning trees have a lot of internal stressed that will be released, unavoidably. Bigleaf maple starts to split and pop while dismantling trees.


Painting right when cut, and 2 heavy coats might be needed. Paint all cuts and bark-damaged areas.

Helping and totally preventing are different things.

Shade is important.

A tarp or sheet plastic on top of the logs might help, while still having a separate, elevated ( let the heat out) shade layer, above.


I wonder how far from the log end the checks are extending.
 
Who turned that?

Beautiful.

How many blasts of microwaving? How did you store it between? Was that freshly cut, green Euc?
 
Related to wood harvesting or curing, I've been watching a lot of Luthiers on Youtube the past few month. It's interesting to hear about different woods, how they grade them, store them, even age them sometimes beyond the storage of whomever they purchased from. I hope to purchase a redwood top guitar in the next year or months ahead. The term most often used is "sinker redwood" due to reclamation from rivers, etc..

The top tone wood below is rated 4A or 5A which is supposed to be master grade stock.


Z_Leen_Redwood.jpg
 
davidwyby said:
Microwave dried. 30secs at a time over two days.

View attachment 129768
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Was it microwaved before or after being turned into a bowl? I wonder how hot it got? A microwave could easily turn the moisture into steam, which would relieve stress. Maybe boiling a big block for a few hours (long enough to get the core boiling) would help, or maybe the steam would make it explode.
 
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  • #23
Nutball said:
Was it microwaved before or after being turned into a bowl? I wonder how hot it got? A microwave could easily turn the moisture into steam, which would relieve stress. Maybe boiling a big block for a few hours (long enough to get the core boiling) would help, or maybe the steam would make it explode.
Click to expand...
After rough turning
 
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